The "Top 25 Insurance KPIs of 2011-2012" report provides insights into the state of insurance performance measurement today by listing and analyzing the most visited KPIs for this industry on smartKPIs.com in 2011. In addition to KPI names, it contains a detailed description of each KPI, in the standard smartKPIs.com KPI documentation format, that includes fields such as: definition, purpose, calculation, limitation, overall notes and additional resources. This product is part of the "Top KPIs of 2011-2012" series of reports and a result of the research program conducted by the analysts of smartKPIs.com in the area of integrated performance management and measurement. SmartKPIs.com hosts the largest catalogue of thoroughly documented KPI examples, representing an excellent platform for research and dissemination of insights on KPIs and related topics. The hundreds of thousands of visits to smartKPIs.com and the thousands of KPIs visited, bookmarked and rated by members of this online community in 2011 provided a rich data set, which combined with further analysis from the editorial team, formed the basis of these research reports.

THE COST OF IGNORANCE is a riveting novella by business insurance veteran Robert Phelan.The story punctures confusing insurance jargon and introduces a powerful new concept for middle-market companies: a little-known form of insurance known as Performance-Based Insurance (PBI) costs less and can save a company millions of dollars over time. The tale is told through the misadventures of Timothy Franculli, owner of a wholesale manufacturing company that is about to go broke because of escalating liability and health insurance costs. Timothy attends a conference in San Francisco where he runs into an old friend and learns about PBI, a type of insurance that could save his struggling company hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. But there is a catch. Typically, in order to qualify for PBI, a company must have a strong safety culture where worker injuries and accidents are controlled and reasonably predictable. Franculli has a lot of catching up to do after a series of employee injuries the year before caused his worker s compensation premiums to skyrocket 40 percent.

AN EASY-TO-FOLLOW GUIDE FOR MAKING THE BEST DISABILITY INSURANCE DECISIONS Need help understanding what disability insurance is and why it's a critical way to protect your financial future? With decades of experience in the insurance business, Tony Steuer and Maxwell Schmitz deliver a practical resource for choosing the best disability insurance policy for you, whether you currently have a policy or not. Step by step, they lead you through the process of making key disability insurance decisions and understanding important factors: 1. What income protection do I already have? 2. How much disability insurance would I qualify for? 3. How might my medical and financial history affect my rates? 4. What policy components or riders are important to me? 5. How do I choose a trusted agent or advisor and an insurance company? 6. How do I make sure that my policy continues to meet my needs? This workbook will help you avoid unnecessary pitfalls and unpleasant surprises; make informed, confident decisions; and gain the maximum protection for your insurance dollars. Tony's Questions and Answers on Life Insurance and 1The Questions and Answers on Life Insurance Workbook were winners of the Excellence in Financial Literacy Education(TM) Award from the Institute for Financial Literacy(R)

This book should be on the shelf in EVERY home. This book should be in EVERY automobile glove box. Do you carry a spare tire in the trunk of your car? Do you have jumper cables in your car? Do you have a toolbox at home? Ever bought a book that showed you how to fix something? Do you own a first aid kit? Do you have a fire extinguisher or smoke alarms in your home? Why would you do ANY of those things? ANSWER: So you are prepared BEFORE something happens to you. READ THIS BOOK BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS TO YOU READ THIS BOOK AFTER SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS TO YOU TO KEEP IT FROM GETTING WORSE

On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast region, causing intense winds, high rainfall, waves, and storm surge, as well as economic disruptions in states throughout the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region. Communities in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were particularly hard hit. The devastating floods exposed vulnerabilities in the region's public transportation and infrastructure and underscores the nation's growing exposure to coastal hazards. The full economic cost of Sandy will not be known for years, but current preliminary estimates of physical property damage, not including flood losses likely to be paid under the government's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), range from $30 billion to $55 billion, of which about $16 billion to $22 billion will be privately insured losses. Sandy is expected to require substantial federal disaster recovery assistance, including tens of billions for flood and hurricane protection and coastal restoration. Given the geographic scope of heavily flooded areas and residential take-up rates (number of flood policies divided by total number of households) in affected coastal communities that participate in the NFIP, government payouts under the NFIP are estimated to be from $12 billion to $15 billion in flood claims. This amount exceeds the $4 billion in cash and remaining borrowing authority from the Treasury Department. The Obama Administration has announced it will ask Congress to raise the NFIP borrowing authority to $25 billion, or $4.025 billion over its current borrowing authority. But some experts have suggested a $30 billion borrowing cap would be needed to cover even higher projected losses. Emergency supplemental spending on disaster assistance comes at a time when Congress is considering spending cuts and tax increases to address the nation's fiscal debt. In the wake of disaster clean-up and recovery along much of the East Coast region, policymakers, local officials, and other stakeholder groups have expressed a range of flood management concerns facing the NFIP. These include (1) escalating spending on federal emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief assistance; (2) uncertainty surrounding the NFIP's ability to reduce the nation's growing exposure to flood losses; (3) rising population growth and economic development in coastal watershed counties or floodplains areas exposed to hurricane induced coastal floods; (4) persistently low insurance participation (take-up rates) in the NFIP; and (5) financing the cost of rebuilding communities stronger, more resilient. On July 6, 2012, President Obama signed into law the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, P.L. 112-141, that reauthorized the NFIP through September 30, 2017, and made a number of reforms to strengthen the future financial solvency and administrative efficiency of the program by raising historically low premiums and reducing homeowners' incentives for rebuilding in flood risk zones. However, several post-reform issues of contention remain for congressional consideration: revisions in the analysis and mapping of non-accredited levees; actuarial soundness, program solvency, and affordability; debt forgiveness; an integrated watershed flood risk assessment framework; and expansion of the private-sector role in flood risk. This publication provides an analysis of flood risk management, summarizes major challenges facing the NFIP, and outlines key reforms in the recently enacted Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012. The publication also identifies and presents some key remaining flood management issues for congressional considerations, and it concludes with a discussion of relevant policy options for the future financial management of flood hazards in the United States.

How to perform a Risk Management Analysis in any organization. What is Risk, indeed. Some people see it as danger, others think risk is fun For me it is still simply the uncertain event which awaits you and which has a negative effect on your financial status. RISK represents UNCERTAINTY. The more uncertainty there is in an activity the greater the difficult in managing towards a successful completion. A Risk Management Analysis can give an organization the solution, which they have been looking for and which final goal is the reducing to an acceptable level of those risks, which up to now were unacceptable.

Insurance plays a positive role in economic development, but some of its traditional products are inhibiting in some cultural settings. 'Takaful and Mutual Insurance: Alternative Approaches to Managing Risks' explains the development of a hybrid model. Takaful (which means 'cooperative') is intended to deal with three prohibited or haram practices under Islam: the payment of interest (riba), the existence of uncertainty in a transaction (gharar), and gambling (maysir). The primary intent of this relatively recent entry to world insurance markets is to provide a core service to Muslims and others who have religious or ethical objections to conventional commercial insurance models. A secondary intent is to develop a model that deals with the capital challenges that have faced mutual insurers in the West and the subsequent decline of the mutual business model. Two realities-the uneven approaches to takaful and the economic potential that its availability is releasing-mean that it is especially important to facilitate debates that promote an understanding of takaful. This book-while not attempting to take on a role belonging to sharia lawyers and regulators in Islamic countries-provides a comprehensive overview of mutual insurance structures, including Christian and Jewish examples as well as other hybrid models, to provide a broad overview of the universe of operating models and to present ideas for moving forward. It also explores avenues for further opportunities, including the application of takaful to microinsurance markets in emerging countries with large Muslim populations. Takaful and Mutual Insurance: Alternative Approaches to Managing Risks seeks to increase the understanding, appreciation, and discussion of the challenges and solutions needed for the active development and implementation of takaful.

Every year wildfire destroys thousands of homes, devastates countless lives and burns millions of acres. And every year people who've lost everything say, "We didn't think it would happen to us. If only we'd been better prepared." Now homeowners have a straight-talking handbook to help them get prepared, stay alive and rebuild their lives if disaster strikes. Surviving Wildfire's compelling combination of real-life experience and in-depth research makes it an indispensable tool for anyone living with wildfire risk. CONTENTS Assessing Your Risk; Firewise Building & Remodeling; Defensible Space You Can Live With; Advance Planning (A Pound of Prevention Can Save a Ton of Trouble); Evacuation Essentials (What to Take, When to Leave, How to Escape); Insurance (How Much You Need, What It Covers, How It Works); Filing a Claim (Insider Tips & Tactics); Recovery (Picking Up Your Pieces & Starting Over); Our Story; plus an Appendix with further resources for homeowners.

Nonfinancial Defined Contribution (NDC) schemes are now in their teens. The new pension concept was born in the early 1990s, implemented from the mid-1990s in Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden, legislated most recently in Norway and Egypt and serves as inspiration for other reform countries. This innovative unfunded individual account scheme created high hopes at a time when the world seemed to have been locked into a stalemate between piecemeal reforms of ailing traditional defined benefit schemes and introducing pre-funded financial account schemes. The experiences and conceptual issues of NDC in its childhood were reviewed in a prior anthology (Holzmann and Palmer, 2006). This new anthology serves to review its adolescence and with the aim of contributing to a successful adulthood. To this end the book offers a deep and comprehensive review of the experience of countries where NDC schemes have been in place for a decade or more, takes stock of the discussions of the place of NDCs in the world of pension reform, and addresses in detail important issues related to implementation and design, such as the of the "NDC story", making transparent the legacy costs, financial accounting, balancing, creation of a reserve fund, gender, and longevity. The book also contains analyses of the pros and cons of NDC contra FDC and a typical paygo DB scheme in two Latin American countries. The key policy conclusions include: (i) NDC schemes work well (as documented by the experience of Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden during the crisis) but there is room to make them work even better; (ii) Go for an immediate transition to the new scheme to avoid future problems; (iii) Identify the legacy costs and their explicit financing during the transition as they will hit you otherwise soon; (iv) Adopt an explicit stabilising mechanism to guarantee solvency; (v) Establish a reserve fund to guarantee liquidity; (vi) Elaborate an explicit mechanism to share the systemic longevity risk; and, last but not least; (vii) Address the gender implications of NDC with deeper analysis and open political discourse.

This well-documented book is of interest to life insurance company officers and employees, to college and university placement officials, to teachers of insurance, and to undergraduates considering a career. It is a study of the attitude of the college graduate toward employment in the home office, the opportunities offered there, and the company policies regarding personnel.
Originally published in 1955.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This country assessment is part of a set of studies planned in order to provide a better understanding of how to improve the business environment in which the private sector operates in Congo and other African countries. The assessment was conducted in order to establish a baseline of information, to help with political decision-making and provide market information. The private health sector assessment in the Republic of Congo provides a diagnosis of the nature and the effectiveness of the interface between the public and private sectors, establishes a dialogue on policy with stakeholders, and makes recommendations for reform that would bolster public and private involvement. The methodology is based on a supply and demand approach to identify market, policy and institutional barriers, and options for reducing these barriers by changing policies and initiatives. The information pertaining to demand reveals how users perceive private providers and their potential. The information pertaining to supply gives a better understanding of the role that private providers play and the challenges they encounter. The institutional information shows how Congo s institutions have facilitated or hampered the private participation. The study methodology includes the following aspects: (i) presentation of the general context of the private health sector in Congo, (ii) multidimensional analysis of demand, (iii) multidimensional analysis of supply, and (iv) analysis of institutional context. Options for action presented in this report include (i) policy and governance initiatives, (ii) regulatory initiatives, (iii) incentive initiatives, and (iv) concrete measures for public-private partnerships (PPP) in the health sector."

Under its Health in Africa Initiative, IFC intended to conduct a country assessment of the private health sector in Mali, working in close collaboration with the World Bank and the Government of Mali.The Core objective of the Mali Country Assessment Report was to work closely with the Government of Mali and Development partners to develop recommendations for a reform program to strengthen the existing policy framework for the public-private interface in the health sector and to improve the delivery of health related goods and services for all Malians.As part of this, the purpose of the book was to: Determine the role the private sector currently plays in Mali 's health care system. Present a diagnose of the nature and effectiveness of the existing interface between the public and private sectors in Mali, health system constraints, as well as the business enabling and investment environment. Assist the World Bank Group to engage in policy dialogue with stakeholders in Mali 's health care system, and particularly with public officials and policy makers; and help develop detailed recommendations for the Government of Mali with policy makers and key stakeholders.

Our comprehensive industry guide for financial services professionals examines life, accident and health insurance from multiple viewpoints in or order to prepare individuals for their state's insurance licensing examinations. Providing a thorough overview of individual and group life and health insurance, life and health insurance products and a complete summarization of insurance company operations and regulations, this manual covers it all in an easy to read format. Additionally, chapters are devoted to the uses of life and health insurance in personal and business planning and government and employee benefit plans. This is also an outstanding reference manual for financial planners, salesmen, actuaries, investment managers, attorneys, CPAs and other financial services professionals.

The Health Care Safety Net in a Post-Reform World examines how national health care reform will impact safety net programs that serve low-income and uninsured patients. The "safety net" refers to the collection of hospitals, clinics, and doctors who treat disadvantaged people, including those without insurance, regardless of their ability to pay. Despite comprehensive national health care reform, over twenty million people will remain uninsured. And many of those who obtain insurance from reform will continue to face shortages of providers in their communities willing or able to serve them. As the demand for care grows with expanded insurance, so will the pressure on an overstretched safety net. This book, with contributions from leading health care scholars, is the first comprehensive assessment of the safety net in over a decade. Rather than view health insurance and the health care safety net as alternatives to each other, it examines their potential to be complementary aspects of a broader effort to achieve equity and quality in health care access. It also considers whether the safety net can be improved and strengthened to a level that can provide truly universal access, both through expanded insurance and the creation of a well-integrated and reasonably supported network of direct health care access for the uninsured. Seeing safety net institutions as key components of post-health care reform in the United States-as opposed to stop-gap measures or as part of the problem-is a bold idea. And as presented in this volume, it is an idea whose time has come.

This applied study addresses the large flood exposures of Central Europe and proposes efficient financial and risk transfer mechanisms to mitigate fiscal losses from such natural catastrophes. In 2010 the V-4 Visegrad countries (i.e., Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia) demonstrated their historical vulnerability to floods - Poland suffered $3.2 billion in flood related losses, comparable to it $3.5 billion of losses in 1997. Flood modeling analysis of the V-4 shows that a disaster event with a 5 percent probability in any given year can lead to economic losses in these countries of between 0.6 percent to 1.9 percent of GDP, as well as between 2.2 percent to 10.7 percent of government revenues. Larger events could quadruple such losses. The European Union Solidarity Fund is available as a mechanism for disasters but it comes into effect at only very high levels of losses, does not provide sufficient funding, and is not speedy. An insurance-like mechanism for National Governments can be tailored for country-portfolio needs for buildings, properties and critical infrastructure. By virtue of the broad territorial scope, fiscal support should use mechanisms that provide payments triggered by physical flood measurements in selected areas (rather than site-by-site losses as in the traditional insurance industry). A multi-country mechanism for insurance pooling of risks to protect infrastructure can also provide major cost efficiencies for all governments, using parametric-or index contracts. Savings from pooling can range from 25 to 33 percent of the financing costs that each country would otherwise have paid on its own. There are several instruments and options for both insurance, and debt financed mechanisms for funding catastrophes. All instruments can be analyzed based on equivalencies in terms of market spreads. A hybrid-like instrument, the catastrophe bond, is really a risk transfer instrument but structured as a debt security. The V-4 countries should therefore begin to set up the financial mechanisms to prevent major fiscal losses from future catastrophic floods and avoid fiscal disruptions when these occur. The instruments proposed can be market tested and supplemented with exacting studies on hydrology and topography used to fine tune the loss estimations per event and where property and infrastructure are exposed.|Kill the Messenger is perhaps the most thorough and authoritative work in defense of educational testing ever written. Phelps points out that much research conducted by education insiders on the topic is based on ideological preference or profound self-interest. It is not surprising that they arrive at emphatically anti-testing conclusions. Much, if not most, of this hostile research is passed on to the public by journalists as if it were neutral, objective, and independent. This volume explains and refutes many of the common criticisms of testing; describes testing opponents strategies, through case studies of Texas and the SAT; illustrates the profound media bias against testing; acknowledges testings limitations, and suggests how it can be improved; and finally, outlines the consequences of losing the war on standardized testing.

The government of the Republic of Congo is taking a system approach to reorganizing its health system. It is endeavoring to create a political, juridical, and regulatory environment to foster the development of its health care services under government leadership working with the private sector.

Retirement Preservation: a substantial amount of money is positioned in wealth-building tools that will not decrease in value if the stock market goes down and will lock in gains when the stock market goes up. Your retirement planning and wealth preservation goals are inextricably tied together. The financial strategies you have in place today impact both your present lifestyle and the one you envision for the future. Both require a comprehensive understanding of your personal goals. This platform includes strategies to develop a Tax-free retirement income and ways to assure flexibility, growth, and no principal risk. These methods can be used to build your retirement, provide for college tuition, generate additional savings and other uses. Your successful financial survival plan requires careful planning. If you don't know what you are planning for, then you might not get what you want. "Plan your work and work your plan." Easy to read, easy to implement plans that will exceed traditional methods.

Nonfinancial Defined Contribution (NDC) schemes are now in their teens. The new pension concept was born in the early 1990s, implemented from the mid-1990s in Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden, legislated most recently in Norway and Egypt and serves as inspiration for other reform countries. This innovative unfunded individual account scheme created high hopes at a time when the world seemed to have been locked into a stalemate between piecemeal reforms of ailing traditional defined benefit schemes and introducing pre-funded financial account schemes. The experiences and conceptual issues of NDC in its childhood were reviewed in a prior anthology (Holzmann and Palmer, 2006). This new anthology published in 2 volumes serves to review its adolescence and with the aim of contributing to a successful adulthood. Volume 1 on Lessons, Issues, Implementation includes a detailed analysis of the experience and the key policy lessons in the old and new pilot countries and general thoughts around the implementation of NDCs in other countries, including Chile, Greece and China. Volume 2 on Gender, Politics, Financial Stability includes deeper and new analyses of these issues that found limited or no attention in the 2006 publication. The key policy conclusions include: (i) NDC schemes work well (as documented by the experience of Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden during the crisis) but there is room to make them work even better; (ii) Go for an immediate transition to the new scheme to avoid future problems; (iii) Identify the legacy costs and their explicit financing during the transition as they will hit you otherwise soon; (iv) Adopt an explicit stabilizing mechanism to guarantee solvency; (v) Establish a reserve fund to guarantee liquidity; (vi) Elaborate an explicit mechanism to share the systemic longevity risk; and, last but not least; (vii) Address the gender implications of NDC with deeper analysis and open political discourse.

"Succinct, informative and approachable, Dan Fowler's latest book is as down-to-earth as it is a blueprint for getting ahead in any business. His observations and suggestions regarding the importance of quality staff and statesmanship are bedrock concepts for managers and small businesses.''

Bill Milligan
President, Call Newspapers

This book was conceived for veteran businesspeople that need to re-energize their business and their life. The ten steps outlined in this book will make it easier for anyone to succeed as a veteran businessperson. It's critical to learn how to focus on what's important in life and to carry it out in a balanced, productive way.

This book doesn't contain or uncover any great revelations about being successful. Instead, it is written from the author's thirty-three years of experience as a businessman in the insurance field, twenty years of involvement as a volunteer in the Mehlville School District and the example set by many of the people who he has worked with over the years.

You can't get better unless you learn from your mistakes and then make the necessary changes in your life so it doesn't happen again. Aging should be viewed as a good thing. We develop wisdom over the years and what we do with that knowledge is what this book is all about. It's easy to get off course.

"10 Steps to Energizing Your Business and Your Life" will help you get back on track.

The ASA Institute for Risk and Innovation has gathered 22 research notes focused on operational risk and written primarily by the institute's research associates. The collection is divided into four sections: business practices, business preparedness, business security, and emerging trends. The collection is introduced by Annie Searle, author of "Advice From A Risk Detective" (Tautegory Press, 2011), who also wrote three of the research notes. From the back cover: "Annie Searle, with support from her colleagues, leverages her expansive knowledge to compile a thought-provoking overview of business continuity planning and operational risk considerations. "Reflections on Risk" looks at the often neglected considerations and necessary controls that organizations of all sizes should consider in order to be more secure and resilient. This is particularly important at a time of rapid change and expanding use of information technology." --John Carlson, Executive Vice President, BITS "The apprenticeship opportunities that Searle's firm provides graduate students has produced a volume of notes that adds to the broader discourse around operational risk." -- Simon Beckett, Publisher, Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning

In forty-two years of adjusting insurance claims I saw many people become anxious and uncertain when faced with filing an insurance claim. This book was written to help these people approach their meeting with the insurance adjuster with a calm, assured attitude. This book is written so the material will make the person(s) with a claim more knowledgeable of the claims process and vocabulary. Thus communication during claims process with the adjuster is more comfortable and the results more positive. This problem has been reduced in recent years. This is good reading for someone who may be thinking about becoming an adjuster. It will give them information that might give them enouragement to look into the subject further.

If your goal is to pass your insurance test the first time without the hassle of big thick study books, the Crop Insurance, Iowa License Exam Manual is right for you. Every effort has been made to reduce the number of pages necessary to pass the test. The fresh format has smaller bites of information. Each exam topic is followed by multiple choice questions to reinforce your learning. Designed to stand alone or be used as a supplement, this easy to read manual is complete with a table of contents, insurance text, over 150 multiple choice practice questions, study tips and test taking tips. You will learn the exam topics needed to successfully pass your insurance test: general terms and concepts, crop hail insurance, multiple peril insurance, plans of insurance and Iowa laws, rules and regulations pertinent to crop insurance.