National Underwriter - July 11 2011

Butch was able to recognize and capitalize on coverage gaps for life insurance in the U.S. middle market. ING’s North American insurance unit was able to construct a collection of interactive insurance tools to engage this demographic, namely the ING For Life tool that seeks to make life insurance more comprehensible and friendly for prospective buyers through a web platform that is engaging and easy to navigate.

“When we first looked at the ING For
Life concept, the people that were helping
us develop it were working in other fields,
and I thought that this has got to have an
application in the life insurance business,”
Britton says. “The biggest challenge you’ve
got to people buying life insurance is that
people do not know much about the prod-
uct and they don’t know how much they
need. So, we decided to build a tool that
makes this easy for them.”
There are other insurance companies
with interactive education tools, but most
are not as contemporary or comprehen-
sive as ING For Life. According to Butch,
the streaming video is a huge component
of this. He feels that this tool is the answer
for ING to serve the long-underserved
middle market.

National Underwriter Life & Health
would like to acknowledge Nick Gerhart
as the winner of the Industry Elite Award
for Regulatory Advocacy.

Gerhart, who is currently working for Sammons Financial Group, previously represented American Equity. Nominated by Andrew Unkefer, president and CEO of Unkefer & Associates Inc., Nick was instrumental in reversing SEC Rule 151A. His dedication and commitment helped save jobs and preserve the fixed indexed annuity industry.

SEC Rule 151A sought to reclassify fixed indexed annuities as securities rather than insurance products. Meant to address market conduct issues with FIA sales, 151A would have had a severe impact on the fixed indexed annuity industry. It would have forced anyone who sold fixed indexed annuities to become licensed by the SEC, a process that can be expensive as well as time consuming. 151A also had the potential to drive smaller operators out of the FIA business altogether.

Nick and others in the industry decided
to mobilize, organize and fight the ruling.

N i c k Gerhart

Iowa and Minnesota, which are home states for many fixed indexed annuity carriers, were able to serve as microcosms for the rest of the country as to what would happen to the industry if Rule 151 A was implemented. As covered by National Underwriter last July 26, Gerhart’s work was instrumental in helping to deliver the legal and legislative victories that resulted in the SEC’s withdrawal of Rule 151A.