Insurance Books

One of America's leading physician experts on American health are provides an eye-opening, damning coverage of the nation's failings on medical coverage for the uninsured. John Geyman is a teacher, medical leader and practitioner: his positions allow him through background knowledge of how the system works - and doesn't work - as well as providing keys to not just understanding problems, but solving them. Falling Through The Safety Net is a 'must' for any serious about family medicine and health care costs.

This is a great introductory book to the subject of universal health care (UHC) in general and the struggle for UHC in the USA. It will also serve well as a basic references on the subject for someone already well-informed but wishing specific numerous references. It is well-written and highly accessible to almost any interested party (not at all limited to experts or academics).

The one caveat is that Dr. Geyman's chapter on the "Right to Health Care" is misinformed, shallow and (therefore) dismissive of the topic. The book would have been much better had he left that chapter out. Having added it and then failing to do any serious study or responsible consideration of human rights law generally, social-economic rights law, or of similar civil rights laws, he did the entire book (otherwise excellent) a terrible disservice in that one chapter.

When all is said and done, American consumers are more alike than they are different. This truth of human psychology provides the bedrock of our mass production economy; it is possible to create core products that millions of people will buy, and it is possible to design methods of presontation and marketing that millions of people will respond to. Consistancy beats creativity. That said, individuals, even those who aren't considered wildly creative or in any way eccentric still need to shave off 5 - 10% of their personalities to find their fit in cultures devoted to providing a consistant product or approach to business.

Dr. Leidner's study of how this morphing of individual to group collective focuses on two job classes at diverse ends of the American economic experience. On the one side is McDonalds, whose counter and burger flipping positions, even if in many instances filled by students on their way to something far different, have also become a shorthand for employment of last resort among those with few skills, options, and long term prospects. On the other end of the study is Combined Insurance Company of America (CICA), a subsidiary of Aon Corp. CICA is a sales driven company, and sales - dispite the field's high washout rate - remains for those who do it well the highest paying profession in America.

Early on Dr. Leidner suggests that there is irony in the fact that these companies, which rely on structure and standardization to a degree uncommon in their respective fields, were formed by highly dynamic individualists, Ray Krock and W. Clement Stone respectively, who challenged convention and relied on personal instinct in building their empires. It makes for a nice sentence or two, but most people who build empires, be they Krock and Stone, or Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, James Hill, Michael Dell, Sam Walton, etc use a different approach to building than will subsiquently be needed to maintain and expand those companies. Even a company as wildly creative as Apple Computer needs to instill a degree of structure within the organization if only so it doesn't fall prey to entrophy.

Still, organizational struture isn't the theme of the book, instead it is what happens to people whose jobs involve working directly with customers, human interactions, that realm of life where individual personality is most apt to express itself, but who are told to conduct those exchanges with the same routine and scripting of a working standing at a machine and mass producing parts on an assembly line. Because McDonalds is a recognizeable American icon most of the attention given this book - including the other review on this site - focuses on the chapters dealing with the fast food giant. I found the chapters about Combined Insurance Company far more interesting. I work in sales and during my second year in the field I joined (and have since left) CICA in Virginia during the time that Leidner was doing her research and observations in the company's midwestern operations.

Leidner focused on the company's Life divison, even as she stated that the Accident Indemnity divison which I sold in, practiced the greatest reliance on standardized presentations and scripting in general. In her assessment the company's philosophy of reliance on a tightly structured sales system came at the expense of individualism and forced sales reps to subliminate elements of their own personalities and as such had to struggle with feelings of inauthicity and a loss of self.

To a degree her assessment makes sense, and as CICA gave her full access to the company's sales school, as well as interivews and field time with new agents and managers, her studies did reflect what her subjects cited as their actual experiences. That said - and dispite CICA giving her more cooperation and acceptance than some at McDonalds gave her - I feel that she didn't do as complete a job of putting CICA in its proper place within the evolution of sales methods over the past 100+ years.

Dr. Leidner seemed at times to subscribe to the myth of the 'natural born salesperson'. The hired gun who shot from the hip, said whatever came to mind, and sold circles around everyone else b/c of inate abilities that couldn't be studied, quantified, or taught. This misconception has long bitten at the heals of anyone who dared argue that sales can be taught. In the 1890's when John Henry Peterson organized the first sales schools for NCR reps, and wrote the first standardized sales manual, which he demanded his reps follow - at the risk of being fired even if they met quota while using other methods there has been a debate over whether selling is a learnable skill or an artform that one either has or hasn't. People in the latter camp react to any approach to standardize the field in the same way a literary writer reacts to romance and mystery novelist who churn out and sell formulaic fiction by the boatload.

It has been my observation over 20 plus yrs that people who enter sales with the latter view often washout and return to other fields when they find that doing it by the seat of their pants doesn't work. CICA's training wasn't so much about denying indiviual initiative, but about giving the individual agent tools that worked (this afterall is the field where Elmer Wheeler, the man remembered for coining the phrase 'sell the sizzle, not the steak' found that a sales rep could increase his sales 500% just by omitting two words in his closing sentence).

Reading Dr. Leidner's account of new hires trying to deal with CICA's methods in 1987 I was reminded of some of my long forgotten impressions from sales school. At the time I watched my classmates, most of whom were new to sales and with little previous knowledge of the history of the field, its inovators, and groundbreakers, or of the principles of human behavior that drove the methods, react defensively and with uncertainty to what they were being taught. My impression at the time was that CICA could have generated greater acceptance of its methods if some time had been given to validating the underlying principles - which that minority of us with prior sales backgrounds knew to be true. Dr. Leidner's interviews suggested that some of the new agents she spent time with struggled with the same thing.

As such, what she terms a stuggle to keep subverting the self, and losing one's individuality to scripted methods, may in fact have been an individual lost in a tool chest or weighed down by a tool belt such that they somehow failed to see themselves for what they really were, craftsmen provided with world class tools, whose success or failure would depend on how they as individuals used those tools.

Hungry and tired of the banality of couscous, hara (a tomato based soup) and tajine that I had been eating in Morocco for the past four months, I burst through the doors of one of the McDonald's in the city of Casablanca. I was on a mission. I had dragged several of my friends by train, bus, taxi, and foot for the singular purpose of eating a Big Mac. I was feed up. I needed food that I could trust to be produced in some standardized fashion, that would be clean and well cooked. I also needed to use a bathroom that was clean. This "quest" occurred during a foreign exchange to Morocco during the fall of 2000. But the story begins much earlier perhaps in 1994 when I was 12 or 13. My father had taken me to our local Borders bookstore in the suburbs of Philadelphia to hear a lecture about McDonald's of all things (I was home schooled at the time and going to lectures such as these was a continual part of my education). Robin Leidner's lecture was probably my first exposure to sociology and I believe one of the causes that lead to a radical shift in my adolescent thinking. Never again was the world the same. In a sense, Robin Leidner gave birth to my "sociological imagination." Ever since I have also been fascinated by McDonald's as an indicator of American culture. There is something awe inspiring about the success of McDonald's and its guarantee of a certain quality of food, cheer, and service no matter where in the world I should travel. (The phenomonem of McDonald's seems reminscent of something one might find in a dystopian post-industrial science ficiton story.) That at, one time, 7% of US workers had worked at McDonald's at one time or another, speaks to the influence of McDonald's in the lives of Americans. On the other hand, the routinization that has been key to McDonald's success raises questions of alienation, autonomy and robotization of employees for the sake of profit. Ever present is the conflict between self-identity and existence in a corporate world that requires all things to be standerdized. Dr. Leidner provides insight into corporate culture that many of us will at sometime or another participate in. It would be good judgment to know what we are getting ourselves involved in. I, for one, have learned to appreciate the significance of McDonald's organizational structure, while being cogent of the impact of its corporate values on the individual and society. There is a sense of empowerment in "decoding" society and locating ones position in society and it is my hope that others, outside of academia, will read Leidner's book and become consciouse of their organizational context. There is the sense of a prophecy fulfilled. After first seeing Dr. Leidner and reading of the expansion of McDonald's to Morocco, I have, seven years later eaten at the first McDonald's in Morocco, always with "Fast Food, Fast Talk" in mind. The impetus for this has always been to see for myself if Dr. Leidner was right: could McDonald's really be the same everywhere? It would seem that my life has already come full circle. As the result of my first exposure to sociology from Dr. Leidner, I am currently studying the sociology of work and occupation!

Book in perfect condition, arrived extremely fast!!! Thanks so much! Hope to do business with again.

In-depth coverage and breakdown the medical insurance industry; private insurance, government insurance and group insurance. Explanations of why and how the process has evolved to what it is today. Discusses HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Complete instructions for the HCFA and UB-92 claim forms as well as paper claims. Explanation of the coding process, not to in-depth about the codes themselves. Each chapter followed up with summary, key terms and review questions. Hope this review was helpful!!

With a gift for lean, driven prose, during his lifetime Joseph Hansen (1923-2004) was regarded as one the finest authors working within the classic California private eye genre. His best-known works are a series of twelve novels written between 1970 and 1992 that feature insurance claims investigator Dave Brandstetter, a tough, no-nonsense detective--who also happens to be homosexual and utterly unconcerned about that fact.

Originally published in 1982, GRAVEDIGGER finds Brandstetter employed to verify a life-insurance claim on Serenity Westover, a young woman who may or may not be dead and who may or may not have been murdered by a vicious cult leader with whom she was known to be involved in the years before her death. The already difficult case is further complicated by the claimant: her father, a disbarred attorney in desperate need of money who has gone mysteriously missing along with his son.

Written with Hansen's remarkably precise style, the plot clips along at a terrific pace and to a memorable conclusion, and along the way also allows us glimpses of Brandstetter's private life as well, as he tries to balance the needs of a lover half his age as well as protect a long-time friend against an unfortunate romantic connection. Frequently stark, on occasional unexpectedly witty, GRAVEDIGGER is a strong-arm page turner indeed. Recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This is book number six in Hansen's acclaimed series of Dave Brandstetter mysteries. Brandstetter is the tough, no nonsense but highly cosmopolitan insurance claims adjuster in southern California who loves a good martini, listens to string quartets, and solves complicated murders.

In this outing a young woman is missing and believed murdered by the crazed leader of a sex cult. Her father has attempted to cash in on an insurance policy taken out on his daughter, and this leaves Brandstetter in considerable doubt, especially since the father himself is no where to be found. He sets out to put all the pieces of the puzzle in place.

This is my favorite so far of the series. It's an absorbing read from beginning to its (literally) explosive ending and is much more gory and gruesome than previous entries. All the Hansen felicities are here: terrific pace, expert characterization, snappy dialogue, and absolutely flawless depictions of scene and atmosphere. An extra treat is the sidelight on Dave's love life, his growing relationship with TV journalist Cecil Harris, thirty years Dave's junior and with ambitions of his own. Their rocky relationship shows a tender side to Dave glimpsed only fleetingly in earlier books.

Hansen is a rare bird among writers of all stripes: he's a stylist who can also tell a story that grips you. Read him, enjoy him, savor him.

I knew nothing about health insurance. This book is definitely worth the money. What makes it stand out is there are examples they give to make it more clear, as well as a CD and test questions.

The book presents medical billing employment opportunities, discusses biller's qualifications, introduces the ICD-9 and CPT concepts, teaches how to develop a claim, guides the completion of HCFA forms, discusses electronic data interchange, and offers separate chapters on managed care, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Medicare, Medicaid, and workers compensation. Each chapter includes key terms and learning objectives as well as reinforcement exercises and examples designed to help learning the basics of insurance billing.

An excellent entry-level text for those learning about the insurance billing process.

Yuval Lirov, Practicing Profitability - Billing Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinics and Chiropractic Offices: Collections, Audit Risk, SOAP Notes, Scheduling, Care Plans, and Coding

A well written argument for consumer-driven healthcare and good insights into the excesses caused by government intervention in healthcare financing. Predictably the government run programs that were launched in the Lyndon Johnson "Great Society" programs in the mid-60s have exceeded their spending projections ten-fold from where we were told they would be today. These have made the US more of a welfare state than many welfare states, but it proves that if you give something away, like healthcare, you get to give a lot of it away. The latest massive expansion of Medicare into a drug benefit is the biggest open air theft of the incomes of future generations than any goverment program to date. The authors embrace a free market solution in which healthcare is bought like everything is bought: look at the price, look in your pocketbook, and decide if it's a good value. I recommend reading a companion Cato Institute book by Arnold Kling: Crisis of Abundance.

The health care debate has reached a new crescendo in America as of late. It is due to the rapid escalating costs of health care while the quality of health care has had some noticeable decline in some areas. Currently, health care insurance is very expensive if you have to purchase it without an employer or some sort of government assistance: Health care premiums have slowly moved beyond the reach of more and more Americans. Additionally, the looming financial crisis in Medicare as baby boomers start to retire will require some sort of large scale reform.
Michael Cannon and Michael Tanner make a convincing and articulate argument for less government intervention in an industry that is surprisingly dominated, directly and indirectly, by the federal government: They tease away the layers of state mandates, federal regulation, onerous FDA oversight and overall bureaucratic waste that bloat the cost of health care in America. Cannon and Tanner proceed to elucidate the reform needed to stem the rising tide of cost while improving the general quality of patient care. Most of the reforms involve an overhaul in federal tax codes, expansion of HSA programs, eliminating the monopoly that the FDA enjoys and many others. This book is well researched, revealing and logical. Please note, there is quite a bit of technical information and a trove of statistical data in this book. It reads a bit like it was written for policy wonks or academics but still very accessible to the layman.

John was an icon of the industry and a very down to earth fellow. The book is an easy read with some real gems, but can be a little verbose at times.

As an insurance professional I am disappointed at the lack of insurance industry specific material available. Mr. Savage is right up there with Ben Feldman and Jack and Garry Kinder in the insurance industry. Mr. Savage encourages simplicity in his presentations rather than the complicated 45 min - one hour sessions as taught by most major insurance companies. I find his material a great read, full of insight and information. His other books, Savage on Selling and It's Getting Easier" are also highly recommended. I am still looking for a copy of "The Easy Sale" if anyone finds one less than $$$ for the paperback.

Maria was way ahead of her time when she wrote this book and she is way ahead of her time even now! I included a small profile of her in my own book "The Expert's Edge" because she is the consummate "thought leader." Insurance firms and executives would be wise to listen to her.

If you want to know where the insurance industry SHOULD be headed, devour this book. You will learn much.

But will they buy?

Maria Thomson, FSA, MAAA, has done the industry a service with her new book, "Insurance Coverage for ALL...and How Insurers Can Afford to Provide It." Inside this thin book (88 pages, including notes, so you can finish it at a sitting) is a fatter book longing to be written. But it is a stimulating read, raising a number of different issues, and it should lead to some lively debate, and, I hope, further analysis.

Thomson's basic philosophy is that insurance is a GOOD THING, and therefore we should all have more of it. She does an excellent job of reminding us about the lines of insurance where penetration is low, and where more coverage would be beneficial, e.g., to her target population - roughly, middle class employed people, coverage such as disability income. The "need for insurance coverage" concept is one that could benefit from further analysis: All people are not equal, and the need for type and amount of coverage appropriate for different profiles of the population differ by age, family composition, marital status, stage of life, resources and wealth, access to social and government programs, level of risk tolerance, to name a few. The relative aging of the population, the decrease in the child dependency ratio, the increase in the number of two-earner families over the past 20 years, and the increase in alternative and more attractive investment vehicles makes it hardly surprising that life insurance ownership has fallen.

Thomson's thesis for this decrease in ownership can be summarized as follows:

· Insurance companies have abandoned the middle-class market to focus on the affluent.
· Most people have inadequate insurance for their needs.
· Selling in the traditional model is becoming cost-prohibitive.
· Traditional underwriting is slow and expensive, making buying difficult.

This leads to her recommendations for the industry:

· Develop more simple products.
· Focus on faster and more streamlined issue processes.
· Develop alternative channels such as work-site marketing and bancassurance.

The discussion of the rise and fall of the debit market was, for me, one of the more interesting sections of this book. The puzzling issue, however, is why the debit insurance market died, rather than evolving to a form of distribution like the Avon, Longaberger or Tupperware models. I would have liked to read more about the bancassurance market, which has arguably not taken off in the U.S. Thomson tells us it has been successful in Europe. It has been tried in Canada, and some Canadian experience would be helpful.

The discussion of product development focusing on needs of the target population is a useful one that deserves expansion. One of the interesting consequences of focusing on need as the basis of product design is that you end up with rather messy products that do not fit easily into existing "buckets."

When it comes to finding ways to provide broader coverage for a large number of households, we should not overlook group insurance. According to Thomson, about 52 percent of households own group life insurance, slightly more than own individual life insurance (Table 2.2, p. 14). The percentage of households covered by group life is higher, if you exclude those over 65 (as a proxy for retired workers) and those living in single households (as a proxy for "need"), who together constituted about 34 percent of all households according to the 1990 census. Despite its size and relative importance, the group life insurance (and affinity group) market is the "Cinderella" of the industry, too often ignored by those who come from a more traditional background.

With regard to underwriting and issue, group life already meets some of the important criteria that Thomson recommends for the industry ("a well-screened policy issued instantly", p. 9): group life is widely available; the products are simple; and the underwriting and issue process is simple and fast. Most employees (and dependents, in those plans that cover dependents) are covered immediately for the guaranteed-issue limit, provided the employee meets the actively-at-work test (or the dependent non-confinement rule, in the case of dependents). Rates are reasonably competitive with those of individually underwritten products, for the same reasons that Thomson discusses in her modeling of the cost and benefit of underwriting. Workers who do not have access through an employer-sponsored plan can often find competitive coverage through unions or trade associations.

So why is group insurance the "Cinderella" coverage? Possibly, because it relies on employers for marketing, and employers have more pressing benefits issues on their minds. Or maybe it's because the companies that sell group insurance do not do a good job of promoting the product, either to the employer (first sale) or to the employee (second sale). Or perhaps it's due to the fact that there has been limited product development in group life, although there have been some significant innovations in the last few years:

· Group Universal Life
· Interest continuation accounts (bank accounts for beneficiaries)
· Acceleration of benefits on terminal or critical illness.
· Portability/direct-billing on termiation of employment.

Though there are topics I would like to see addressed in more detail, Thomson has written a useful and thought-provoking book, which I recommend to all traditional and non-traditional actuaries and marketing people.

A thorough and concise summary of the critical concepts of Insurance Law. An excellent supplement to Insurance Law texts and very handy as a quick reference tool.

I've taken Professor Dobbyn's insurance class, and let me tell you that everything he said there has been boiled down to very clear and concise points in this book. It's the only book on insurance you would ever need - a must for any student taking insurance law. From basic concepts of insurance to specific rules, this book covers everything.

This book was more than just pretty good--it pretty well described the ups and downs of any small business.

I'm in business for myself and at a crossroads. While perusing the internet for work, I've considered switching careers into Insurance and found this book while doing so. I must say, I bought the book based on the cover--I'm an airplane guy, too--and that caught my eye. As they say "you can't judge a book by its cover," in this case you could. Chuck Tompkins writes with the same voice as what you might imagine from first laying eyes on this combative, tongue-in-cheek book cover.

Originally from the Great Plains and understanding farm life, I could really relate to all of these stories Tompkins tells in The Insurance Wars. Especially the parts about small family business, borrowing money and having your business affect your home life and family. Recently my wife gave me "what fer" about my small business having financial troubles, and literally after reading this book, I went home with it, certain parts in the book underlined and went, "SEE! Here's a guy that stuck with it and succeeded--!"

After reading The Insurance Wars I'm certainly not going to become and independent insurance agent, in fact, I'm going to follow Chuck Tompkins advice and stick with the one thing I know best, my business, but also keep in mind that the rewards besides being your own boss, are long term.

This book is a great read, it's an easy read, it's very conversational and the stories made me feel like I was listening to my grandfather around the campfire!

I loved this book. My husband gave it to me to read, and I thought, "The Insurance Industry? What do I really need to know about that?" But from the first page, I realized Chuck Tompkins did not intend to only educate young Independent Insurance Agents, but much like "Zen, and the art of Archery" Tompkins was speaking directly to the entrepreneurial spirit in us all and how the topic of "Insurance" could double as a metaphor for anyone.

Practically everyone in this new day and age has had an idea for a start-up business, but as most of us know, that's usually a hope, whim and a dream. However, for those still contemplating such a venture, this book is a MUST READ!

Tompkins takes the reader on a whirlwind of humorous and touching life-stories, with full account of the business and personal sacrifices needed to be a successful business person. And, what I felt was a very revealing reality of the Insurance Industry, which I'm pleased to know more of...speaking specifically of the fact that I know now: That I'd rather do ANY OF MY INSURANCE COVERAGE through an actual independent agent, than a large National firm whom doesn't know me personally.

In the end, you don't have to know much about insurance, or care for that matter, this book also reads as a testament to the old- school philosophy of "a handshake is still how business gets done," but with a real sense of reality about the modern-day necessities of the use of technology to keep up with the business world and trends.

I highly recommend this book for anyone 18-80 years old!