No wonder insurance product pros are pulling out their hair. The insurance price scene doesn't look good. Here's a macro look. In general:
–Level term life insurance prices have gone up, albeit modestly, in the past six to eight months–this, after a decade of declines. Universal life insurance rates are up too. In both cases, new reserve regulations are being blamed as is the general economic downturn. 
–The cost of providing guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefits in variable annuities and fixed indexed annuities has risen to the point that some carriers have curtailed the benefits or removed them altogether.
–Premiums for group and individual health insurance coverage have continued their yearly ascent. (Currently, a brouhaha is raging in California over a decision by Anthem Blue Cross of California, a unit of WellPoint Inc., Indianapolis, to increase individual policy rates by an average of 39%.) Hey, even Medicare Part B premiums are up in 2010 for some people (such as new insureds). The cost of actual care is being blamed for the hikes.
–Rates for long term care insurance continue to go up on new policies, even as carriers are leaving rates on existing policies pretty much as is. Again, the blame is on the rising cost of care.
Meanwhile, guaranteed minimum interest rates continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel in fixed annuities, universal life policies, and fixed interest accounts in variable products. The values of firms' stock holdings are not back to their highs, and leverage remains difficult to find.
Where is the give? The silver lining? The proverbial ray of sunshine? That's what many industry professionals would like to know.
It's worth noting that some companies, products and markets do not track with the trends. In fact, a few players have written NU to say they are not raising prices or curtailing benefits; their skin is not stretched to the bone. Also, some carriers are reporting year-end sales increases in certain lines–even in life insurance, which generally had a less than stellar sales year in 2009.
Still, such happy reports are more the exception than the rule.
The overwhelming sense in the business right now, from people who do the daily work, is: The industry's back is strong but it's against the economic wall.
