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Fights in Washington continue to rattle the U.S. major medical insurance market.
Low interest rates and tough new accounting rules continue to plague the life insurance and annuity markets.
Non-medical health insurance products continue to be the products that please the insurers' chief financial officers as much as they please the sales and marketing times. Workers, and employers want to hear about the products, and insurers can write the products without causing securities and rating analysts to give them dirty looks.
Here are five examples of new products that have been rolled out with much fanfare in the past few months.
1. Standard: Individual Disability Insurance
Standard Insurance Company, and The Standard Life Insurance Company of New York, have two new individual disability insurance products aimed at a big, lucrative niche market: highly paid people in New York and Connecticut.
The policy is guaranteed renewable. It offers an automatic increase rider and a benefit increase rider.
The Platinum Advantage policy also offers purchasers access to a residual disability rider, a noncancelable policy rider, an own-occupation rider, an indexed cost-of-living rider and a catastrophic disability benefit rider.
The Platinum Advantage GSI product, which is aimed at employers wanting to offer benefits designed for highly paid employees, offers access to a choice of residual disability riders, a regular occupation definition-of-disability rider, an own-occupation rider, a catastrophic disability benefit rider, and an indexed cost-of-living rider.
2. Standard Insurance: Hospital Indemnity Insurance
Standard has also added another non-medical health benefit: the Hospital Indemnity Plus hospital indemnity insurance policy.
Standard designed the policy for hospital-based health care systems.
The policy pays cash benefits to insureds who are confined to a hospital, are admitted to a hospital, are confined to a critical care unit, or are admitted to a critical care unit.
Workers with the coverage get a 20% higher benefit if they stay in their employers' hospitals, rather than going to hospitals not affiliated with their employers.
Workers who want to contribute to health savings accounts (HSAs) must have high-deductible major medical coverage that meets HSA program rules. Workers with HSAs can use the Standard indemnity coverage without breaking the HSA program rules.
3. MGIS: High-Limits Disability Insurance
MGIS, an insurance program manager, has developed a new, high-limits disability insurance policy aimed at group practice physicians.
