Life cover cost could rise 20 pc to pay for tax changes

Life insurance premiums are set to rise as the insurance industry adjusts to a heavier tax regime.

The tax rules were reviewed after the Government become concerned that a shift in people's policy preferences had left life insurers undertaxed.

According to one industry operator, premiums need to rise by about $150 million to accommodate tax and other changes.

By the time grandfathering provisions come off in three years' time, he estimates premiums will be 15 to 20 per cent higher from when the changes took place in mid-2010.

Deloitte tax expert Greg Haddon says the old tax rules treated all life insurance policies as "whole of life", which had a large savings component.

That meant policies were largely taxed as an investment rather than income.

Over the last 20 years, however, most policy-holders have shifted toward yearly renewable policies, which are cheaper but don't make a payout on retirement.

Life insurers acknowledge the changes are fair but say they cannot absorb the full tax bill.

Milton Jennings, chief executive of Fidelity Life, said the tax changes had come at a time when low interest rates were eroding their investment income.

There was also "quite fierce competition in the life insurance market so you're not seeing rates going up too much".

"People have had about half the increases already and there's probably another half to go."

Haddon said insurers had a five-year adjustment period, which kept policies held before the changes temporarily at their old tax rates.

So "while they'll be paying more tax, they'll certainly be paying more tax in three years' time", he said.

Insurance company Tower agreed life insurance premiums needed to eventually rise 15 per cent but said they had to also reflect the market.

It had increased premiums for new policies 7 per cent in 2010 and another 3 per cent the following year.

"We'll be reviewing older policies towards the end of the grandfathering period, with a view to adjusting premiums as necessary," a spokesperson said.

Life insurance had changed markedly from the days of the once-popular whole-of-life policies, which were taken out by young workers or by their parents when they were born, Haddon said.

"You paid a very small premium each month and part of that premium went towards a savings so that by the time you retired there was a surrender value that you could get back."

Whole-of-life made sense when interest rates were low but were eroded by rising inflation, said Fidelity's Jennings.

The one permanent exception from the new tax rules is "level term" policies, which keep premiums static for an agreed term of sometimes 50 years.

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Jennings said level-term contracts were "golden" and holders should hang on to them.

"The sad thing is, I see people cancelling these contracts and going back to YRTs (yearly renewable term policies) to get it cheaper, but that's just absolute madness."

In 2008 Treasury estimated the extra tax take from the changes would be a net $9m by 2012.

The IRD says that figure would apply to 2013 because the changes were made later than expected.

Pro-life protesters march on US court

Tens of thousands of pro-life supporters have converged on the US Supreme Court to protest its landmark decision 40 years ago this week that legalised abortion in America.

Organisers of the annual March for Life on the National Mall in Washington on Friday expected a record crowd surpassing last year's turnout of 400,000, even with sub-freezing temperatures.

Cheering on the demonstrators from the Vatican was Pope Benedict XVI, who sent his best wishes via Twitter.

'I join all those marching for life from afar, and pray that political leaders will protect the unborn and promote a culture of life,' the pontiff tweeted on his Pontifex account.

Tuesday was the 40th anniversary of the Roe versus Wade decision in which the highest court in the land ruled that abortion was a strictly private matter between a woman and her doctor.

The 1973 decision is seen by the pro-choice camp as a breakthrough for women, but the pro-life movement - with support from the Roman Catholic and conservative Evangelical churches - sees itself as rapidly gaining ground.

'Being pro-life is the new normal... Americans are becoming more pro-life,' Jeanne Monahan, 40, the youthful new leader of March for Life after last year's death of its 88-year-old founder Nellie Gray, told the crowd.

In a Gallup poll last year, 50 per cent of respondents identified themselves as pro-life - in contrast to 41 per cent who were pro-choice, down from 56 per cent in 1995.

Fitch Affirms Minnesota Life's IFS Rating at 'AA-'; Outlook Stable

Fitch Ratings has affirmed the Insurer Financial Strength (IFS) ratings of Minnesota Life Insurance Company (Minnesota Life) and its subsidiary, Securian Life Insurance Company at 'AA-'. Fitch has also affirmed the rating on Minnesota Life's surplus notes at 'A'. The Rating Outlook is Stable.

The rating affirmation reflects Minnesota Life's strong balance sheet fundamentals and conservative risk profile. The ratings also consider the company's moderately weak earnings relative to similarly rated peers, as well as macroeconomic challenges and a strong competitive environment in its core markets, within which the company often faces insurers with greater scale and resources.

Minnesota Life's strong balance sheet fundamentals reflect the company's solid capitalization, low operating leverage, and low financial leverage. The company's risk-adjusted capitalization, which is a key factor supporting the company's ratings, remained strong and stable in 2012. The company reported a risk-based capital (RBC) ratio of 518% of the company action level at Dec. 31, 2011, and Fitch expects the company to report and RBC ratio in excess of 500% for Dec. 31, 2012.

In addition to the company's strong risk-adjusted capitalization, Minnesota Life's solid balance sheet fundamentals are supported by its low statutory operating leverage of 4.6x as measured by adjusted liabilities to total adjusted capital, as well as low financial leverage of approximately 5% on a GAAP basis.

Fitch notes that Minnesota Life's liquidity profile continues to be very favorable. The company's results benefit from its large, investment-grade, publicly traded bond portfolio and stable liability structure.

Minnesota Life's conservative risk profile reflects balanced, diversified sources of revenue that serve to moderate earnings volatility, although growth in fee income related to capital market performance could add further volatility in the future. While the company's product lines have produced below average combined profitability relative to similarly rated peers, Fitch acknowledges that the company's products are reflective of management's mutual insurance company philosophy. Fitch also takes a favorable view of Minnesota Life's high quality career agency distribution channel and strong technology-based service platform, which Fitch considers to be beneficial to its group life and retirement services product lines.

Fitch expects Minnesota Life's near-term operating profitability to moderate somewhat, as recently favorable mortality experience reverts to historical averages. Over the course of 2013, Fitch anticipates the company's profitability as measured by GAAP-based return on equity to be between 6% and 7%, which is within current rating expectations. In addition, Fitch believes that intense market competition will continue to challenge the company in its efforts to generate profitable top line growth over the next year, and low interest rates will likely pressure spread income.

Minnesota Life, the primary operating subsidiary of Securian Financial Group, is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota and reported total admitted assets of approximately $28.1 billion and capital and surplus of $2.1 billion at Sept. 30, 2012.

Sun Life Financial named as one of the 2013 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World

For the third year in a row, Sun Life Financial is the only North American insurance company named among the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World for 2013.

Sun Life is one of 10 Canadian companies across all industry sectors to make the Global 100, and this is the seventh year that the company has appeared on the list.

"At Sun Life, sustainability means having the ability to assure our customers, employees, distributors, shareholders and communities that we are in business for the long term," said Mary De Paoli, EVP, Public & Corporate Affairs and Chief Marketing Officer, Sun Life Financial. "It is embedded in our decisions and processes, and demonstrates to our customers that we are focused on keeping our promises and living up to our mission of helping customers achieve lifetime financial security."

"Sun Life is proud to be among the Global 100, which validates the work we are doing to make life brighter for generations to come," De Paoli said. "People are increasingly seeking to work for and do business with companies that are aligned with their values, and Sun Life's inclusion in the Global 100 affirms to our stakeholders that we are focused on the issues that matter to them."

In the last year, Sun Life has been reducing energy consumption in its offices and data centre; building on its long-standing leadership in the Canadian financial services industry by continuing to invest in clean and renewable energy projects; strengthening reporting of its broader sustainability performance; and joining networks of like-minded organizations focused on advancing sustainability goals.

The Global 100 list was announced today by Corporate Knights magazine at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland . Recently recognized as the world's most credible corporate sustainability ranking by Rate the Raters, the list consists of the 100 top-performing companies worldwide on a range of sector-specific sustainability metrics.

Other recognition
In addition to its Global 100 ranking, Sun Life is ranked first out of 244 companies in the Globe and Mail's eleventh annual review of corporate governance practices in Canada . Sun Life is also on the Corporate Knights' 2012 Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada list, as well as the FTSE4Good and the Dow Jones Sustainability North America indexes. Sun Life is the "Most Trusted Life Insurance Company" in Canada , according to the 2012 Reader's Digest Trusted Brand consumer survey.

Allianz Life to Donate $1,000 Per Lehman Birdie at 2013 Allianz Championship

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life) today announced that it will be donating $1,000 for every birdie made by Allianz-sponsored golfer Tom Lehman at the upcoming Allianz Championship. The donations will be shared between Junior Achievement of South Florida and the Southeast Florida Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. Allianz Life partners with Junior Achievement and the Alzheimer’s Association in the Twin Cities because of their focus on improving financial literacy and providing services to seniors.

“We’re excited that Tom is partnering with us again this year to support Junior Achievement and the Alzheimer’s Association and help us further our goals of enhancing financial literacy and senior service programs,” said Allianz Life Chief Marketing Officer Nancy Jones.

In this challenge, every time Lehman shoots a birdie, Allianz Life will donate $1,000 split between Junior Achievement of South Florida and the Southeast Florida Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. The Allianz Championship runs February 4-10, 2013, at the Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, Florida. Allianz Life will present representatives of the two groups with their donations at the tournament’s closing awards ceremony on February 10.

With 13 chapters in Florida, Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students about workforce readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs. The Alzheimer’s Association enhances efforts for researching a cure and provides support and educational services to Alzheimer’s patients, families and caregivers. The Southeast Florida Chapter serves 7 counties including St. Lucie, Okeechobee, Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami/Dade and Monroe.
The Allianz Championship is the Champions Tour's first tournament of the early-season Florida swing. The tournament includes such legends of golf as Bernhard Langer, Corey Pavin, and Allianz-sponsored golfers Tom Lehman and John Harris. The Golf Channel will be televising all three rounds and tournament event proceeds will benefit the Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

Giant Mars crater shows evidence of lake ... and maybe life?

New photos of a huge crater on Mars suggest water may lurk in crevices under the planet's surface, hinting that life might have once lived there, and raising the possibility that it may live there still, researchers say.

Future research looking into the chances of life on Mars could shed light on the origins of life on Earth, scientists added.

The discovery came from a study of images by NASA's powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that revealed new evidence of a wet underground environment on the Red Planet. The images focused on the giant McLaughlin Crater, which is about 57 miles wide and so deep that underground water appears to have flowed into the crater at some point in the distant past.

'The deep crust has always been the most habitable place on Mars.'
- Joseph Michalski, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz.
Today, the crater is bone-dry but harbors clay minerals and other evidence that liquid water filled the area in the ancient past.

"Taken together, the observations in McLaughlin Crater provide the best evidence for carbonate forming within a lake environment instead of being washed into a crater from outside," study lead author Joseph Michalski, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., and London's Natural History Museum, said in a statement.

A wet Mars underground
Space agencies have deployed many missions to Mars over the decades to explore how habitable its surface may have been or is today. However, the Martian surface has been extremely cold, arid and chemically hostile to life as we know it for most of the history of Mars.

Instead of scanning the surface of Mars for life, scientists have suggested the most viable habitat for ancient simple life may have been in Martian water hidden underground.

On Earth, microbes up to 3 miles or more underground make up perhaps half of all of the planet's living matter. Most of these organisms represent some of the most primitive kinds of microbes known, hinting that life may actually have started underground, or at least survived there during a series of devastating cosmic impacts known as the Late Heavy Bombardment that Earth and the rest of the inner solar system endured about 4.1 billion to 3.8 billion years ago.

Since Mars has less gravity — a surface gravity of a little more than one-third Earth's — its crust is less dense and more porous than that of our planet, which means that more water can leak underground, researchers said. Wherever there is liquid water on Earth, there is virtually always life, and microbes underground on Mars could be sustained by energy sources and chemical reactions similar to those that support deep-dwelling organisms on Earth.

"The deep crust has always been the most habitable place on Mars, and would be a wise place to search for evidence for organic processes in the future," Michalski told SPACE.com.

While researchers currently have no way to drill deep underground on the Red Planet, they can nevertheless spot hints of what subterranean Mars is like by analyzing deep rocks exhumed by erosion, asteroid impacts or materials generated by underground fluids that have welled up to the surface.

Such upwelling would first occur in deep basins like McLaughlin Crater — as the lowest points on the surface, they would be where underground water reserves would most likely get exposed.

Scientists focused on McLaughlin Crater because it is one of the deepest craters on Mars. McLaughlin is about 1.3 miles deep and is located in Mars' northern hemisphere.

The mineral composition of the floor of McLaughlin Crater suggests there was a lake made of upwelled groundwater there. Channels seen on the crater's eastern wall about 1,650 feet above its floor also hint at the former presence of a lake surface.

Michalski was actually originally trying to disprove the idea that groundwater breached the surface in many locations on Mars.

"Lo and behold, there was strong evidence for that process in this crater," he said. "Science is special because we are allowed to change our minds."

An ancient groundwater lake
The researchers estimate that a lake existed at McLaughlin Crater for an unknown duration between 3.7 billion and 4 billion years ago. "That makes the deposits as old as or older than the oldest rocks known to exist on Earth," Michalski said.

Mounds seen on the crater floor may have come from landslides or subsequent meteor impacts. These are important because they may have rapidly buried crater floor sediments.

"That is really cool because rapid burial is the scenario that is most advantageous for preservation of organic material, if any was present at that time," Michalski said.

Since life on Earth may have begun underground, learning more about any underground life that might have lived — or may still live — on Mars could shed light on the origins of life on Earth, researchers said.
"We should give serious consideration to exploring rocks representing subsurface environments in future missions," Michalski said. "That doesn't mean drilling, but instead exploring rocks formed from upwelling groundwater, or rocks naturally exhumed from the subsurface by meteor impact."

Michalski noted that some people may ask, "'Why do I hear about the detection of water or possibility of life on Mars all the time?' The answer is because Mars is habitable in more ways than we ever realized for many years, and we are finding water in many forms and environments on Mars — many more than we predicted for a long time."

The ingredients for life the researchers describe, "including energy sources, would have been more available early in Mars' history, but it doesn't take too much imagination to picture a scenario in which the subsurface is habitable today," Michalski said. He cautioned, however, "that is much different from saying that life is there today."

Life Coaching: Changing People’s Lives

In these trying times, when many people reach life's lowest of lows, there are those whom they can turn to and seek professional counseling to help them get back to the right path.

One such professional counselor is Maribel Dionisio, a confessed relationship expert who has attended numerous seminars and workshops on family and relationships. Listening to the client first, that is, letting him think about his problems before giving any advice, is her approach.

For Dionisio, "The style is essentially to listen to the person concerned. Many people want to be listened to. Maybe, they can empower themselves, but they need a listening ear."

Unlike others who give advice immediately, Dionisio allows her clients to think about possible solutions to their problems first, as they know better their situations.

Initially having a penchant for numbers, Dionisio pursued business management at the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), but along the way she discovered she didn't like numbers much.

"My job prior to fourth year college was [in] human resources, that's why I became more aware that [relationship counseling is] what I enjoyed," Dionisio said.

Her job back then had people coming to her for consultation about their problems but realizing that she had limited knowledge, she decided to pursue further studies in family ministry.

Another expert in the field is Pia Nazareno Acevedo, who is used to giving seminars and workshops in Southeast Asia on sales and marketing, life management, finding true success, and the ABCs of parenting. Armed with a master's degree in family ministry, Acevedo has since ventured into global online education for family relationships and personal life transitions.

At 25, Acevedo has become an in-demand executive and performance coach, quitting her high-paying corporate job to establish The OneCORE Success Center, one of the first local organizations that help individuals to try and be the best persons they can be.

Both Dionisio and Acevedo are co-founders of the Love Institute. They are life coaches who people turn to to get through life's adversities.

Life coaching is a profession strikingly different from regular consulting, mentoring, therapy, or counseling. It addresses life's specific concerns, including personal projects, transitions in personal life, relationships or career, and discovering possible obstacles or challenges.

In life coaching, the client is the sole expert in his entire life, who truly knows who he is and what he needs, the only one who can think of what's best for him. Life coaches are there to discover what the client's personal "best" might be, letting him or her make choices that create an effective, balanced and fulfilled life.