New Fixed-Index Product By Allianz Life

Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America has introduced two new fixed-index universal life insurance policies, the Allianz Life Pro+ Elite and Allianz Asset Pro+.

Allianz Life Pro+ Elite is designed for traditional life insurance agents and financial professionals familiar with selling life insurance, and it beefs up the popular Allianz Life Pro+ product by adding proprietary index allocation options, including bonused allocation options. Allianz Asset Pro+ is a new product designed specifically for broker/dealers and financial professionals that offers death benefit protection and tax advantages.

The products offer insurance protection and also allow clients to accumulate asset value. The company says the products came in part because of a survey it did of 800 people in January querying subjects about their life insurance needs. Allianz Life concluded that Americans needed more diversity in their financial products if they were to achieve their universal goals of retiring comfortably.

The Life Pro+ Elite policy offers policyholders a bonus index allocation option so they can accumulate an interest bonus annually or an index allocation that does not include an interest bonus. The beneficiaries on the policy will receive an income-tax-free death benefit. The product can also accrue cash value tax-deferred.

Asset Pro+ is considered a more streamlined version of the first product because it has fewer index allocation options, but Allianz Life believes it’s suitable for professionals getting their feet wet with life insurance options. Asset Pro+ provides an interest bonus opportunity and the potential to accumulate tax-deferred cash value.
 

Pulse For Streamlined Scheduling

Orchestrate, a software developer and partner of Salesforce, has built a new Salesforce app for busy professionals.

It’s called “Pulse,” a scheduling application that allows users to save time and simplify the management of numerous clients and calendars.

Orchestrate says Pulse features consolidated calendar views where users can see multiple calendars of other users to identify the next available meeting times. Users can then set up meeting invites with the app.

The app also offers clients the ability to schedule by viewing an advisor’s or a firm’s calendars and scheduling their own meeting times.

The Pulse app offers unlimited customization so firms can review calendars on a more detailed level, filtering multiple calendars with different views and colors.
 

Wells Fargo’s New Index For Animal Spirits

Wells Fargo Securities said in a recent special commentary that emotional forces are significant drivers in financial events, regardless of whether they are positive or negative.

With that in mind, the company has launched the Animal Spirits Index (ASI), which tracks the U.S. economy beyond the S&P 500.

The index includes the S&P 500 as a variable but also the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index, the yield spread, the VIX index and the economic policy uncertainty index.
 

Multi-Strategy Total Return Fund From T. Rowe Price

T. Rowe Price has launched a new absolute return fund designed to diversify investors’ investment risk.

The Multi-Strategy Total Return Fund incorporates a mix of the company’s qualitative and fundamental analysis and taps its global research platform.

The fund assembles many portfolios and strategies, including T. Rowe Price’s macro and absolute return funds; its fixed-income absolute return fund; its equity research long/short fund; its quantitative equity long/short fund; its volatility relative value fund and its style premia fund.

The fund is managed by Stefan Hubrich, T. Rowe Price’s director of multi-asset research, and portfolio manager Rick de los Reyes. The fund’s ticker is TMSRX for investor class shares and TMSSX for I Class shares.

 

Insurance Brokerage Offers Employees Student Loan Repayment

Employers have realized that student loan repayment programs are valuable benefits for their employees.

One of those employers is Crystal & Company, an insurance brokerage firm that has partnered with Gradifi, a student loan repayment platform provider, to help 450 Crystal employees pay down their student loans. Under the program, the brokerage will contribute up to $10,000 to an employee’s loans.

The company will pay out $100 per month for the first year of repayments and then increase the amount by $25 per month each subsequent year.

To Crystal & Company, it’s a way of helping its employees reduce the interest on their student loans by thousands of dollars.

 

The Flexibility Advisors Might Be Looking For

Turnkey asset management provider AssetMark of Concord, Calif., has launched a suite of J.P. Morgan model portfolios called the J.P. Morgan Global Flexible Strategy.

The suite combines actively managed mutual funds and strategic beta ETFs. The strategy offers advisors six types of global flexible model portfolios that can be adjusted for a client’s potential risk and return.

According to AssetMark’s senior vice president, Zoe Brunson, the suite balances between active and passive strategies and sets the stage for potentially better outcomes for investors by giving advisors a solution with broader flexibility.