Life Insurance Has Weathered the Opinion Storm

Life insurance is a pretty unique financial tool. It’s no secret around here that we’re fans. Our admiration comes from personal observations and a lot of number crunching we’ve done to arrive at the opinion we have.

But not everyone shares in our high opinion of life insurance and the life insurance industry.

There are plenty of people who have taken the time to speak their mind on the subject of life insurance with less than positive things to say. Few new arguments against life insurance have come along in recent decades.  That doesn't seem to stop some people from parroting talking points from yesteryear.

The life insurance industry has endured many negative attacks:

  • Negativity from two of the most well known financial commentators in the United States. Though one of them has had positive things to say about whole life insurance from time to time.
  • An assault from the largest insurance sales force in the world.
  • Pretty much everyone who sells investment products for a living.
  • A dozen or so financial bloggers who decided to weigh in from time to time.

Despite the negativity the life insurance industry grew at an impressive rate for the past five years.

How well have things gone for the life insurance industry you ask? Pulling public data from mandatory statutory fillings I crunched the number of on the following.

Life Insurance Growth has been Explosive

The top five mutual life insurers in the United States have achieved revenue growth on average of 35% in the last five years. I bring up the mutual life insurers because we all know the majority of their revenues come from whole life insurance sales.

Our list of top whole life companies for cash value have achieved a five year gain in net premiums written of 39%.

Our list of top indexed universal life insurance companies for cash value achieved a five-year gain in net premiums of 21%.

The entire life insurance industry is up 37% in net premiums written from 2010 to 2014.

Sure there are companies that haven’t fared nearly as well, but there will always be winners and losers.

Americans Don't Appear to Agree with the Negativity

Last year we learned that some Americans are almost as likely to use life insurance as a 529 plan to save for college.

We’ve known for years that banks love life insurance as an asset. As of 2014 they owned a combined $143.84 billion in life insurance assets. It’s often times one of the largest asset classes on the balance sheet in its category.

Life insurance also provides significant retirement income benefits. Check back later this month for a lot more on this subject.

I personally have a rather large amount of cash in life insurance policies. I’ve been extremely pleased with the results I achieved.

Some people might join in the smear campaign against this old and often times boring financial product. The truth is many Americans appear to disagree with the negativity.

If you'd like to join in on the peace of mind in owning life insurance to diversify your portfolio, we welcome you to reach out to us.  We'd be happy to discuss with you.

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