Brandon Roberts 
We’ve talked a good bit about how inflation might impact whole life insurance, but we’ve been much less vocal about how it might affect indexed universal life insurance. In theory, the products operate in a similar world and so should face similar consequences. But… IUL may have some short-term advantages. Since the interest earnings are tied …
I own stocks. This shouldn’t be a big revelation to anyone. I think I’ve been pretty transparent about my beliefs that whole life insurance and indexed universal life insurance are complements–not replacements–to equities. Some–a lot actually–of my personal stock picking would likely be deemed a tad exotic–high risk for sure. And it’s worked out pretty …
Cash-value life insurance–e.g. whole life and indexed universal life insurance–offers the policy owner the option to use policy values while he/she is still alive. There are a few ways to go about this, but today I want to talk about the loan feature. Taking a loan against a life insurance policy is one of the …
We don’t spend enough time talking about annuities. It’s true. We know it. We occasionally talk about it–Brantley and I. We even make plans to do something about it. Then it gets lost in the bustle of life–forgotten until the next time we remember that we don’t talk enough about annuities. You’d think things would …
We’re now well over a year since the COVID-19 Pandemic began, and this means we now have some data that gives us some insights into how the Pandemic is affecting life insurers. Not surprisingly, when the Pandemic began, we saw ample hand-wringing among life insurance companies. Many of them quickly put strict restrictions in place …
Persistently low-interest rates leave more conservative investors in a tough position. While these people aren’t really keen on assuming a position in higher-risk assets, the returns achieved on fixed-interest options have been on a downward trend for more than a decade. Cash-value life insurance products do tend to compare very favorably as fixed-interest options, but …
The Fed made very clear this week its intentions to begin easing its long-standing practice of pumping money into the U.S. Economy. This means they are looking to push interest rates up on the broader economy–a day many of us have been awaiting. A lot of things will come with higher interest rates, but one …
Retirement income planning is a complicated and–for many–an elusive task. Industries that exist to help everyday Americans prepare for retirement spend millions of dollars every year trying to craft flashier and fancier marketing hooks to convince would-be retirement preppers to entrust them with their hard-saved dollars. And well-meaning reporters churn out thousands of articles every …
The end of 2020 brought a major change to the life insurance industry. A last-minute change to legislation established a new–lower–guaranteed interest rate for cash value life insurance policies. The exact rules vary a bit depending on the insurance product, but the most notable change affected whole life policies because they would need an overhaul …
In 2020, something a bit unusual happened. Life insurers faced a huge expense that far exceeded expectations had you asked any stakeholder for his/her projection from the vantage point of 2019. This huge expense? A dramatic rise in death benefit claims. Yup, it’s true. 2020 saw a sharp–15.4% year-over-year increase to be exact–rise in death …
