Business Trends

The Future for Remote/Telecommute Underwriting Workers

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@Work

Clicking on the @Work link above will take you to the blog of Challenger, Gray & Christmas a huge outplacement firm.  There is a lot of nasty news in this survey but my eyes are drawn to several findings that actually bode well for the future of remote/telecommute underwriting work.

  • More than half (52.4 percent) of human resource executives surveyed in May said their companies had instituted salary cuts or freezes in an effort to cut costs.  That was up from 27.2 percent in the same survey last January.

You may ask, how is this good news?  Well, it depends upon your perspective.   One of my projects consists of moving underwriting work to people rather than moving the people to where the work has traditionally been done.  Work can be done anywhere if you have a computer and a decent high speed Internet connection.  The only major roadblock  we have  is a severe case of dinosaur brains. Granted, some forms of work have to be done at a specific location. The good news is underwriting work does not.

Let’s dig deeper into the Challenger survey and find more good news.  Companies are cutting costs in the following areas:

  • 67%  cut travel expenses
  • 43% permanent layoffs
  • 62% instituted a hiring freeze
  • 29% cut hours
  • 5% cut office space use through increased telecommuting.

The problem is this – what happens when the business environment improves and volumes increase?

Companies have painted themselves into very tight corners.  Many will migrate to more of a variable cost structure to preserve the savings achieved from the measures taken during the recession.

I tell ya, I’m having a lot of fun doing what I’m doing.



Piontek Blog – More LIMRA Life Stats

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The Editor’s Edge » Ouch!

Overall, LIMRA reports, premium from individual life sales dropped, slid, plunged, plummeted, nosedived (take your pick) an amazing 26% from the year before. Every product line was hit, LIMRA says, with variable life premium off a massive 61%.   Universal life, down 33%.  Variable UL, off 61%. The only two lines that didn’t enter double-digit loss territory were term (off  4%) and whole life (down 5%). Additionally, totals for face amount and number of policies sold were off 8% in both cases.

Remote Work SCAM – Poland Anyone?

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I got this email and in the spirit of public service reproduced it word for word.
This email has SCAM written all over it.  The address of the sender didn’t match the address in the email and neither address matches Hotmail (there was an automatic Hotmail trailer on the end which I deleted due to suspected evil Java).
Googlemail???
Hello,

Your resume was found on the job site. We examined your candidacy and want to offer you a position in our company. If your resume changed, please send us an updated version to email, indicated at the end of the letter.

My name is Patricia Brown, I am a employee manager in the company Poland Investments Inc.

Briefly about our company: we deal with selling and purchasing of certificates of metal in Europe. Our central office is located in Poland. The first license for activity in Poland was provided in 1998. Nowadays, we have our offices and employees all over the world. We work with individual clients, as well as with corporations.

We offer ideal conditions of work. Once in a year we grant a 2-week vacation on the resorts of Poland. All our employees are provided with a whole kit to have the possibility of working  in every part of the world. Absolutely gratuitous we grant a laptop (brand Dell, HP or Apple) and mobile phone (brand Blackberry or iPhone), we pay for internet access and mobile communication.

We aren’t standing still and that is why having the European market conquered we move on to reach the U.S. one. The primary stage – is to form the staff. And namely you are offered a position in dynamically developing company.

At the stage of forming the staff we offer a possibility of flexible schedule or part-time occupancy.

Annual salary is USD 125,000. We appreciate well-educated employees; that is why if you have MBA, the raise in the salary is granted. Each certificate of degree is individual that is why the markup must be stipulated with head manager, after being accepted for employment.

With the expansion of the influence of our company in the U.S. market, promotion track is naturally granted to you.

We are always glad to answer all your questions and stipulate the conditions of collaboration. You can get in touch with us by phone (from 8 am till 6 pm, Monday-Friday) or through email in any time, convenient for you. We are looking forward to your answer.

Patricia Brown,

Poland Investments
patricia.pi.inc@googlemail.com

How to Make Less Money (without trying)

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FT.com / Companies / Banks – BBVA offers staff five years’ leave

Workforce and staffing issues have always been an interesting area to me.  The current WTF economic mess does spur creativity in those of us who like simple things  (like eating).  Courtesy of an NPR RSS feed I found my attention drawn to this article on www.ft.com describing a most creative workforce reduction idea.

BBVA is offering staff three options: first, leave of three to five
years for long-term employees who want to undertake “personal or professional projects”, with 30 per cent pay and healthcare on top;  second, a shorter working week with reduced pay; and third, special time off for up to two years for those who want to care for children or relatives or take postgraduate courses. All are voluntary and the company reserves the right to refuse those who apply.

I haven’t formulated an opinion yet.  But if you are one of the unfortunate few that has suffered a corporate mandated pay cut, this just might be the other shoe to drop.   I sent an email to John Hollon at www.workforce.com asking for his opinion.  Stay tuned.

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True…

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Seniors Swindled by ‘Spin Life’ Insurance | The Financial Planner’s Briefcase | Financial Articles & Investing News | TheStreet.com

Nice article by Terry Savage on the premium financing of large amount life insurance policies to seniors who really did not need the insurance.  According to Savage, some seniors are unable to sell their policies to investors to complete the cycle (borrow money, buy insurance policy, sell insurance policy, pay off loan).  I’m a tad bit disappointed Savage did not report actual numbers of policyholders affected.

If I find some statistics on this, I’ll post them.