Author: Mary Pat Campbell

The Policygenius Life Insurance Price Index March 2022

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.policygenius.com/life-insurance/life-insurance-price-index/march-2022/

Excerpt:

Smokers and nonsmokers alike saw minor increases in life insurance prices from February to March. The biggest increase in average monthly premiums, of 3.26%, was seen by 25-year-old smokers buying $250,000 in coverage, and only amounts to $1.08 more a month. Most other demographics saw price increases that were less than 1%.

The minor pricing changes shouldn’t have much impact on consumers’ wallets, especially as insurers continue to compete for business. Although people buying life insurance in March may be paying a few cents more on average, most insurers are implementing pricing changes to win business rather than repel it.

Publication Date: 3 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Policygenius

Older Consumers Keep Shopping for Life Insurance

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/03/10/older-consumers-keep-shopping-for-life-insurance/

Excerpt:

Older U.S. consumers were out shopping for life insurance policies in February.

Application activity for shoppers ages 71 and older was 4.2% higher last month than in February 2021, as the overall level of individual application activity dropped 3.8%, according to MIB.

MIB is a Braintree, Massachusetts-based group that helps life insurers share some of the information used in life insurance underwriting. It uses its own application-checking volume data to provide an early look at life insurance shopping activity.

MIB figures reflect the performance of part of the retirement planning market as well as of the protection life insurance market, because many of the applicants expect to use their policies to provide cash in retirement, or to support long-term care plans.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 10 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

High Inflation Leads to Expensive Cost-of-Living Adjustments for CalPERS and Others

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/high-inflation-leads-to-expensive-cost-of-living-adjustments-for-calpers-and-others/

Excerpt:

With big returns come big expenses. That’s what seems to be the case for pensions across the country, as they are forced to increase their payouts to beneficiaries due to inflation. While the past year has been a record breaker for pension fund returns, inflation will be claiming its fair share of the gains as well.

For CalPERS members, those who retired between 2006 and 2014 will receive the biggest increase at 4.7%. This will be the largest cost-of-living increase for beneficiaries in the past 32 years, dating to 1990.

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated the Consumer Price Index to have increased by 7% over  2021, CalPERS is not using the 7% to calculate its increased payments. Instead, it uses an average of each month’s numbers.

CalSTRS similarly also has built in inflation protection, thanks to a California law that requires public pensions to do so. However, CalSTRS’ method of calculating this payment is slightly different. The fund gives quarterly supplement payments to those whose annual benefit falls below 85% of their original benefit. This year’s inflation numbers will likely increase the number of supplemental payments that CalSTRS in forced to provide.

Author(s): Anna Gordon

Publication Date: 1 Mar 2022

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Why Retirement Isn’t Necessarily the Same as Not Working

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/03/07/why-retirement-isnt-necessarily-the-same-as-not-working/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

If you claim Social Security at age 70 instead of 62 the sum total of your accrued benefits will be 17% higher if you make it to age 82 (which is the male life expectancy at 62). And remember that’s low risk, inflation-indexed income; there’s no better deal on the market.

Of course, delaying benefits means fewer years collecting them, but if you end up living to your early 80s you’ll come out ahead. The figure below plots how much you’ll get from Social Security (inflation-adjusted and discounted using today’s TIPS curve) at each age depending on when you retire.

And if you already claimed Social Security you can still change your mind and get higher benefits.

But if you are already retired (or resolved on it this year) and the market is down, it may seem like delaying Social Security isn’t an option. After all, you still need to eat.

Author(s): Allison Schrager

Publication Date: 7 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Mortality Angle of the Russian/Ukrainian Conflict: Bad Even Before Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/mortality-angle-of-the-russianukrainian?s=w

Graphic:

Excerpt:

It may not be fair to throw Finland in there, but if the excuse is hard-drinking and being northerly, Finland has that in excess, and they are beating all those other countries in life expectancy. So that’s not the difference.

Note that all the ex-Soviet states except Russia and Ukraine also had the post-USSR fall from 1989-1994… but started their mortality improvement in 1994, as opposed to a decade later.

Poland started doing well the moment communism went away. Isn’t that interesting?

But I want to note that Ukraine and Russia are lagging the comparable countries hugely. To be sure, Russia is huge, and includes Siberia, which is not the most congenial of locations. But Ukraine doesn’t have the excuse of Siberia.

Both places, in short, suck when it comes to mortality.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 27 Feb 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

No Ordinary Panic – Bank Run in Russia

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.city-journal.org/russian-bank-run-is-no-ordinary-panic

Excerpt:

The war in Ukraine and subsequent international sanctions have triggered a bank run in Russia. But this is no ordinary run—it may become a run on the central bank itself, one that holds important lessons for introducing central bank digital currencies.

Reports show Russians lining up at ATMs to withdraw their cash. For now, the run is largely driven by fears of withdrawal limits and the anticipation that credit cards and electronic means of payments will cease to function. If that happens, cash at hand is the better alternative. For that scenario, central banks know what to do: provide solvent banks with plenty of liquidity against good collateral, as Walter Bagehot recommended.

But will that be all? As Western countries freeze the Russian central bank’s reserves and limit the ability of banks to transact internationally, the exchange rate of the ruble has collapsed, falling by more than 40 percent. Prices for ordinary goods may begin to rise, perhaps dramatically so. If that happens, then rubles would no longer be a good store of value. Russians may seek to convert them into foreign currency, but that’s hard to do with the current sanctions. Consequently, they may start to hoard goods instead, dumping their cash as they go along. The situation would no longer be a run on specific goods, but a run away from fiat money and toward goods—a run, in other words, on the central bank.

Author(s): Linda Schilling, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Harald Uhlig

Publication Date: 7 Mar 2022

Publication Site: City Journal

AFSCME asks state board of investment to divest holdings with Russia ties

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wandtv.com/news/afscme-asks-state-board-of-investment-to-divest-holdings-with-russia-ties/article_78c20944-9e7c-11ec-90ff-0f1777a90bee.html

Graphic:

Excerpt:

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, the AFSCME union in Illinois has asked the state board of investment to divest all holdings in assets tied to Russia. 

A letter from the executive director of AFSCME Council 31 was sent to Illinois State Board of Investment Chairman Terrence Healy. Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch referred to the invasion as a “genocidal slaughter of civilians.” 

….

The state investment board governs investment policy for the State Employees Retirement System, as well as to other Illinois public pension funds that AFSCME members participate in.

Publication Date: 7 Mar 2022

Publication Site: WAND

Republicans are winning in state government because their tax policies are winning

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2022/03/06/republicans-are-winning-in-state-government-because-their-tax-policies-are-winning/

Excerpt:

Tax cuts remain a powerful tool to entice people and firms, and the pandemic has triggered a new tax war. After the lockdowns, states and cities predicted unprecedented revenue drops. Instead, economies bounced back quickly from the pandemic, partly because of widespread adoption of remote work and extensive federal aid from the Trump and Biden administrations — hundreds of billions of dollars in unemployment benefits (which kept individuals spending money), business loans and funding for local governments to fight COVID-19.

The March 2021 Biden stimulus then provided local governments with an unprecedented $350 billion to bolster their budgets. The revenue gusher has produced state budget surpluses where experts had only recently predicted steep deficits.

Nearly a dozen states, mostly Republican-governed, have used the windfall to cut taxes. Idaho reduced its corporate and individual tax rates and shrank its income-tax brackets from seven to five, producing a $163 million tax cut for residents and businesses. The state also sent $220 million in rebates to everyone who filed tax returns in 2019.

….

Advocates for higher taxes often say that the levies don’t drive away wealthy individuals or businesses. When New Jersey raised taxes on the wealthy in November 2020, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said, “When people say folks are going to leave, there’s no research anywhere that suggests that happens.”

Yet New Jersey, with taxes on the wealthy and on businesses long ranking among the nation’s highest, ranked a dismal 42nd in economic growth over the five years preceding the pandemic, according to one study, and it has been an economic laggard for two decades. Voters in this overwhelmingly Democratic state showed their disapproval in giving incumbent Murphy an extremely narrow victory in his November reelection bid. Polls showed that most voters favored the Republican position on cutting taxes over Murphy’s.

Author(s): Steven Malanga

Publication Date: 7 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Dallas Morning News

Retirees plead for extra pension funding in new state budget

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://newschannel20.com/news/local/retirees-plead-for-extra-pension-funding-in-new-state-budget

Excerpt:

Retired public service workers gathered Monday to urge lawmakers to put more money into state pension funds.

The pension situation in Illinois is often referred to as a crisis because as of June 2021, the unfunded pension liabilities were almost $140 billion, according to a Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability report.

That is money the state has promised to retirees who say they need it to live.

There’s a proposal in this year’s budget to put half a billion dollars toward pension debt on top of the required payments from the state.

Author(s): Jordan Elder

Publication Date: 7 Mar 2022

Publication Site: News Channel 20

U.S. Life Insurance Activity Declines YOY in February, but at Growth Compared to 2020 and 2019

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.mibgroup.com/resources/life-index-reports/feb-2022-us-life-index/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

U.S. life insurance application activity declined in February 2022 compared to February 2021, with Year-over-Year (YOY) activity down -3.8%, representing the third consecutive month with YOY declines. On a Year-to-Date (YTD) basis, activity is down -4.3%. However, when taking a historical lookback, comparing February 2022 activity to the same month in 2020 and 2019, YOY growth was +3.2% and +4.8% and YTD growth was +1.0% and +2.3%, respectively. On a Month-over-Month (MOM) basis, February showed improvements, posting the second consecutive MOM gain with +7.0% activity.

Publication Date: 8 Mar 2022

Publication Site: MIB Group

Ten Most Dangerous Risks for Insurers

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://mcusercontent.com/991483cca1a8e7eb050cff8bd/files/7dfc14f1-eaa5-5658-64a3-54f5c5e1955f/1Q2022_SRSE_Dangerous_Risks.pdf

Excerpt:

This year we had record participation with
over 250 insurance professionals taking part.
This is the fifth iteration of this poll and 2022
shows some consistency along with some very
new risks. Inflation, Employee retention and
Ability to hire new employees are three new
risks to the top of this poll, but they should
not be surprises.

….

2. INFLATION
Up very sharply – Previously #52
Prices are rising faster than they have since the
1980s in most of the developed world. Insurers
will be hit with a double whammy as the real
value of invested assets decays and the cost of
doing business and claims costs increases at the
same time.

EMPLOYEE RETENTION
Not on the list previously
The Great Resignation makes the headlines.
COVID seems to have accelerated the timeline
for the inevitable wave of Boomer retirements.
Also concerning are the numbers leaving due to
health care burnout and caregiver
responsibilities. The problem for insurers is
figuring out how to respond to the massive loss
of experience.

Author(s): Actuarial Risk Management

Publication Date: Accessed 8 Mar 2022

Free DataViz Tools & Resources

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://policyviz.com/2022/02/14/free-dataviz-tools-resources/

Excerpt:

One of the best, cheapest ways to get better at visualizing and communicating your data is blogs. The first five blogs I’ve listed here publish more regularly than some of the others I include at the end of the list. There are a few tools-specific blogs listed at the end as well (of which there are so many, it’s hard to know where to start). These are just the blogs that I regularly try to keep up with; there are many others that you might find useful as well.

  • Depict Data Studio. Ann Emery’s stuff is great, especially if you want to learn how to create better, more effective reports.
  • Datawrapper. Lisa Charlotte Muth is the primary blogger here and the content is always amazing. The content is not specific to the Datawrapper tool.
  • Flowing Data. Nathan Yau sends out a daily example of a data visualization. I’m also a member of Flowing Data ($100 for the year), which gives me access to additional written content plus tutorials in D3, R, and Excel (often written by others).
  • Nightingale (from the Data Visualization Society). Collaborative effort from a variety of folks in the data visualization field. If you’re interested in blogging about your data visualization journey but don’t want the hassle of hosting your own site, you might want to reach out to the editors here.
  • Storytelling with Data. Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic’s site is one of the tops in the field and the recent addition of the SWD “challenges” and “community” (see below) are great community-based additions to the platform.

Author(s): Jon Schwabish

Publication Date: 14 Feb 2022

Publication Site: PolicyViz