Brandon Roberts | The Insurance Pro Blog

Why Cash Value Life Insurance is So Awesome

We like life insurance and more specifically we like cash value life insurance. Doesn’t really matter which type of cash value life insurance it is, whole life insurance universal life insurance truth is both accomplish some magnificently great things.

But neither Brantley nor I started our careers with the appreciation we now have for life insurance. No, instead we were both very excited to be working in the “securities” industry and were much happier to hold investment licenses than we were to hold insurance licenses.

What caused us to make the shift away from practices that were securities focused and instead more insurance focused?

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The Securities and Exchange Commission is Above the Law

by Brandon Roberts

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Following up on a theme we’ve discussed before about certain people having access to trading options that you—the retail investor—do not, we figured we’d talk today about the Securities and Exchange Commission and its approved practice of insider trading among its employees.

You see, at the SEC, insider trading is not only allowed; it’s required.

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Why It Sucks to be a Financial Advisor

by Brandon Roberts

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Being a financial advisor or insurance agent isn’t all champagne wishes and caviar dreams. In fact, it’s a lot of misery for a long time and then maybe, just maybe, a ray of sunshine breaks through a seemingly endless dark cloud that rains prosperity down on a persistent individual.

That all sounds rather dark I know, but I want to be very clear about how this industry over-emphasizes the benefits and understates the costs (both financial and emotional) involved in growing to become a successful advisor/agent.

Today we’re speaking directly to those who seek to join our ranks within the financial services industry, and those who have newly joined the game and wondering how on earth they go about continuing to stay in the game.

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401k’s Aren’t the only Retirement Plan that can Leave you High and Dry

by Brandon Roberts

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We’ve definitely not shown a lot of love and admiration for the old 401k Plan around here. While there may be circumstances where contributions to a 401k make sense (though relatively few circumstances) we would be remiss not to point out that 401k’s and their sister products (e.g. 403b’s, 457’s, etc.) aren’t the only wholesale retirement product that can let you down.

No, I’m afraid one of the most respected retirement vehicles that many would love to see gain a resurgence in the employee benefits market place can also be just as disappointing for a number of reasons. I’m talking, of course, about traditional pension plans.

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Why Life Insurance Policy Loans Help You Save Money

by Brandon Roberts

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Life insurance policy loans are a long standing feature of cash value life insurance. And this feature can be a very powerful financial tool at your disposal when used correctly. I would even argue that this feature should be the focus of such books as Bank on Yourself® and Be Your Own Banker®.

Having a grasp of policy loans and the mechanics therein goes much further to make the case for life insurance as a viable financial tool.

Today, I want to walk through a few examples (with math to back them up) that highlight my point about life insurance loans potentially being the superior method of financing purchases.

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Can you Invest Better than an Insurance Company?

by Brandon Roberts

The investment sales world is often interested in convincing us that their products are superior, but when proof of superiority is lacking one opts for a common secondary method…bad mouthing the competition. And while there are a number of ways that this sort of thing might take place throughout the financial services industry, one such practice that deserves time here for it utter nonsense is the claim that you and I can easily beat the investment performance of a life insurer and further it’s stupid to think that there is something special they could offer since they are bound to the same market you and I have access to.

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The Life Foundation’s Miserable Valentine’s Day Fail

by Brandon Roberts

While we have no particular interest in being pariahs, we certainly have received a good amount of admiration for holding the insurance and financial services industry accountable on its many foolish blunders. To be fair, it’s not as though this industry is unique and with an overabundance of missteps and such, we just happen to take up professional residency within this industry and care a lot for its prosperity. So when we find ourselves shaking out heads we find the need to wag the finger and encourage more professionalism, intelligence, creativity, etc.

And recently we’ve found ourselves clawing at our eyeballs over the industries approach to Valentine’s Day. And we’ve taken issue with the mecca of the life insurance industry’s advocacy groups, the Life Foundation.

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Why do we See more Income from Universal Life Insurance than Whole Life Insurance?

by Brandon Roberts

We make a lot of comparisons at The Insurance Pro Blog and whenever and even more behind the scenes at The Salus Agency. And one of the biggest questions that consistently comes up from some of those comparisons has to do with the gap between income projections for universal life insurance and whole life insurance.

So what gives with the disparity between these two products? Do the universal life carriers lie? Or is there something else underlying the situation that explains this difference?

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average: 8% per Year?

by Brandon Roberts

While there is no doubting the last couple of years have been really great years for the stock market (if you think of it in terms of the growth over the year, rather than growth from many years past), but we’d like to take a moment and think of things a tad longer term.

But keeping with our traditional habit of raining on parades, we wanted to take a moment to point out that not all that glitters is necessarily gold. We’ve talked before about where the Dow Jones Industrial Average would need to be in order to have achieved an 8% per year rate of return since 2000, and figured it was about time that we updated those numbers.

The answer:

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Ted Benna: The 401(K) Giveth and Taketh away

by Brandon Roberts

By all accounts Ted Benna should be heralded as an American hero. But I’m willing to bet most of you have never heard the name. Ted is credited as being the guy who created a financial tool that reformed personal finance throughout the last three decades and made more Americans members of the stock investing society than any other financial tool ever created.

However, Ted is rather ho hum about his creation these days. Noting that it’s largely an unwieldy beast that has taken a form he never intended, and the only way to fix it—in his eyes—is to blow it up and start over again with something completely different.

And what was it that Mr. Benna created that has veered so hopelessly off track that it cannot be repaired?

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