IRI Names New Board Members, Officers

September 14, 2012 at 09:40 AM
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Larry Roth, president and CEO of Advisor Group, has been elected as the Insured Retirement Institute's new chairman of the board of directors. Roth succeeds Lynne Ford, executive vice president for Calvert Distributors Inc. Ford now holds the position of past chairman and has been reelected to serve another term as a member of the board of directors. That term will expire in 2015.

Elected to serve full terms on the board that expire in 2015 are:

  • Cindy Vogl, executive director of Defined Contribution and Retirement Solutions for UBS Global Asset Management (Americas) Inc.;
  • Robert DeChellis, president of Allianz Life Financial Services;
  • Elizabeth Forget, senior vice president of MetLife Retail Annuity Products;
  • Nick Lane, senior executive vice president and president of Retirement Savings for AXA Equitable;
  • Maliz Beams, CEO of ING U.S. Retirement;
  • Michael Falcon, managing director and head of retirement for J.P. Morgan Asset Management;
  • Bruce Ferris, executive vice president of Sales and Distribution for Prudential Annuities;
  • Drew Lawton, executive vice president and head of Retirement Solutions for New York Life Investments;
  • Bill Lowe, president of Sammons Retirement Solutions;
  • Robert Moore, president and chief operating office of LPL Financial;
  • Paula Nelson, president of Forethought Distributors.

John Carter, president of Nationwide Financial Distributors, was elected vice chairman; Thomas Streiff, executive vice president and retirement product manager for PIMCO, was reelected secretary; and LPL's Moore was elected treasurer. 

In other industry news:

Mike GoodyearLife Sales, LLC appointed Michael Goodyear co-president effective Sept. 1. He shares the leadership role with Steve Thunen.

Goodyear is the former senior vice president of Sales and Marketing for Ann Arbor Annuity Exchange. There, Goodyear worked to build the FMO's relationships with a number of broker/dealers. Michael expects to continue that work with Life Sales so Broker/Dealers may look to Fixed Index Annuities as another option for their clients.

Goodyear helped build America Direct Life Insurance Agency, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Fidelity Life Association. He worked for JPMorgan Chase as senior vice president of Direct Life Sales prior to that. In that role he helped build sales channels for branch-sold life insurance as well as life insurance sold through credit card and mortgage channels. He also played an instrumental role in the growth of Zurich Direct, a division of the Zurich Group.

Lockton added four employee benefits experts to its Memphis, Tenn., operation.

As an account executive, Jennifer Maddux is responsible for developing health and welfare programs for clients, as well as advising on wellness approaches to improve health and reduce costs. Maddux will also negotiate with insurance carriers and provide ongoing management of employee benefit programs. She has more than 13 years of experience advising companies on employee benefit programs.  

Christine Ferris, a human resources consultant, will advise clients on approaches including health and welfare programs, training and development, and other key HR issues. Ferris has worked in human resources management for more than 12 years.  

Sarah Rossetti is serving as an account manager in the employee benefits team. She supports clients in managing their health and welfare benefit programs, wellness initiatives, and ongoing client service needs. Rossetti has more than five years of experience in employee benefits.

Bethany Greene is an associate account manager and handles administration issues related to employee benefit programs for Lockton clients. Greene brings two years of experience.

American General Life Companies made this year's InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the nation's most innovative users of business technology, for its development of two mobile applications to provide customized quotes.

The first mobile application, Quick Quote, serves the organization's Structured Settlements division and enables agents to use their Apple or Android mobile devices to provide quotes to customers anywhere, any time. The app also provides one-touch calling to the American General Structured Settlements support team, real time access to interest rates and benefit streams.

The second app, RapidRater tool, allows agents to create quotes for selling a number of life insurance solutions.

Symetra Life Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Symetra Financial Corporation (NYSE: SYA), launched its Symetra True Variable Annuity. With True VA, clients can reserve guaranteed annual lifetime income while retaining flexibility by investing in specific Symetra Pension Reserve Funds sub-advised by Russell Investments.

Features include:

  • Guaranteed income start date — Clients pick a fund based on their year of birth and available calendar year start dates. Income start dates range from 2016 to 2028 with four-year intervals.
  • Pre-income stream flexibility — There is broad flexibility for clients to change the income start date; select or change multiple income stream start dates; increase or decrease income stream(s); or opt in or opt out of income stream(s).
  • Pre-income stream death benefit — Through an optional wealth transfer benefit rider, beneficiaries can receive 100 percent of the contract value, plus an additional 50 percent of the contract's investment gains to help offset taxes.
  • Income stream payments — Clients receive the greater of the guaranteed amount or amount based on Symetra's then–current single life annuity rates.

The Phoenix Companies, Inc. has added certain annuity forms to the Laser App Software library. By joining Laser App's library, Phoenix will provide its distributors complete electronic access to applications required to sell its Guaranteed Income Edge product and the ability to populate those forms electronically.

Laser App maintains a library of forms for the securities and insurance industries, currently housing 29,005 forms including 8,925 in-house forms from over 340 broker-dealers. Laser App's solution helps to reduce not-in-good order and facilitate straight-through processing for financial services professionals.

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