Understanding

  • What they did not understand, they did not find useful.

1990-1A - NAIC Proceedings - NAIC LIMRA - Universal Life Disclosure Form Test Market Results - 10p

  • We have to get out of our mode of talking about these policies in language that can only be understood by the person who wrote the language.
    • I find, after 30 years plus of experience in the life insurance business, that there is jargon used in illustrations that I don't understand.
    • I can have difficulty in taking an illustration and figuring out what in the world the authors are trying to illustrate and how they are doing it.

--  Robert E. Wilcox, Utah Insurance Commissioner and Chairman of the Life Disclosure Working Group (NAIC)

1994 - SOA - Problems and Solutions for Product Illustrations, Society of Actuaries - 28p

  • Memorandum of Law in Support of American General Life Insurance Company's Motion for Summary Judgement
    • See Watkins v. HRRW, LLC, 2006 WL 3327659, at *8
      (“Tennessee courts, however, have rejected breach of fiduciary duty claims against insurance agents in various factual circumstances.”);
    • see also Weiss v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 107 S.W.3d 503 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2001) (finding that an insurance agent had no duty to explain plaintiff’s coverage or make sure she understood her policy).

2016 - LC - Ianello v American General  ---  [BonkNote] 

  • “I think it fair to say,” said the commission chairman, Michael Pertschuk, recently, “that no other product in our economy that is purchased by so many people for so much money is bought with so little understanding of its actual or comparative value.”

1979 0930 - NYT - The Appeal of Life Insurance Fades, But Most Families Still Buy It, By Edwin McDowell  ---  [BonkNote]   ---  [link-Paywall Free]

  • Let's go back to the question of understandability.
    • With no standardized format being utilized, many of the illustrations currently in use are far too complex for the average consumer or applicant to understand.
    • In many cases the selling agent does not understand what he is presenting, and this needs to be addressed.

--  Robert E. Wilcox, Utah Insurance Commissioner and Chairman of the Life Disclosure Working Group (NAIC)

1994 - SOA - Problems and Solutions for Product Illustrations, Society of Actuaries - 28p

  • During the course of....we ascertained that there were very few people within the Federal Government with an understanding of the insurance industry.
    • A staff memo...stated: "It appears that for many years the workings of the life insurance business have been misunderstood by those at the [Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department] associated with the question."

--  Chairman John LaFalce (D-NY)

1979 1011 and 1022 - GOV (House) - Small Business Problems with Insurance - Part 1,  John LaFalce (D-NY)  ---  [BonkNote]

  • MR. BAKOS: I think there's another factor here that you have to consider, and I'd be interested in heating Commissioner Wilcox's view on this, and that is just the basic gullibility of people.
    • Yesterday we heard there are apparently some fairly sophisticated investors who invested $2 million expecting to double it in six months.
    • The basic premise with respect to life insurance is that there are values that are not guaranteed. 
    • It should be a very simple concept to get across and yet we've been unsuccessful.
    • If you have people out there who believe they can double their money in six months, how will you ever convince everyone that dividends are not guaranteed.

1994 - SOA - Problems and Solutions for Product Illustrations, Society of Actuaries - 28p

  • 240 CHAPTER 28 • Dictionaries, Vocabulary, and Spelling FOR TEACHING: Finding Information in Dictionaries (28a)
    • Consider demonstrating the keen usefulness of the information in dictionaries by bringing in a couple of legal contracts — say, from life insurance companies.
      • Reading these contracts calls for a sharp eye and a very clear knowledge of what each word means.
      • Materials describing one such life insurance plan, for example, contain the following terms: semiannual, net cost, underwrite, waiver, conversion, incontestability, and incapacitated.
      • Ask students to define each of these words, without — and then with — the help of a dictionary.
      • Which words would they want to make sure they really understood before signing a contract?

2011 - Book - The St. Martin’s Handbook, Instructor's Handbook - 7th Edition - 492p