As I wrote in the previous entry, I will be retiring as of April 30 and wanted to say good-bye to the industry in two parts.  The first part of this farewell dealt with some general observations. This part will deal with some of the people it’s been my privilege to know and work with over the years.

Obviously, one is going to meet an awful lot of people in a 30-year career.  It would be impossible for me to mention everyone with whom I’ve shared something memorable.  So, if you’re in the business and we’ve had drinks or dinner, or I’ve interviewed you or leaned on you for comments or any of the other innumerable things editors do, then please assume that you contributed to my gratifying stay here at NU and that in some degree I’ll miss you.

Due to space limitations I’m going to concentrate on some of the folks I’ve worked with on the magazine in the last 3 decades.  Old timers (hey guys, I’m one of you now) may remember some of these names, while the Twitterati likely won’t. 

First, I’d like to remember Bill Macfarlane, who was editor when I landed here.  Bill also had a long career at NU and was full of joie de vivre. He came the closest of anyone to being my mentor and, indeed, even now I will be following his example of moving to Cape Cod after I retire. 

Another colleague, also now departed, who I remember with the greatest affection is Mary Jane Fisher, NU’s longtime Washington correspondent. She had a fascinating life and I used to love it when there was an industry meeting in D.C. and I could take Mary Jane out to dinner. We’d talk politics and since both of us were dyed-in-the-wool liberals we’d usually end up bashing Republicans. 

It’s been my pleasure and my honor to be editor of two legendary industry leaders who had stints as columnists for NU.  First was Don Barnes, whose writing was a model of clarity and wit, and second is Jack Bobo, who still anchors the last page of every issue and is a model for anyone seeking to stay sharp and active in retirement. 

Any editor worth his salt will tell you that the staff is what makes or breaks a publication. Some of the people I’ve worked with who are no longer with NU–Carole Ann King, Jim Connolly, Cynthia Crosson and Lisa Howard–each contributed greatly to the magazine’s success.

Then there’s the current staff and I could not be more blessed than having writers like Trevor Thomas, Allison Bell, Warren Hersch, Dave Postal and my dear friend Linda Koco to work with day in and day out.

Nor can I forget my art director Don Heyl whose work has done so much for these pages.  

Penultimately (to use one of his favorite words) there’s my long-time colleague and editor of NU’s property-casualty magazine, Sam Friedman.  Together we’ve had to fight so many battles and lift so many loads over the years. I couldn’t have asked for a better comrade in arms than Sam, with whom I’ve shared lots of laughs (often laced with large dollops of gallows humor).

Finally, there’s Andy Goodenough, president and CEO of Summit Business Media.  Andy’s mandate, when he bought the company, was for me to write signed columns to go upfront in the magazine with my picture.  I was to make them controversial, he said, and when I asked him if he was sure, he said yes he was.  Well, he’s stood behind me all these years, calling people who wrote to him wanting to cancel their subscription because of something I wrote or who wanted to tell him to throw me out.  Thanks for having my back, Andy.

It’s been a great ride, folks, and no doubt I’m going to miss a lot of it, but it’s time for turning a new page and being the editor of the next stage of my life. 

Thanks for the memories.

Come the end of April, I will be retiring after 30 years with National Underwriter. (And yes, Virginia, it is a voluntary retirement, thank you.)

So, this will be one of my last pieces as NU Life & Health’s Editor-in-Chief and the first of two parts of a farewell to the business I’ve been fortunate to cover for 3 decades.  What I thought I’d do is use this posting for some reflections about the life and health insurance business in general and then in another one remember some of the outstanding people it’s been my benefit to meet and be associated with in the course of these 30 years.

Let me start by saying that this has been a fascinating business to cover for a number of reasons.  For one, life and health insurance (and here I’m also including disability, ancillary coverages, annuities, etc.) have a visceral importance to people.  You can’t get more to the core of what deeply concerns people than dealing with their “life” and their “health,” and by extension, their families, what they love and what they value most. 

For another, this is a business that for one reason or another always seems to be under attack and thus in the midst of a struggle.  As a journalist I can tell you that this makes for good copy and it makes for interesting stories.  Not only do you have to cover the attacks, but also the industry’s defense and, in some cases, its counterattacks.

This situation has only been exacerbated as the shadow of Washington continues to grow over the insurance business.

For another, this is a business riddled with contradictions.  Its very basis is solemn promises and high aspirations, but the delivery on those noble ideals can run the gamut from total fulfillment to being very shabby indeed.

Society, information technology, communications—all have changed greatly over the last 30 years.  In some cases, the life and health business has kept pace with these changes, but in many other cases the industry has not changed much at all or has lost some ground.

Thirty years ago, for instance, I believe the industry was more successful in reaching the middle class, especially in terms of life insurance coverage, than it is now.  (Not that it was so great back then either.)  There’s been such a widespread emphasis among companies about reaching the well-to-do with larger policies that little if any progress has been made in increasing the reach of life insurance into the precincts of those who are lower on the economic ladder but still have families to protect.

This is a serious failing that the industry leaves unaddressed at its peril.

There is also a tendency in the business to assume that the provisions of law and the tax code upon which many of its products are built are sacrosanct.  Yet what Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away.

This of course is where a lot of that struggle that I referred to above comes in.  The further life insurance is taken from its “widows and orphans” base (i.e, as a force for good in society) to one where the product is used to facilitate all kinds of tax avoidance and other estate planning techniques makes for a more attackable industry, in my view. 

This is also a contributor to the industry’s being not well understood and as such, prey to forays by one administration after another looking for revenue and seeing in the industry a potential goldmine.

I forget who it was that first said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”  (I think it was some French guy.)  And while I don’t think he had the life insurance business in mind, he could have.  And that’s both good and bad.

I’ll leave you with that thought until next time.

What is it about this business?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece called ‘Tone Deaf,’ which spoke to the health insurance industry’s propensity for shooting itself in the foot, with ever more powerful weapons as time goes on.

That was before the health care reform bill was enacted into law.

But no sooner had the bill been signed by President Obama than health insurers were looking for loopholes to avoid complying with some provisions. 

So, of course, the one that gained the most notoriety had to do with insurers parsing the bill’s fine print and coming up with a justification for not insuring some kids with pre-existing conditions until 2014. 

Despite what the fine print may say and however finely one may parse it, it is obvious what the law’s spirit is for insuring children with pre-existing conditions—that is to say, this is to start in September.  It’s obviously what the bill’s writers meant and what the President had been trumpeting as a major immediate benefit of the bill.

Why, then, of all possible provisions in a 2,000+-page law do health insurers pick this one upon which to make their first play?  Is this business so hopelessly addicted to being considered the bad guy that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy?   Or is it the thrill of seeing how far it can go?  Or does it get off on the anger such moves engender?

The responses can get pretty angry.

Here’s what Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., had to say: “The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous.”

Another statement had him using the word ‘reprehensible.’

Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services Secretary, wrote to Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, that health insurers should stop looking for “non-existent loopholes.”  Sebelius also said she would be she would be issuing regulations in coming weeks that would clarify that “the term ‘pre-existing condition exclusion’ applies to both a child’s access to plan and to his or her benefits once he or she is in the plan.”

To cause such a needless stir, we must be talking about millions of kids, right?  Well, not exactly. 

According to the Wall Street Journal (and since it appeared in the Journal even the industry’s staunchest defenders will accept it as gospel), the figure is 1% to 2% of the estimated 8 million uninsured children—that is, 80,000 to 160,000 kids.

In referring to these numbers, the Journal quoted Sara Rosenbaum, chairwoman of the health policy department at George Washington University, as saying: “We’re talking nationwide about a handful of children…I can’t imagine why insurance companies are fighting this so hard.”

As the pressure grew, insurers saw the light.  An AHIP spokesman said, “We understand policymakers are contemplating changes to the provisions related to coverage for children, and we will implement any revisions that are made.”

Couldn’t somebody have thought of this before the lawyers got their fangs into the bill?  And if not, why not? 

Hey, Dr. Phil, do you ever take entire industries as subjects on your show?  The health insurance business needs help and while it’s true the business is not a kid, it sure has a pre-existing condition.