Sagan Beats Greipel for Third Stage Victory

The 22-year-old Slovak outpaced the leading part of a scattered bunch to achieve a spectacular treble ahead of Germany's Andre Greipel, the winner of the two previous stages and one of many riders to hit the tarmac between Epernay and Metz.

Australian Matthew Goss took third while Swiss Fabian Cancellara, who also avoided the worst pile-up of the day, retained his overall leader's yellow jersey.

"I won five in California, four in Switzerland, now three in France. I didn't expect to win that many stages in my first Tour but why stop now?" said Sagan, who went tumbling to the tarmac in the previous stage.

"I was lucky to be unhurt. In stages like this, everybody wants to be in the front and it causes unnecessary crashes," he told reporters.

Some Tour contenders were not so lucky and three riders, American Tom Danielson, Italy's Davide Vigano and Spain's Mikel Astarloza were forced to bid farewell to the race.

World champion Mark Cavendish was held up in the chaos which took place 26 kilometres from the finish and was, therefore, unable to be part of the final sprint, but other riders have probably lost the Tour even before Saturday's first mountain stage.

American team Garmin were among the hardest hit, losing Danielson, eighth last year, while their Canadian leader Ryder Hesjedal, escorted by David Millar and Tyler Farrar, finished more than 13 minutes off the pace.

The Giro d'Italia champion was sent to hospital for checks after crossing the line.

FIRST MOUNTAIN STAGE

"We'll have to change our game plan now and cheer each other up. We'll get over it," said Garmin's David Zabriskie, who launched the day's long break and was caught under the last kilometre marker.

Among the other top-flight riders held up in the day's crashes were Luxembourg's Frank Schleck and Spain's Alejandro Valverde, who both lost 2:09, while Dutchman Robert Gesink finished 3:31 adrift.

"It hurts all over. It was awful. Hopefully nothing's broken," said Schleck, who finished third overall last year.

RadioShack rider Cancellara, who leads Briton Bradley Wiggins by seven seconds in the general classification, spent his 28th day in total in the yellow jersey but conceded it would probably be the last this Tour.

The peloton reaches the first serious climbs in the 199-km seventh stage ending at the summit of La Planche des Belles Filles.

"Someone else will probably hold the jersey tomorrow. I will now need to recuperate from the physical and the mental stress of the jersey and concentrate on the time trials ahead," Cancellara said.

Sagan, who is not yet a mountain specialist, will also wait for flatter days to shine again and defend his lead in the points classification.

"My goal now is to reach Paris with the green jersey. The Tour is still very long and it's important to save some energy for the third week," he said.

(Editing By Alison Wildey)

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Tour de France: Peter Sagan Wins His Third Stage at the Tour de France

BELLEGARDE-SUR-VALSERINE, FRANCE — There was no intricate celebration from Peter Sagan this time, just a primal scream and a flex of the arms as he crossed the finish line a winner for the third time in this Tour de France.

In his wake were Andre Greipel and other dejected sprinters, who fell short of victory on the overcast, crash-filled stage six, a 207-kilometer, or 129-mile, ride that saw yellow-jersey hopes fade for a number of contenders, including Ryder Hesjedal and Frank Schleck.

For Sagan, a 22-year-old Slovakian riding with Liquigas-Cannondale, it is another chapter in what has been a dream Tour debut.

Last Sunday, the green jersey leader won the race’s first stage, then snagged another victory on Wednesday’s stage three. Although a crash forced him out of yesterday’s sprint finish in Rouen, won by Greipel, a rider for Lotto-Belisol, Sagan put himself in excellent position again on Friday in Metz, sneaking onto the back of Greipel’s lead-out train before rushing past the German to the line.

“I didn’t think at the start I could win today,” Sagan told French television. “I was on Greipel’s wheel and I started and then I knew I could win it.”

Matt Goss of Orica-GreenEDGE finished third. Mark Cavendish of Team Sky, the British sprinter who won stage two, was caught in a crash 15.5 miles from the line and did not contest the finale.

The sprint stakes were higher on Friday than they have been all week. The stage, which started in the Champagne center of Épernay and meandered east through the Marne, past World War I battle monuments, before arriving in Metz, was the sprinters’ last opportunity for glory until next Saturday, when the race heads to the Mediterranean coast.

Sagan is not a pure sprinter; his win at last year’s Tour of Poland and in other stage races have shown he can excel in the mountains, which begin Saturday. He was asked on Friday how many stages he could win.

“I don’t know, maybe more,” he said. “I’m not going to stop with three.”

Saturday’s stage, which concludes with a steep uphill climb to La Planche des Belles Filles — a ski area in the Vosges mountain range — was supposed to bring the first selection in the race for the yellow jersey. But a major accident, one of three crashes in the stage, shook up the overall standings. About 24 kilometers from the finish, nearly half of the main bunch was slowed by a spill on a narrow two-lane road outside of Metz.

“It was shaky and there wasn’t enough space for everyone,” said Thomas Voeckler of Team Europcar, who finished over 14 minutes behind race leader Fabian Cancellara. “It was a big, big crash.”

Of the contenders for the Tour title, Ryder Hesjedal of Garmin-Sharp suffered the most. The Canadian, who won the Giro d’Italia in May, had a bloody gash on his left thigh and finished 13 minutes and 38 seconds behind Cancellara.

Frank Schleck, the presumed leader of Radioshack-Nissan-Trek, finished two minutes and 43 seconds back. After the stage, Schleck told French television that he would be going to the hospital for an examination. Schleck, who finished third in last year’s Tour, abandon the 2010 edition after breaking his collarbone on stage three.

The other main contenders, Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky, Cadel Evans of Team BMC Racing, the Tour’s defending champion, and Vincenzo Nibali of Liquigas-Cannondale, were at the front of the peloton when the crash occurred and did not lose any time. Wiggins remains the best-placed of the group, seven seconds shy of Cancellara.

The race last visited Metz in 1999, when Lance Armstrong took the yellow jersey. He remained in the lead through Paris, capturing the first of his seven Tour de France victories.

Last week, the United States Anti-Doping Agency charged the Texan, who retired from cycling last year, with taking performance enhancing drugs and, along with four associates, running a doping conspiracy during his career.

The New York Times reported that a handful of Armstrong’s former teammates, including four riders currently competing in the Tour, will provide testimony in the case. The American David Zabriskie is one of the named riders. The Garmin-Sharp rider did not allow the media scrutiny to affect his performance Friday, launching a four-man breakaway in the first 10 kilometers of the stage.

The other breakaway riders succumbed, but Zabriskie stayed clear until the final kilometer, when the fast-moving bunch overtook him. “If the race had been one kilometer shorter,” he lamented to French television. “That’s how it happens sometimes.”

Zabriskie was a bright spot for Garmin-Sharp on Friday. The same crash that took down Hesjedal also affected Tom Danielson. Danielson abandoned the race after the spill on Friday.

“In cycling, a good team isn’t defined by how perfect it is in winning moments, but instead how it moves forward when all is [expletive],” Jonathan Vaughters, the team manager, wrote on Twitter after the stage. “Onward.”

Danielson was among three riders to abandon the race on Friday; on Thursday, Marcel Kittel of Team Argos-Shimano pulled out because of gastroenteritis. Had he been healthy this weekend, however, Kittel, a sprinter, would have still suffered.

Saturday and Sunday’s stages will be for the climbers — and a chance for overall contenders like Evans and Wiggins to test each others’ fitness.

“The first climb of the Tour is always a surprise,” Evans said. “It’s the real first indicator of the overall picture.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 7, 2012

A previous version of this article online misstated Peter Sagan’s nationality. Mr. Sagan is Slovakian, not Czech.

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U.S. Women’s Open Win by Pak in 1998 Resonated in South Korea

Instead of patriotic displays of flag waving and marching soldiers, the anthem is accompanied by a video of Se Ri Pak removing her shoes to hit a shot from the edge of a water hazard on the 18th hole at Blackwolf Run.

That image shows how important Pak’s 1998 United States Women’s Open victory is to South Korea’s national image. When Pak won that tournament here in a 20-hole playoff, defeating another 20-year-old, Jenny Chuasiriporn, in the longest playoff in Open history, she opened the floodgates for the so-called Asian Invasion of women’s golf.

Pak was one of three South Koreans entered in that United States Open 14 years ago. When the tournament began Thursday, 28 South Koreans were in the field. But that is not the only indication of the transformation of the sport, which 20 years ago was almost exclusively an American club.

Since Pak’s victory in 1998, there have been four more United States Women’s Open champions from South Korea, including the defending champion So Yeon Ryu. All four of those championships have come in the last seven years.

Currently in the Rolex women’s world golf rankings, South Koreans hold 4 of the top 10 spots, 10 of the top 25 spots and 36 of the top 100 spots. Only 16 Americans are ranked in the top 100.

The South Korean dominance is reflected on the L.P.G.A.’s official money list. Through last week’s Northwest Arkansas Championship, South Koreans occupied 3 of the top 10 spots. Of the L.P.G.A.’s 128 full-time players, 42 are South Korean.

But Pak’s 1998 victory seems to have influenced players beyond South Korea. Fifteen of the players on the L.P.G.A.’s top 20 money list are Asians, including No. 1 Ai Miyazato ($1,035,727) of Japan and No. 2 Yani Tseng ($1,005,527) of Taiwan.

Of the last 50 majors, nine Americans have won 12 times, nine South Koreans have won 11 times, and the remaining 27 titles are divided among players from other parts of the world. South Koreans have averaged seven L.P.G.A. wins a season since 1998.

Pak, 34, said she never expected the amount of success she had achieved. She has won 25 L.P.G.A. events and has been inducted into the Hall of Fame. She said her victory in 1998 “was the turning point for Korean golf.”

“When I heard I inspire all those young players in Korea, it put so much pressure on me,” Pak said. “I was very proud of what I did, but at the same time, I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing for those kids. I feel like Se Ri Pak was born in 1998 on July 6 at Blackwolf Run.”

Ryu, who is seventh on the money list, is the most successful South Korean on the tour these days, but she is quick to credit Pak, whose nickname is the Legend.

“It’s definitely the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open,” Ryu said when asked what pointed her in the direction of professional golf.

She said of her victory in last year’s Open: “It was huge for me, because she’s my hero. So that moment is really, really special for me.”

Ryu also said that Pak’s playoff victory over Chuasiriporn, a daughter of Thai immigrants, was the turning point for South Korean golf.

“Before 1998,” Ryu said, “golf was actually not a famous sport in Korea. But after she won, golf is now a really famous sport, and that’s why I am here.”

For Ryu, Pak’s 1998 victory was a life-altering event. At the time, she had just turned 8 and was an aspiring violinist. According to her official biography, she traded her violin for golf clubs because of Pak.

“Actually, yes, that’s true,” Ryu said. “At that moment, just golf is my hobby and violin my dream. But now violin is my hobby, golf is my dream, my job. So totally changed.”

If there is a resentment of the South Koreans’ success, it is strictly below the surface and kept inside the recesses of the players’ locker room. But there are cultural differences, perhaps the greatest being the all-consuming, all-business attitude of the South Koreans.

Most of the South Koreans, like Ryu, are chosen at a young age to be golfers. They spend countless hours on the practice range, perfecting their swings under the watch of a strict parent or coach.

When players graduate to the L.P.G.A. or the developmental Symetra Tour, they are almost always accompanied by a parent, usually their father, who serves as a caddie and guardian. Ostensibly, the parent is there to help the player adjust to the rigors of travel and a foreign culture, but they also are there to make sure the player does not cut corners on the practice range.

The doggedness of some of the parents may be acceptable in Korean culture, but it has raised questions in the United States. At the Open this week, the American golfer Juli Inkster discussed the differences between the approaches in the two countries.

“When I was raising my kids, I had them in ballet, dance, music, sports — they were in everything,” she said. “Over there, if you play golf, you play golf. That’s what you do. And you do it all day.

“And whether that’s right or wrong or indifferent, or whatever, that’s just the way they are brought up. Technically, they are brought up very sound. They just go to the driving range and they hit balls and they hit balls. And their swings are perfect. They’re just great golfers. That’s what they do.”

Inkster, the winner of eight majors in her 30-year pro career, added: “‘Ninety-eight. That set Asia on fire as far as women’s golf. It’s been nonstop ever since.”

With the rock star status South Koreans enjoy in their native land and the success they are having in the United States, it is unlikely their golf craze will be scaling back anytime soon.

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Wiggins Takes Tour Reins, Froome Wins Stage

The final climb of the 199-km seventh stage was short and unheralded, but its 5.9 km were enough to sort out the serious Tour contenders from the also-rans and the leading riders at the top are probably the same men who will battle it out for final victory in Paris in the two weeks ahead.

The stage went to Briton Chris Froome, who surged in the final 100 meters to beat defending Tour champion Cadel Evans by two seconds while his team leader Wiggins was third in the same time.

Italy's Vincenzo Nibali finished fourth, seven seconds adrift.

To see the two pre-Tour favorites side by side on the line was a sign that their battle would probably dominate the two weeks ahead.

"My first objective today was to take the yellow jersey," said Wiggins, who now leads the title-holder by 10 seconds overall and Nibali by 16.

"It's a dream since I was a child. Whatever happens in the rest of the race it's a massive thing," added the pursuit Olympic champion, the first Briton to lead the Tour de France since David Millar in 2000.

A seven-man breakaway, gone 15 km after the start in Tomblaine, was caught at the bottom of the final ascent and that is when the Team Sky train, who had led the chase for a while, seized control.

STEEP SECTION

Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen was the first stage of the Sky rocket at the foot of the climb.

Then Australian Michael Rogers took over and some Tour contenders started to lose ground - Dutchman Robert Gesink, American Levi Leipheimer and Luxembourg's Frank Schleck had already been dropped when Richie Porte took his turn.

When the Australian handed the baton to Froome, only five riders were left to tackle the steep last section of the hill.

With 400 meters to go, Evans surged, but Froome responded straight away to go for the stage and seize the polka dot jersey as the best climber in this Tour as well.

"I kept waiting for Cadel to go and he never really went. I think he didn't have the legs to go," the Kenyan-born Froome told reporters.

"Hopefully, he's not holding anything back and he's not going to surprise us in the next few weeks. He and Bradley look to be quite on par at the moment," he added.

The Team Sky effort was plain textbook cycling and Wiggins made it clear everything had been planned that way.

"That's the plan, that's what we trained for. We trained for each demand of this race, we covered every area.

"It's become clear that the Tour is now down to three riders, Cadel and Nibali and me," he added.

The revenge was all the sweeter for Wiggins as his Tour chances had been ruined last season by a crash in the same seventh stage.

"One year on after being in hospital in Chateauroux, to be in the yellow jersey. Great day," he said.

It was not so great for the riders involved in the awful crash which depleted the peloton in the previous stage to Metz - 13 riders were forced out of the Tour while many were not in a condition to play leading roles in the finale.

With another hilly 157-km ride into Switzerland that Team Sky should control easily on Sunday and the first individual time trial on Monday, in which Wiggins expects to “consolidate the jersey, the Briton is following his game plan to perfection.

"Then it's the rest day and we're halfway into the Tour," he said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Meadows; Editing By Alison Wildey)

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Williams Sisters Win Wimbledon Doubles Title

About five hours after Williams won her fifth singles title by beating Agnieszka Radwanska, she and sister Venus were back on Centre Court to beat Czech duo Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 7-5, 6-4 Saturday in the doubles final.

It was their fifth Wimbledon doubles title together, and came shortly after Venus watched her little sister win the singles final.

"I was definitely inspired by Serena's singles performance," Venus said. "Obviously it's wonderful to play on the court with her. I couldn't have done it without her, so it's great."

Both sisters have battled health issues over the last two years, with Venus having been diagnosed with an energy-sapping illness and Serena overcoming blood clots in her lungs and two operations after cutting her feet on glass in 2010.

This was their first doubles tournament together in two years, and they looked as if they hadn't missed a beat.

"She's such a fighter, you never say die," Venus said about her sister. "I don't think either of us believe that we can be defeated by anything. Nothing has defeated us yet, so we're going to keep that track record."

Serena was the last woman to win both the singles and doubles titles at Wimbledon, in 2009.

Playing under the closed roof, Venus Williams served out the match less than 15 minutes before the 11 p.m. deadline for the end of play on Centre Court.

Had the match gone to a third set, they probably would have had to come back and finish it off on Sunday.

"I told Venus on the court, it doesn't matter," Serena said. "We weren't really racing the clock, we were just playing our opponents who were playing really tough and really good."

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Williams Wins 5th Wimbledon Singles Title

There was the euphoria of winning her fifth singles title at Wimbledon, tying her older sister Venus, and her 14th in a Grand Slam tournament. The satisfaction of purging a shocking French Open implosion and the aura of vulnerability that followed. The relief that comes with reviving a career on the brink, from cheating death, from outlasting a patient and persistent adversary who on Saturday threatened with a comeback nearly as stirring as Williams’s.

When it was over, when her crisp backhand found open court, Williams fell backward onto the lawn. She stayed there for a few seconds, a grass angel basking in a 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 victory over Agnieszka Radwanska, before climbing through the crowd to meet her entourage in its box. Her appreciation of these moments is greater than it was 13 years ago, when at age 17 she announced her presence at the 1999 United States Open. There is an element of selflessness, of humility, that comes, perhaps, with age and maturity. Now 30, Williams is the first woman in her 30s to capture a Grand Slam since Martina Navratilova won Wimbledon in 1990 at age 33.

“Oh my God, I can’t even describe it,” Williams said during an on-court interview after she turned back Radwanska on a blustery and chilly Centre Court.

When she took to Twitter an hour later, Williams was nearly speechless still: Yeaa, she wrote, with 40 more a’s tacked on. When she appeared an hour after that in the interview room, Williams said that winning had yet to sink in; usually, she said, it does immediately. But it certainly appeared to while she answered a question about her motivation to win the women’s doubles final with Venus, as they did Saturday night.

“I don’t feel any pressure because, I mean, regardless, I won Wimbledon,” Williams said, placing her head on the podium as she unleashed a lengthy, high-pitched cackle.

Since the last time she won Wimbledon, in 2010, Williams has endured two foot operations, caused by a misstep on broken glass; emergency treatment for blood clots in her lungs; an 11-month hiatus from the tour; a demoralizing loss in the 2011 United States Open final; torn ligaments in an Australian Open warm-up tournament; and an outstanding clay-court season that came to a sudden and stunning end with a first-round defeat at the French Open, her earliest exit from a Grand Slam tournament.

Williams wanted to expunge the memory of her loss in Paris. She tried. She could not, at least for a while. Naturally negative is how Williams describes her temperament, a personality trait at odds with the confident, powerful persona she projects on the court.

The loss spilled over into Wimbledon, into sluggish three-set victories against Zheng Jie and Yaroslava Shvedova. Was she headed for another disappointment? Did she have enough mental toughness to advance? Her father and coach, Richard Williams, said she was lucky to have reached the quarterfinals.

“I think Serena feels the pressure; she doesn’t have time on her side,” said Chris Evert, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion, in a recent interview. “And she wants to take advantage of these opportunities.”

Williams dominated the first set Saturday, winning the first five games as she matched Radwanska on extended baseline rallies, drilling sharp-angled forehands and cross-court backhands, even mixing in the odd drop shot. But when Radwanska, who was dealing with an upper respiratory illness, came back after a short rain delay and showed her mettle in the second set, overcoming a 4-2 deficit, Williams grew anxious, and it was natural to think back to her implosion in Paris, where she first blew a 5-1 lead in the second-set tiebreaker against Virginie Razzano, and then lost the match.

One does not survive a pulmonary embolism without some serious staying power. Winning her first service game of the third set stabilized Williams. Four straight aces at 1-2 emboldened her. A nifty drop shot to break Radwanska at 2-4 empowered her.

“After that,” said Williams, “it was, ‘I can definitely do this.’ ”

It was a disappointing result for Radwanska, seeking to become Poland’s first Grand Slam champion, but her presence in the final solidified her standing as a contender. It also proved that a crafty and creative tactician could handle and counter power and pace — at least for a time.

Williams became the seventh woman in the past seven Grand Slams to win the championship. The field is ever deeper. A revived Maria Sharapova. Angelique Kerber. Petra Kvitova. Victoria Azarenka, who will rise to No. 1 when the rankings are released Monday. Radwanska, who will climb to No. 2. But during these two weeks, none of the last three women could contain Williams.

Williams’s decision to remain in France to work with Patrick Mouratoglou, who owns and operates a tennis academy outside Paris, could be seen as a sign of maturity as well as desperation, a willingness to listen to another voice when for so many years she has stayed loyal to her clan. Those sessions recharged her psyche as much as her body, which absorbed a punishing workload at Wimbledon — a challenging slate of singles matches, in addition to a title run in doubles — without incident.

“I don’t see why not,” Williams said when asked if she could surpass Steffi Graf (22), Navratilova (18) and Evert on the Grand Slam singles title list.

For all the speculation that Williams had passed her prime, it is possible that this championship marks the beginning of a new phase, a return to prominence instead of a culmination. And in that new phase, Williams has assumed more of a supportive role in her relationship with Venus, who is battling an autoimmune disorder.

“I don’t know what I would have if Venus didn’t exist,” Williams said. “I don’t even know if I would own a Grand Slam title or if I would play tennis, because we do everything together.”

Ten of the last 13 Wimbledon singles titles belong to them. Five Wimbledon doubles championships, including their triumph Saturday. More euphoria. More satisfaction. More relief. Another trophy hoisted.

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Wrap Contracts Coming Back Strong Among Insurers

                New York Life found that despite low interest rates, 50 percent of retirement-plan participants use stable value products, which are classified as principal preservation investment solutions.

“Since the financial crisis of 2008, on average more than 20 percent of retirement assets have been invested in stable value investments and half of all participants across New York Life's retirement platform have some 401(k) savings within a stable value investment today,” said Steven Dorval, managing director of retirement and investment strategy at New York Life Retirement Plan Services in Boston.

New York Life began working with the largest stable value plan sponsors two years ago, purchasing wrap contracts that guarantee the principal on a fixed income portfolio. “The wrap contract is a return home for insurance companies,” Dorval told Insurance Networking News. “We were the early providers but lost the lead to bank holdings who offered lower margins. Insurers are back now in their natural role as guarantors.”

Pricing for the cost of a wrap contract before 2008 was .05 to .08 basis points, according to New York Life. Today, pricing is .2 to .25 percent basis points.

“It’s more than an $8 billion book of business for us, which has increased $5.5 billion since 2008,” said Dorval. “From a competitor perspective, a number of insurers, including Prudential, have seen more assets increase because stable value products are able to earn higher returns than money markets.”

Stable value funds are yielding two percent or more. The benefit for investors is return without the volatility.

“That’s a significant increase over money markets,” Dorval said.

Interest in stable value products is not exclusive to the baby boomer generation, according to New York Life’s analysis.

While baby boomers did have the highest rates of stable value use at 58 percent, the Gen X and Gen Y demographic were not far behind with rates of 46 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

“As people get closer to retirement, principal preservation is a higher priority,” said Dorval. “Younger folks shouldn’t have stable value exposure but across all demographics, we are finding that younger workers do have exposure because they may be more conservative due to the down market.”

© 2012 Insurance Networking News and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 

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Vakuutusasiamiesten peritään 100 miljoonan dollarin petosten järjestelmässä

                   The Manhattan United States Attorney and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have charged three insurance agents with a $ 100 million fraud scheme involving stranger-owned life insurance or STOLI.

Typically, people buying a life insurance policy have some relationship to the person being insured. In contrast, with STOLI arrangements, a policy is bought with the intent to resell it to a third-party investor. Many insurance companies won't allow this, and in varying degrees the state laws prohibit it.

In an imprisonment up to 10 years, federal authorities announced on Feb 16 – Michael Binday accuse the three agents, to 48, the president and owner of a Scarsdale, N.Y. insurance agency; James Kevin Kergil, 57, an insurance agent based in Peekskill, N.Y.; and Mark Resnick, 56, an insurance agent based in Orlando, FL – of conspiring to defraud major insurance companies into the life insurance policies to straw buyers issuing, when the true owners of the policies were third-party investors and financiers. All three agents have been arrested.

The insurance companies referred to in the case are: American General Life Companies; Lincoln Financial Group; Security Mutual Life insurance Company and Union Central Insurance Company.

The policies involved were universal life policies, which combine an investment component with a death benefit-an amount paid to beneficiaries when the insured dies. Life insurance companies routinely take the position that the death benefit should correspond to the amount of money that the dependents would need insured's to replace lost earnings or to cover estate taxes and other expenses. When issuing the policies they rely on is the information provided about the applicant's financial condition and income.

In a statement announcing the U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan imprisonment up to 10 years, said that the three insurance agents concocted an elaborate scheme ", using straw buyers and third-party agents, to deceive the life insurance providers into issuing policies to unintended beneficiaries. And when their scheme was unraveling, they allegedly sought to throw investigators off the trail by destroying documents and telling other individuals to lie. Their alleged actions victimized the companies that issued these policies, and hurt the grand jury process. "

According to the imprisonment up to 10 years, the agents recruited elderly clients of modest means to serve as straw buyers and apply for universal life insurance policies. In exchange, the agents would pay them when the policies were resold.

Meanwhile, the agents did the necessary paperwork, misrepresenting the key elements of the application. For example, they stated that the straw buyers were worth millions, although almost all of them had a net worth of well under $ 1 million. They shifted the money around to make it look like the buyers were paying the premium themselves, while in fact it was coming from third-party investors.

While the applications stated that the buyers did not intend to sell their policies after they were issued, the agents had already made arrangements to sell them on the secondary market. All this generated millions of dollars worth of huge commissions for the agents.

As the notes, insurance fraud hurts companies imprisonment up to 10 years because it leaves them holding the bag in a bad business deal. And that indirectly hurts consumers because companies must raise their premiums to make up for lost profits.

The misrepresentations at every turn, imprisonment up to 10 years describes in some cases starting with the system for recruiting straw buyers. Resnick, one of the agents, advertised burial insurance and then persuaded consumers who responded to the ad to buy life insurance instead.

Another, Kergil, falsified documents for an 86-year-old woman who had responded to an ad for life insurance. The application stated that she had a net worth of $ 4.65 million, when in fact she was living on Social Security checks of about $ 1,485 a month and her total net worth was much less than $ 500,000. By participating in the deal she would receive between $ 20,000 and $ 100,000 when the $ 2 million policy she bought was re-sold.

These are classic elements of STOLI schemes, says Stephan r., a life insurance expert Leimberg and president of Leimberg Information Services, a publishing and software company. For more than five years they have proliferated with the vibrancy of the secondary insurance market, he explains; agents get one commission when they first issue the policy, and another when they resell it.

But in a number of respects the latest case is unusual, the criminal charges have been Leimberg adds: brought; the insurance agents have been arrested; the FBI is involved; and obstruction of justice, charges have been filed. As federal authorities got wind of what was happening, the agents allegedly destroyed documents and computer files.

2012 Forbes.com LLC ™ All Rights Reserved

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Too Strapped for Cash, Many Consumers also Lack Longevity, Life Insurance

                   With age comes wisdom supposedly, but even as more Americans are living longer they are not financially prepared for their retirement years and also lack life insurance.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the average life expectancy has increased to American's 75.7 years for men and 85.7 years for women. Of those age 65 and coupled, there is a better-than-even chance of one partner will live to age 94, and one-of-10 couples will have a partner that lives to 100 or more.

Unfortunately, a new study finds that while Americans are living longer, almost half are concerned that they are not financially prepared to live into their 70s, 80s and 90s.

Can't afford to live ...

The "Longevity and Preparedness Study," conducted by Northwestern Mutual, asked people how financially prepared they feel to live to age 75, 85 and 95 and that only slightly more than half studies (56 percent) feel financially prepared to live to the age of 75. Fewer than half (46 percent) feel financially prepared to live to age 85; and only about one-third (36 percent) feel prepared to live to age 95.

"These findings underscore that there is room to further educate clients — not only with respect to increasing longevity, but also more broadly about the value of long-term planning," said Greg Oberland, Northwestern Mutual EVP. "So we, as an industry, must emphasize that the plan is as important as the goals. And that plan is like a roadmap that helps clients stay on course. "

According to the research:

• Women live five years longer than the average men and feel less financially prepared to live longer lives.

• Men regardless of age are significantly more likely than women to feel financially prepared to live to age 75 (65 percent vs. 48 percent), 85 (55 percent vs. 37 percent), and 95 (43 percent vs. 30 percent).

• Younger Americans (25-59) feel less prepared than older Americans (60) to live to 75 (47 percent vs. 79 percent), 85 (37 percent vs. 66 percent), and 95 (29 percent vs. 52 percent)

"No matter what age you'll live to, it's important to protect the dollars you'll eventually depend on to provide an income in your retirement years," Oberland said.

Can't afford to die ...

The findings of the Study "The Insurance Barometer," an annual study conducted by the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE) and the Life Insurance < http://www.lifehappens.org/=""> > and Market Research Association (LIMRA) to better understand the < http://www.limra.com/=""> > public's opinions, attitudes and behaviors regarding life and health insurance are separate but consistent with the "Longevity and Preparedness Study."

The study found that almost one-third of respondents believe they need more life insurance; that number includes 20 percent of current policyholders and about half with no coverage.

The two most cited excuses for not purchasing adequate amounts of life insurance are that it is simply (83 percent), and that they have other financial priorities (85 percent).

Respondents were asked to estimate the annual costs of a 20-year level-term life policy for a 30-year-old and shot wildly over the cost at $ 400, guessing. Younger adults, those most likely to qualify for preferred pricing, overestimated the actual cost of $ 150 by a factor of seven.

"Our research has suggested for years that consumers believed they couldn't afford life insurance, yet they had no idea how much it actually cost," said Robert Kerzner, president and CEO of LIMRA, LOMA and LL Global to INN. "This is the first study that quantifies the wide gap in clearly consumers ' understanding on the affordability of life insurance."

The cost of basic term life insurance has fallen by about 50 percent over the past 10 years, Feldman, CLU, ChFC, is Marvin, president and CEO of the RFC, the LIFE Foundation.

"We know these misconceptions are hindering people from taking steps to get the coverage they need. In essence, life insurance is falling down the priority list, "Feldman said.

According to the study, many are more concerned with paying their mortgage or rent (31 percent), or losing money on investments (26 percent) than with buying life insurance. Interestingly, saving for retirement continued to be the top financial concern (50 percent).

As the U.S. economy recovers, the insurers have an opportunity to help consumers Butterfly their investment and retirement strategies to ensure they have enough money set aside to maintain the life they're accustom to and to fund new plans, Feldman observes.

"We want companies and producers to better understand the consumer attitudes and perceptions that are contributing to the gap in coverage that exists today so that they can better respond and help us educate the public about the importance of financial protection and taking personal financial responsibility," Feldman said.

Technology can play an important role in those educational efforts by creating direct access to quality information and pricing.

"We need to engage younger generations — who live online — more creatively, using the platforms and technology they use in their day-to-day lives, to convey this information so that they know that they can afford the life insurance their family needs," Kerzner said. "While we have seen some insurers begin to advertise the price of their products in their marketing materials, and others place quoting tools more prominently on their websites to better educate consumers, all insurers should take a look at how they can make it easier for consumers to access this vital information and better understand the real cost of life insurance."

© 2012, Insurance Networking News and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Long-term care insurance: The long and short of it

                According to AARP, being incapacitated can get very expensive. The Washington, DC-based organization reports a private room in a nursing home costs about $74,000 a year, and a home health aide an average of $18 an hour.

 
You say you could not begin to afford those costs? If you're in your 50s today, imagine how high those expenses may be 25 years in the future. Little wonder that older Americans are investing in long-term care insurance.

Nursing home costs are often cited when arguing in favor of long-term care insurance. "What long-term care insurance really does is give you choice and options," says Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI).

The AALTCI conducts a yearly study of newly opened long-term care insurance claims, and has reported that 49 percent of them are paying for home health care. Another 24 percent of claims start when the insured is in an assisted living facility and just 27 percent when he or she is in a nursing home.

When to buy
The ideal time to buy long-term care insurance is when you are healthy, and in your early to mid-50s, says Amy Danise, editorial director for Foster City, Cal.-based Insure.com. "The coverage price really starts going up in your late 50s," she adds. "By your early 60s, you're looking at the price being quoted for long-term care, and it starts to look pretty unaffordable."

Sally Hurme, senior project manager in AARP's Department of Public Education and Outreach, citing statistics from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, reports the average age at which consumers buy long-term care insurance is 57. "That 50 to 60 age range is the decade in which people are buying long-term care insurance, and that's sort of the target age to be thinking of this," she says.
The best reason to act at younger ages is to qualify for coverage, Slome adds. You may be fine now, but in 24 hours, your health could change to the extent you would not be able to buy coverage at any price, he says.
Between ages 50 and 59, 17 percent of applicants for long-term care insurance are denied coverage. That number rises to 24 percent for those between 60 and 69, and 45 percent for those ages 70 to 79, Slome says.
Despite the fact older adults are urged to obtain coverage at earlier ages, age 64 is a very popular time to apply for coverage, Slome adds. That's because it's the year before Medicare coverage goes into effect, with its opportunity for more affordable preventive testing.
Many variables
One of the difficult aspects of determining which long-term care insurance policy to buy is the wide array of variables that must be considered. "This is a complex form of protection," Slome says. "With long-term care insurance, there are some really important differences that separate one policy from the next. You will see a 40 to 80 percent spread in what various policies cost."
Variables include the daily rate covered, typically $100 to $150, and waiting periods of 60, 90 or 120 days until the benefits kick in, Hurme says.
"The longer the waiting period selected, the lower the premium," she adds. "But your care could be very expensive during that waiting period. Or you could get well during that waiting period, and not need the benefits."
Policies also vary based on how incapacitated the insured must be before benefits are forthcoming, Danise says. The level of incapacitation is typically expressed in terms of Activities of Daily Living, or ADLs.
Policies that begin paying when the insured individual needs help with one or two ADLs are better than those that pay off only if more ADLs are impacted.
Another variable is how effectively policies keep pace with inflation, Slome says. Policy A and Policy B may both have 3 percent inflation growth.
"You think they're the same," he says. "But there could be nuances in how they each define that and that could mean the difference between getting or not getting an extra three or four months of coverage."
Shop around
When purchasing long-term care insurance, the best bet is to purchase a policy offered by an established and strong company, experts say. Genworth and John Hancock are the biggest names, followed by Prudential, Mutual of Omaha and Transamerica. Others round out the approximately 20 providers, says Slome, who urges consumers to purchase through an insurance broker.

Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune
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