This book presents a complete discussion of life insurance distribution. It begins by putting life insurance distribution within the broader context of distribution and marketing in general, thus demonstrating why life insurance distribution is different. It then goes on to discuss the history of how distribution, as we know it today, developed, and the ten primary distribution channels that exist in the business. With all of this as background, the book continues with more detail and discusses the various functions performed by distribution, and how distribution systems are managed today. It also goes into more specifics regarding the compensation and the economics of distribution. The text concludes with a discussion of managing distribution channel conflict, and how distribution of life insurance is expected to evolve in the near future. Spreadsheet models are available on the ACTEX website to assist readers in understanding the economics of distribution.

Life insurance—the promise of an insurer to pay a sum upon a person's death in exchange for a regular premium—is a bizarre enterprise. How can we monetize human life? Should we? What statistics do we use, what assumptions do we make, and what behavioral factors do we consider? First published in 1979, Morals and Markets Is a pathbreaking study exploring the development of life insurance in the United States. Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer combines economic history and a sociological perspective to advance a novel interpretation of the life insurance industry. The book pioneered a cultural approach to the analysis of morally controversial markets. Zelizer begins in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of the life insurance industry, a contentious chapter in the history of American business. Life insurance was stigmatized at first, denounced in newspapers and condemned by religious leaders as an immoral and sacrilegious gamble on human life. Over time, the business became a widely praised arrangement to secure a family's future. How did life insurance overcome cultural barriers? As Zelizer shows, the evolution of the industry in the United States matched evolving attitudes toward death, money, family relations, property, and personal legacy.