Brandon Roberts | The Insurance Pro Blog

Is the Cash Surrender Value of Life Insurance Taxable?

The taxability of life insurance cash surrender value causes much confusion. Agents often extol the tax free nature of life insurance. But the marketing brochures often have numerous footnotes on the

Does Whole Life Insurance Cost More than Term Life Insurance?

You might have heard that whole life insurance cost more than term life insurance. This very statement is the foundation of many arguments suggesting that term life insurance is simply a smarter financial

Penn Mutual Suspends Sale of Life Insurance and Annuities in New York

In a statement made by CEO Eileen McDonnell and President Dave O'Malley, Penn Mutual announced it will suspend the sale of its life insurance and annuity contracts in the state of New York. The

Please Don’t Compare Whole Life Dividends to Universal Life Interest

It's hard to figure out what life insurance policy is best. When it comes to purchases focusing on cash value, we want an easy way to compare policies and declare a winner. A naturally obvious way

IUL Bonuses Pay You Double Digits?

We're no strangers to voicing our concerns about lofty indexed universal life insurance assumptions. In fact, we were an early voice seeking to temper the returns on IUL as the product began picking

Return of Premium Life Insurance Strategies

For most agents, return of premium life insurance likely conjures up thoughts about term life insurance. This comes from the marketing hurrah over return of premium term life insurance now over a decade

The Ultimate Guide to Whole Life Insurance Companies

Whole life insurance companies or life insurance companies that offer whole life insurance comprise a much smaller pool of insurers versus universal life insurance. However, a lot of these companies

Independent Life Insurance Broker Myth

Being an independent life insurance broker sounds like a lot of fun. You don't work for any specific company. You have no quotas to worry about. Instead, you work independently and make unbiased

Northwestern Mutual’s Dishonest Sales Tactic

Northwestern Mutual is a huge mutual life insurance company in the United States. The company boasts an impressive policyholder count, an extremely large asset pool, and enviable profitability. These

Advantages and Disadvantages of Life Insurance

Life insurance comes with great benefits and a few disadvantages. For the average person out there looking to gain a better understanding of life insurance, we put together this list of the top three

Life Insurance Ladder, Bogus Way to Save Money?

The world of personal finance contains no shortage of tips and tricks. Many seek out slick nuances to highlight some “cool” idea that promises to “save you a bundle.” The

Life Insurance for Parents

Life Insurance for Parents! It's a snazzy tagline used by a certain insurance industry periodical that I won't publicly shame for such a terrible grab at attention. The idea is straight forward and

What Happened to Single Premium Life Insurance?

Single premium life insurance functions just like it sounds. You pay one single premium and the policy remains in force forever. In somewhat more technical insurance-speak, it only takes one premium

Whole Life Insurance Guarantees Improve Over Time

Whole life insurance guarantees serve as a constant source for discussion about life insurance and other personal finance related matters. Some might suggest that the whole life insurance guarantees

When Shopping for Life Insurance The Best Strategy Is to…

When shopping for life insurance, the best strategy is first to understand your objective in buying life insurance and then focus on the products best suited to meet that goal. This statement might sound

Paid-Up Universal Life Insurance?

One of the niftiest features of whole life insurance is the option to make it paid-up at any point in your lifetime. The reduce paid-up feature for whole life allows you to electively stop paying premiums

How We Evaluate Life Insurance Companies

How to evaluate life insurance companies is a question that plagues both consumers and industry professionals. Many companies love to market on ratings or a single financial metric at which they excel. But

The Life Insurance Retirement Plan

The life insurance retirement plan isn't necessarily a specific “plan” that accomplishes a specific goal related to retirement planning. Instead, it's a “tip of the hat” to the

Should You Cancel Your Bad Whole Life Insurance?

The decision to cancel whole life insurance is not always an easy one. We understand this. We've discussed this subject with numerous people. The biggest concern is still the money already paid to

Paid-Up Life Insurance

Paid-up life insurance is a term that confuses a lot of people. The idea seems straight forward, but what makes a life insurance policy paid-up? Also, how does paid-up life insurance differ from other

Endowment Life Insurance Policy: It Was a Sure Thing

We don't often talk about the endowment life insurance policy. This is largely due to the fact that they are no longer a thing in the United States. But just because you won't find them for sale doesn't

Life Insurance Illustration: Basic vs. Supplemental Ledger

A life insurance illustration is a tool that agents use to detail the various features of a proposed life insurance policy. These rather lengthy documents contain a lot of information and sometimes delineate

Should I Buy Whole Life Insurance?

Should I buy whole life insurance if I'm young and have no dependents? This is a question that we field more often than you might think, so today we want to address this question for those who might

Whole Life Insurance as an Investment

If you spend any time looking around this site, you'll find plenty of content detailing the various features of whole life insurance. We've detailed at length the use of whole life insurance specifically

Annuity Buyers Can Do Better But Should They?

What drives annuity buyers? I mean with all the negative press about the evils of annuities, what on earth possesses these people to actually pull the trigger and purchase an annuity? Let's not forget

The Definitive Discussion on Whole Life Insurance Dividend Recognition

Whole life insurance dividends are a fun subject we discuss quite regularly. But a more obscure and advanced topic on this subject is the way life insurer adjust dividends (if at all) whenever a policyholder

Buy Term and Invest the Difference Is Still Broken

Buy term and invest the difference is an academic argument that suggests you should skip the “expensive” whole life insurance et. al. and instead by “cheap” term insurance. You

How Do Life Insurance Policy Loans Work?

Can you borrow against life insurance and how do life insurance policy loans actually work? For a lot of life insurance policies out there, the answer is yes. However, there are some types of life insurance

New York Issues Warning on Universal Life Insurance

We've all seen articles chronicling the woes faced by policyholders who own universal life insurance. The names change, but the theme tends to remain the same. Joe insurance purchaser bought a universal

Is it Better to Work with the Largest Life Insurers?

Buying whole life insurance or universal life insurance as a cash accumulation tool or even because you want a permanent death benefit requires you to make a long term commitment to the life insurer.

All posts by Brandon Roberts