Many of the people in our brokerage department just returned from Berkshire Life's annual disability insurance specialist meeting in Nashville, TN. The focus of this meeting was their next generation ProVider Plus disability insurance policy scheduled to be released on April 1, 2008. We will be hosting several roll-out meetings in the coming months to share all of the good news with our brokers in Rockville, Philadelphia, Columbia, and Northern Virginia.
We are developing a series of web-based videos for you to watch in our video learning center providing information about the new contract so you can really dig into it at your own pace. The rates on the new policy look outstanding with rate decreases in occupation class 6 (attorneys, engineers, architects, optometrists, executives), as well as a multitude of rate decreases in classes 5,4, and 3. All occupation classes get a true own-occupation definition of total disability for the entire benefit period now, including occupation class 3. They have added a to age 67 and an all new 10 year benefit period to the choice of benefit periods. They still offer to 65 or 67 benefit periods and a Graded Lifetime Indemnity for Total Disability Rider.
Berkshire will also be offering a new step-rate premium option, in addition to their level and graded premium options. The GOM (Guard-O-Matic) monthly premium mode will no longer have a modal factor saving clients who pay monthly anywhere from 3-5%.
They will have three brand new COLA rider options as well. I am most excited about the brand new 4-year delayed COLA rider which is 30% less expensive than the 3% COLA rider for clients willing to self-insure a portion of the first 4 years of a long term disability insurance claim.
There will be an all new, and I believe industry leading, web-based disability insurance illustration system that looks awesome! It is a complete departure from the previous illustration system, and focuses more on selling to clients. It focuses on telling the story to your clients in a fashion that is very visually appealing. We can't wait for the brokers working with our agency to be able to utilize this new system which will probably be released just before the product launch.
Our impression of the entire offering was nothing but positive. Everything we saw indicated to us that we will still have the most comprehensive disability insurance product on the market which will be Non-Cancellable and Guaranteed Renewable to age 65 or 67, have a pure own-occupation definition of total disability, still have a recovery benefit for up to the entire benefit period. The compensation for producers has not changed, it still has the exact same first year commissions, and the exact same renewal schedule offering up to 17.5% in policy years 2-10, and up to 12.5% from policy years 11+*. By the way, our ability to pay renewals beyond policy year 10 is a huge market advantage for Guardian. There were a lot of significant rate decreases in the younger age categories between ages 25-35. There were a lot of rate decreases for females almost across the board, and the rate decreases for uni-sex premiums available through employer paid QSPP's were as much as 32% lower.
We will be working very hard over the next several months getting ready for the new product release from Guardian. We promise to have many face-to-face roll out seminars, webex meetings, and web-based videos so that all of you who work with us understand just how good this new product is going to be.
*Refer to Guardian Brokerage Agreement for specific details.
**
For Producer Use Only, Not For Use With The General Public.
