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--></style><title>Low interest rates -> higher [health] insurance
rates</title></head><body>
<div>Financal Times<font face="Arial" size="-2" color="#646464">
August 1, 2016 9:12 pm<br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size="+2" color="#000000">Insurers: Forced
to dig deep</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia" size="+1" color="#000000">The industry is
overhauling its business model after being badly affected by low
interest rates</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-1" color="#000000">Oliver Ralph and
Alistair Gray</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Excerpt</div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br>
In the US, insurers specialising in long-term care are under
particular pressure. Low interest rates have exacerbated the problems
caused by rising treatment costs and improvements in longevity. Many
providers have stopped selling new policies.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br>
"No one could have foreseen such a period of low rates," says
Howard Mills, a former New York insurance superintendent who is now at
Deloitte. "Long-term care insurance is the first area where it has
really become acute."</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br>
It is not the only area in which insurers are pushing up premiums to
deal with the pressure. Some holders of "universal life" -
protection policies that combine death benefits with tax-advantaged
savings - have also been hit by chunky rate increases.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">End excerpt</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"
color="#000000"
>http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6194f264-4dd2-11e6-8172-e39ecd3b86fc.html#<span
></span>axzz4GC11dV9O</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><br>
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1"
color="#000000">+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++</font
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"Water vapor
is also the most abundant greenhouse gas. As the equilibrium vapor
pressure of water vapor increases rapidly with temperature, warming
(or cooling) induced by a climate forcing will be amplified through
water vapor feedback [e.g., Soden et al., 2002]. The strength of this
feedback is a key determinant of the planet's equilibrium climate
sensitivity."<br>
<br>
Mark C. Serreze, Andrew P. Barrett, and Julienne Stroeve. Recent
changes in tropospheric water vapor over the Arctic as assessed from
radiosondes and atmospheric reanalyses.</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000"><i>JOURNAL OF
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH</i>, VOL. 117, 2012</font></div>
<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1"
color="#2E0068">doi:10.1029/2011JD017421</font><font face="Verdana"
size="-1" color="#000000">, 2012<br>
</font><font face="Geneva" color="#000000"><br>
</font><font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"
color="#000000"></font></div>
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