February Update

 Dear IMSA Friends; 

February is gone, all 29 days this year!  Hope you didn’t miss your chance for the Sadie Hawkins dance and that you had a good President’s Day.  There lots going on in the IMSA arena.  Please read on. 

Prudential Renews IMSA Membership 

Congratulations to these Prudential Companies: 

  • The Prudential Insurance Company of America, Newark, NJ
  • Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Shelton, CT
  • Pruco Life Insurance Company, Newark, NJ
  • Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Newark NJ

 

“We are proud to be one of the original member companies of IMSA and consider it a mark of distinction in the industry," said John Greene, president of Agency Distribution at Prudential. "It's a clear indicator of our ongoing dedication to maintaining policies and procedures of the highest standards in sales and service to our customers."

"IMSA qualification is a tangible demonstration of a company's ongoing commitment to high standards of ethical business practices and fair and honest service to customers," IMSA CEO and President Brian Atchinson said. "We applaud these companies for their dedication to exemplary business practices."

 Highlights from IMSA Today:

IMSAToday                                                                   February 8, 2008 

IMSA's Suitability Certification Clearinghouse Running Smoothly  

The IMSA Suitability Certification Clearinghouse is open for business. This unique program is a great tool to assist companies in obtaining the suitability supervision annual certifications required under the NAIC Suitability in Annuity Transactions Model Regulation.  The Clearinghouse is the one-stop solution for this burdensome compliance requirement.  Information on the Clearinghouse, including pricing, is available on the IMSA website. For more information, contact Donald Walters at DonaldWalters@IMSAethics.org  or John Dohmen at JohnDohmen@IMSAethics.org . 

Suitability Summit Offers Unique Forum for Regulators, Companies, Distributors

On March 12 in Washington, DC, IMSA will host a Summit Meeting of state and federal regulators, life insurance companies and producers to address the critical issues of suitability of sales to consumers and the challenges of coordinating regulatory approaches to best serve consumers.  Summit topics will include how state and federal regulators can work collaboratively and efficiently to encourage suitable annuity sales techniques, solutions to meet the "periodic review" requirements for companies and third-party distributors under the NAIC Model Regulation, and compliance with IMSA's suitability standards for annuity sales.

The Summit Meeting will be at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  For more information, contact DonaldWalters@IMSAethics.org. 

Appless Processing Group Receives Comment on Compliance Solutions

IMSA is completing work on a Compliance Solutions document on current industry practices for the electronic or "appless" processing of annuity business.. For more information DonaldWalters@IMSAethics.org.

Upcoming Meetings

March 5                   IMSA Board of Directors Meeting, Washington, DC

March 16-18            GAMA-Lamp Exhibit – San Francisco, CA

March 29-31            NAIC Spring National Meeting, Orlando, FL

Special Deal on Insurance Compliance Insight

Back in October, I had lunch with Alan Prochoroff, editor and publisher of Insurance Compliance Insight at the Blue Highway Pizzeria in Micanopy, FL.  It’s a great spot; real Florida atmosphere and pretty good pizza too (for Florida).  Since I sprang for the lunch, Alan has agreed to give our clients and friends a deal on his excellent newsletter.  You get the same deal as IMSA members, that’s $200 off the $995 subscription price plus an extra three months free.  Just mention that Ken Kalis sent you, and you’ll be all set.  You can also get a free four-issue trial if you’d like to check it out first ... just request it in an e-mail to editor@ins-compliance.com.  

Here’s a preview of the contents of the latest issue: 

  •         Health Net to Pay $9.36 Million for Improper Policy Rescission
  •         Florida Seeks to Suspend Allstate's license; State Farm Says It Won't Write Any New Property Business
  •         NAIC Self-Assessment Finds States Are Meeting Uniformity, Reciprocity Standards
  •         NAIC, Lawmaker Groups Agree to Cooperate on State-Based Regulation
  •         Spring Conferences Feature Focus on Compliance, Market Regulation, Money Laundering, Fraud
  • Rules, Regs & Bulletins Feb. 25, 2008

 SAVE THE DATES

April 9-11, 2008

Seventh Annual Insurance Advertising Compliance Association Conference 

Practical Approaches to Advertising Topics and Issues for Insurance Marketing and Compliance Professionals

Chicago, Illinois
 Crowne Plaza Chicago Metro
 More information at:  www.iadca.org/conference.html

September 10-12, 2008

IMSA
Best
Practices
Workshop

  

Camelback Inn - Scottsdale, Arizona

Plan to attend this unique, "must attend" event to gather with your compliance colleagues, share ideas on meeting today's compliance challenges and hear from your peers and prominent speakers in the areas of market conduct compliance best practices.

More information and registration available soon.

New from the Kenneth J Kalis Company 

We are keeping busy with ongoing assessments for two companies right now. Next week we are hoping to begin an assessment for a company seeking IMSA membership for the first time. 

 I’ve just recovered from a minor surgery removing a lipoma from my forehead.  For those of you (like me) who don’t know what a lipoma is, it’s a benign growth that manifested itself in my case as a bump on my forehead just above my left eye.  I now look somewhat better than I did before it was removed.  No one ever asked me what that thing was over my eye, but now you know without asking. 

We’re enjoying spring weather here in northern Florida, and I don’t miss New Jersey, at least not the weather.  I have a couple of other consulting assignments and am looking for some more.  Please give me a call at 386-462-1074 if we can be of help to you. 

Best Practice of the Month 

Gold Star Field Offices:  To audit or not to audit, that is the question for many companies.  Whatever you have decided, we thought you might like to hear how one company handles this.  They offer a recognition system to any Gold Star Office who meets their compliance and administrative criteria.  Published at the beginning of each year, the criteria reflect the companies goals for continuous improvement.  Any office meeting them gets expedited treatment from underwriting, a personal home office executive contact as well as special recognition at the annual business conferences.  You’ve heard what Ben Franklin said about catching flies with sugar or vinegar, but this company has turned this adage into action that helps achieve its compliance goals and makes the field eager partners.

 Thank you all for your continuing interest in IMSA, ethical market conduct, and in the Kenneth J. Kalis Company. 

 Ken Kalis
 Only Believe. Mark 5:36

The Kenneth J. Kalis Company, Inc.
With associates in:

Boston, MA Charlotte, NC Chicago, IL Denver, CO
Hartford, CT Houston, TX Kansas City, MO Minneapolis, MN
New Orleans, LA New York, NY Orlando, FL Philadelphia, PA
Portland, ME San Diego, CA Springfield, IL Tampa, FL

ANTITRUST NOTICE

The Kenneth J. Kalis Company (KJKC) is committed to adhering strictly to the letter and spirit of the antitrust laws. Our communications and flash surveys are designed solely to provide a forum for the expression of various points of view on topics described in the communications or surveys. Under no circumstances shall these tools be used as a means for competing companies or firms to reach any understanding - expressed or implied - which restricts competition or in any way impairs the ability of any organization to exercise independent business judgment regarding matters affecting competition. Accordingly, we ask for and appreciate any observations or sensitivities you may have to any aspect of our communications or surveys that presents a risk from the standpoint of the antitrust laws.

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Past Updates

IMSA Links

 

 

 

I appreciate your continuing interest in and support of ethical market conduct and integrity in our business.  Have a great summer.  Hope to see many of you soon.

 

 

Telephone: 386-462-1074
Fax: 386-462-1075
Email: kenkalis@gmail.com
17220 NW 78th Avenue,
Alachua, FL 32615.

Non-IMSA close: 

President’s Day  by Ken Kalis 

When I was a boy, we didn’t have Presidents Day.  We celebrated George Washington’s Birthday on February 22 and Abraham Lincoln’s on February 12.  These days, these two heroic figures are merged into a single Presidents Day that has been expanded to include all the Presidents.  I can understand including Ronald Reagan, who was actually born in February as well as any other February President.  But all the Presidents?  This year one company is actually running an ad with a carved shower soap image of Millard Fillmore!  And he wasn’t even born in February (January 7, 1800, actually).

I miss Abraham Lincoln.  He wasn’t celebrated much here in Florida, or throughout the South, but he should have been.  He was a great man.  I never really understood how great until I read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. 

Lincoln was amazingly free of pettiness and wonderfully open to the ideas of his political rivals.  In this book, Kearns shows how Lincoln convinced the three men who he aced out of the nomination for President (William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates) to join his cabinet and help him lead the country through the most costly and devastating war in American history.

And when that war was over, Lincoln was willing to forgive the very ones who had vilified him, denounced the Union and been the instruments of secession.  While others were looking for vengeance and domination, Lincoln opened his mind and his heart to extend a hand of friendship and welcome to his enemies.  We all know (or should know) these famous words from his second inaugural address:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "

Ken Kalis
 386-462-1074
Only Believe. Mark 5:36

 
 
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