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Also in this issue:

• Cover
• Sustainable industry leadership by Gil Lowerre
• MarketVision™ 2006—The employer perspective
  by Bonnie Brazzell
• Confidence in the voluntary market is up!
• Who can we buy?
• ROP products in the voluntary market
• Enrollment practices in the voluntary market
• Enrollment: selling vs. advising
• It’s almost time to see how your 2006 sales measured up!
• Are voluntary underwriting guidelines loosening?
• Company executives vs. company strategy
• Manufacture and distribute

Past Issues

• 2007
• 2006

Winter 2007 / No. 70

Are voluntary underwriting guidelines loosening?

It seems that the answer to this question depends on whether you are a carrier or a producer/broker!

Eastbridge completed a Frontline Report back in the fall on this very topic. And according to the carriers surveyed, most claim to be loosening their underwriting for voluntary products. After the results were released to the press, Employee Benefit Advisor conducted their own poll and, interesting, only 33 percent of the readers agreed with our findings. Most (40 percent) of the respondents to the Employee Benefit Advisor study said they “haven’t noticed any difference” in the underwriting while 27 percent said that underwriting guidelines for voluntary have not become more liberal. Since the primary audience of Employee Benefit Advisor is the broker/producer, the disparity in the results is especially interesting and points to the varying perspectives of carriers and producers. We have no way of knowing who is “right” about the subject, but if you are a carrier that is loosening (or has loosened) your guidelines you might want to do more promotion if you want to get “credit” for the liberalizations from producers.