Brandon Roberts 
The primary difference between accumulation value and cash surrender value is any applicable surrender charge to the life insurance or annuity contract. Accumulation value is the full accumulated cash value in the policy. Cash surrender value is the accumulated value minus any applicable surrender charge or market value adjustment (MVA). It’s important to understand, however, …
There is a lot of information on the internet suggesting that whole life insurance is a scam. The product itself is not a scam but there are multiple ways it can be implemented, designed, and sold. The bottom line is that if you pay the premium and the policy is in force when you die, …
A couple of weeks ago, we addressed a suggestion that whole life focused insurers are more conservative investors who seek out specifically guarantees when they make their investment decisions. We tested this theory with a comparison looking at the investment profiles of Northwestern Mutual (the number one issuer of whole life insurance in the United …
Whole life guaranteed cash value is an often overlooked and very powerful aspect of the use of whole life insurance as a wealth-building tool. The fact that a financial intermediary is willing to guarantee a value you can walk away from them with all the while promising to pay a substantially larger sum to your …
A week or so ago we received an email from someone who wanted our opinion on a YouTube video put together by an insurance agent. The video, titled The Dangerous Truths about Indexed Universal Life Insurance, came from Caleb Guilliams. I don’t know Caleb personally, and I’ll confess that I don’t much about his insurance …
If you are looking to buy whole life insurance as a way to save for the future there is a huge mistake you might be making. I’m going to try and help you avoid that mistake with five rules you must follow when buying whole life insurance for this purpose. Following these rules will ensure …
The financial planning industry changed quite substantially since I arrived on scene a little over 10 years ago. In that time, much of the regulatory shifts seek to establish new standards (e.g. the fiduciary standard) across all transactions in an effort to 1.) force advisors to better educate themselves about financial products and 2.) give …
Following up on my long established position that indexed universal life insurance is not market correlated, I want to share a story about a recent client situation involving IUL. As you all well know, the market experienced incredible volatility recently due to major attempts to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. This resulted in a massive …
Looking back on our years of selling life insurance, we see a past of lessons learned. Some of these lessons taught us about the methods best avoided regarding life insurance selling. Other lessons solidify some truths we came to understand through years of watching them play out again and again like nighttime re-runs of major …
Life insurance agents are people, too. They have social lives, families, and dreams. They aspire to make as much money as possible and desire nice things–or at least financial peace-of-mind. But in this pursuit, some of them bend the rules a bit and distort reality in an attempt to close a sale. There are too …
