11. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

According to the Insurance Information Institute (III), 2008 will be a buyer’s market as term life insurance premiums fall by 11% from 2006. The downward trend, which started more than 10 years ago, is predicted to continue making term insurance even more affordable.

Based on their calculations, the annual premium for a $500,000 20-year level term life insurance policy in 2008, for a 40-year-old nonsmoker male (standard risk), is expected to be in the neighborhood of $725. The same individual’s annual premium would be about $350 if he qualifies as preferred risk.  For a 40-year-old female nonsmoker, the annual premium rate would be around $600 (standard risk) and $300 (preferred risk).

Although premium rates for permanent insurance products are not exhibiting the same trend as term, III’s projections would be welcomed by consumers as well. The institute is confident that the premium rate for traditional whole life, universal life, and variable universal life insurance for 2008 will stay at 2007 levels.

These changes have been attributed to the consumer-friendly trend to longer life expectancy, profitability and market competition.  In a press statement, III said life insurance rates are falling because death rates have decreased significantly for the primary age group – those between 25 and 44 years old – that buys life insurance. Based on preliminary National Vital Statistics Reports, the death rate for this particular group went down by almost 10% from 1996 to 2004.

Consumers are also benefiting from the generally good interest rate and a favorable investment environment as insurers pass along their savings to customers.

The years 2006 and 2007 were profitable for auto, home and commercial insurance providers. The institute said most of the profits from last year would be reinvested back into the business to strengthen the industry’s claims paying capacity and provide an additional hedge against any future mega-catastrophes. In addition, the intense market competition among insurance players is keeping premium prices at moderate levels.

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11. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

The state Department of Insurance announced last week that it has ordered a scam insurance company to stop doing business in North Carolina.

A release from the department says it’s issued a cease and desist order against the National Trade Business Alliance of America. The company, based in New Jersey, wasn’t licensed to do business in the state and sold at least 123 people fraudulent insurance policies, Department of Insurance officials say.

“North Carolina is the latest state to be victimized by this so-called insurance company which has offered bogus health plans to unsuspecting citizens across the country,” Insurance Commissioner Jim Long said in a written statement. “Marketed through blast faxes and telemarketing, this group preyed on those who were searching for low-cost health insurance. They left at least 123 North Carolinians out more than $20,000. Fortunately, we caught on to their scheme and have run them out of North Carolina before anyone else gets hurt.”

The Department of Insurance encourages North Carolinians to call it at (800) 546-5664 before signing up for a policy they’re not sure about.

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11. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

The United State’s largest employer, Wal-Mart, will be expanding its services by offering health clinics inside many of its facilities. By 2010, Wal-Mart plans to open about 400 new health clinics to serve customers. The clinics will be geared for Wal-Mart’s customers who are suffering from a minor illness or for people who do not want to wait extended periods of time in emergency rooms. 

            Wal-Mart’s new health clinics will be operated by RediClinic LLC, a retail health screening service company which is based out of Texas. The clinics will staff licensed physicians and nurses and operate seven days a week. The will treat minor illnesses and will supply in store screenings, medical tests, vaccines, and basic physicals. The clinics will also have the ability to prescribe medications. The Wal-Mart Health Clinics will accept insurance from Aetna, Humana, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

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11. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

National Federation of Independent Business in Tennessee is looking to legislation and a new insurance product in the state to help small business owners provide health insurance for their employees.

The NFIB is working to push two bills through the Tennessee Legislature to help alleviate some of the financial pain of offering health insurance.

One bill would give small businesses a tax credit for continuing to offer insurance. As proposed, the bill would give a business $400 back on its franchise and excise tax bill. However, that number could be reduced once the overall cost of giving the credit is studied by government accountants and the bill goes through the committee process. A similar bill that gave North Carolina businesses a $250 tax credit in 2005 cost the legislature there $16 million.

The other bill would allow more small businesses to pool their insurance risk. By forming health group cooperatives, small businesses could spread their risk over a broader group and perhaps get lower rates on insurance. NFIB wants to give more flexibility to the current law as to who can form these pools. Businesses now must meet strict requirements and have been in association for five years before they can form a cooperative. The groups must be comprised of 1,000 employees or more or have 10 employers or more to join.

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11. February 2008 by Jon Moss.

ZocDoc is an online appointment tool for searching for doctors and scheduling appointments as easily as making a restaurant reservation for dinner online. The company launched early last autumn in the New York city area, focusing initially on dentists. 

Nearly 6 months later, ZocDoc has about 50 dentists that have signed on board to try out this free scheduling service, and is now ready to roll out its tools for doctors as well, beginning Feb 14th. When I first spoke to Cyrus Massoumi and Dr. Oliver Kharraz prior to the launch about its upcoming expansion, and was anxious to hear about how the company had grown in these past few months. “It’s all been organic,” Massoumi said. “Doctors are approaching us, asking when we’ll be ready to add them to our site.” 

In addition to layering doctors into ZocDoc, the company will be launching its service in two new cities, branching out on its nationwide plan. Users voted, and the next two cities that will have ZocDoc’s search and appointment services will be San Francisco and Washington D.C. This roll out strategy is quite typical for localized search tools such as ZocDoc, and seems to be allowing for a rather focused effort on building up databases. 

ZocDoc, along with other localized search tools like Grayboxx, has the opportunity to leverage the capabilities of its web-based service to enable doctors’ offices across the nation in an integrated manner that would have been more difficult ten years ago, as is evident by previous startups like OpenTable, which obviously has a similar business model for allowing people to take reservations for restaurants online. It will be interesting to see the “new age” version of such a service penetrate the market without the burden of having to introduce software or generally new concepts.

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