Insurance Books

I read this book in a bout 3 days, and was impressed with how detailed the book is. In some cases it gives you scripts for interviewing producers and other employees. It does give a very good overview to the design and strucutre of a hig producing office.

This will go against all the glowing reviews on the first four or five pages of the book. I made a mistake purchasing this book. I don't want to take over the world and I don't want to speak in industry jargon. I was mislead by the title and some of the reviews that I had read on Amazon before I purchased the book. I was looking for more of a small scale practical guide to some of the issues a small to medium sized agency experiences. If you already have a multi-billion dollar agency with thousands of employees this may be the book for you. However, if you have already built a large successful organization I am not sure why you would want to buy this book.

The purpose of the casebook is to reinforce your theoretical knowledge of finances. That is perfectly fulfilled. I have bought it as suplement to regular textbook. That is in my oppinion the best way of using it. I can recommend it to anyone who is not already significantly experienced.

The purpose of the casebook is to reinforce your theoretical knowledge of finances. That is perfectly fulfilled. I have bought it as suplement to regular textbook. That is in my oppinion the best way of using it. I can recommend it to anyone who is not already significantly experienced.

This book is written in a simple, straightforward style. It's like you're sitting with a friend who knows this stuff really well and is explaining it to you, without loading you down with all the complications you don't need to know at first. That said, as the chapters progress, it introduces lots of "complications" and always gives a full treatment--derivation, intuitive justifications, and formal proof (where appropriate). The authors have given a lot of thought to how to organize the subjects, and they anticipate most of the reader's questions.

There are adequate exercises after each chapter, and each exercise starts by giving you a hint as to what the problem is about. These hints are a big help in getting started on the problem. However, they are a crutch as well, and, as I faced the test, I found myself thinking "what, no hints?"

My only complaint is that very few answers are given in the back of the book. If you buy this book, I highly recommend getting the separate solution manual as well.

I purchased this textbook for a class. The class is kind of advanced and I am having to teach myself from the book. Unfortunately, the book does not give very many examples and only shows the simplest equations then expects to be able to solve the harder ones. Overall, the book is not very helpful/ user friendly.

I NEED MY BOOK PLESASE AT SEPTEMBER 29 '05 I NOT RECEIVED THE BOOK

Breezed through the book.
The diagrams and explanations make understand the code changes easy for me to understand.

The first review above of this book is clearly written by someone who knows the author. It may be good, it may be bad, but don't use this review as a guide.

This book is the most informative look at health care that I have ever read. It studies the most piercing issues of our time, in an easy-to-read format. Anyone who has any interest in America's health care system should buy this book! Read it, and then recommend it to your friends. I am sure that you will love Falling Through The Safety Net, and when you finish you will be a more informed citizen. Buy this book!

"Life Insurance Mathematics" is not a bad introductory book for student actuaries. This is a well set out, reasonably well explained book that covers the basic areas of this topic, including: compound interest mathematics; life tables; insurance and annuity functions; premium and reserve calculations; multiple decrements and multiple life functions.

The biggest problem with this book, is that it's just not detailed enough. At only 217 pages, the author barely has time to cover all of the topics that I just mentioned. I teach a unit in Life Insurance Mathematics and the things that my students are always asking for are examples and exercises. There are no worked examples in this text at all (although there are is reasonably large number of exercises, with solutions, in one of the appendices). Furthermore, this book only touches on the basics of Life Insurance math. It does not cover increasing annuities/insurances at all.

This is one of the better books on Life Insurance Mathematics, but only because the other books that are available aren't very good either.

This book is highly recommended for those who are interested in life insurance and superannuation models. It outlines various topics such as the actuarial mathematics and models for use in the analysis and actuarial management of life insurance and superannuation contracts. Topics covered include: the main forms of life insurance and annuity contracts, disability and long term care contracts and superannuation fund benefits; actuarial notation and the life table; moments of the value of the benefit payments; Thiele's differential equation for policy values; stochastic modelling of claims and benefit payments; gross premiums, net premiums, policy values and reserves; allowing for expenses and inflation; use of discounted emerging costs and profit tests; asset shares in life insurance; termination and alteration values; cost of guarantees; joint life functions; valuation of disability insurance contracts. If you are studying actuarial subjects that involve any of the above concepts then this book is recommended. Included are many questions with answers.

I completely disagree with the first reviewer -- there would be antitrust implications if the Author were to tell colleagues how to "avoid" dental managed care. The fact is that dental managed care participation can work for dentists IF they fully understand the concept of capitation risk AND negotiate a fair contract.

This book gives no suggestions for how a dentist can resist HMO's and remain in private practice. The author seems to think that managed care is inevitable and dentists need to get used to the "advantages" of managed care. He never even suggests that independant dentists can stay independant if we reduce overhead expenses and just say "no" to the HMO's.

...I cannot wait to see the term-life-only license in Canada.
On the other hand why there is no license for the cash-value-only agents?

Are you kidding me???? Does anyone get the picture of trash...oops sorry...cash value insurance. After reviewing several policies with clients I find over and over and over again...that #1. If something were to happen to a client with cash value insurance their loved ones would only get the face value of the policy...the cash within the policy is...ummm...SURRENDERED to the insurance company...(why shouldn't the client be told "upfront and personal" that they could buy a term policy...in which they still would only get the face value of the policy (same as cash value) and that they could invest their money ... hence, "buy term and invest the difference" (TERM is always cheaper that any cash policy) and earn MORE than the insurance company will pay for your "investment" within their policy??? #2. Why aren't clients told "upfront and personal" that generally the way a cash policy works is that the insurance agency will actually go purchase a term policy on their client for the face value of the policy, invest the difference in cost, pay the client on average 3-8% on "their" cash, while pocketing the other 12-17% themselves...and oh yeah #3. I love the part that they'll let you BORROW your cash anytime you need it...HELLO....thought that was MY cash...and now I can borrow it???? and pay it back with interest????...(Aren't they soooo generous...)oh yeah... it gets better...in some cases the client doesn't have to pay it back...The amount of THEIR CASH that is BORROWED...the insurance company will gladly just take the amount off of the face value when the client "checks out"...of course if the client sticks around long enough there will be enough interest tacked on that maybe, just MAYBE, there will be enough 'face value' left to bury them. PEOPLE>...wake up! Read your insurance policies!!!!!!!....I have actually sat down with one client that had recently came into some money...and went out to do what was best for his family...purchase INCOME PROTECTION (which is what life insurance is supposed to be about...NOT an investment). The agent told him that he could go ahead and put money inside the policy to start growing interest...that it would be a great retirement plan. Upon review it was found that should the client have died not only would any cash that had 'grown' within the policy be surrendered upon death...but so would the $10K he 'invested'...GREAT RETIREMENT PLAN huh? SOMEBODY HELP THESE PEOPLE...

This is a thoughtful and comprehensive piece of work by an industry insider whose practical experience of the topic is clear. I found this helpful both for myself as head of operational risk in a financial institution, as have some of the other staff in my department.

One of the most significant debates in the financial industry nowadays is the one of quantification of operational risk. This book does not add anything to the discussion. Find qualitative standards for operational risk inside a bank is a challenging but always achievable task as it usually relies on the particular characteristics of the own organization. The problem lies on the quantification. Subjects like operational risk capital allocation, VaR models, correlation etc are not mentioned here. The book is absolutely qualitative with many flaws even there.

The book was supposed to be "like new" and i came all bent up on all corners and there was a coffee stain inside one front cover and on the first couple of pages. This book has question and answer sections and you need a special paper to see the answers and this guy didnt even put it in there so basically the book is worthless to me. I am not happy at all and you wont be either.

The red see-through thing that reveals the answers to the quizzes is a little juvenile...I'd have preferred the answers on another page myself because if you ever played password in your life, you'll remember that you can see right through that stuff whether you want to or not. HOWEVER, that said, this is a really well-written tool and the many self-testing quizzes through it were very helpful to say the least. I'd buy it again if I had to do this again which I don't - THANK GOODNESS!