Overfunded Life Insurance

Overfunded life insurance, what on earth is that?  I hear you cry out.  Perhaps you ran across the concept mentioned briefly somewhere on the internet.  Or maybe someone suggested that you buy an overfunded

Life Insurance Commission: A Great Evil According to the Internet

Few subjects related to life insurance cause more hot-tempered debate than life insurance commission.  Some believe it's an evil incentive that encourages agents to push “expensive” products

Whole Life Insurance Dividend Options

Whole life insurance dividend options are one of the ways a whole life policy provides the policyholder robust versatility.  Understanding these different options is crucial for the proper use of a dividend-paying

Cutting Whole Life Insurance Expenses Means Cutting Whole Life Insurance Guarantees

In most interactions with prospective clients who are interested in exploring a whole life policy, there's often a conversation that arises about life insurance guarantees. Given that most of the general

Reducing Whole Life Insurance Dividends When Running Illustrations

For years, insurance agents, companies, and purchasers have looked at hypothetical ledgers that delineate future policy values in an attempt to articulate policy functionality and understand how one policy's

IPB 136: Leaving One Life Insurance Company for Another

No one wants to quit or be forced to change the primary life insurance company that they are writing business with. Unfortunately, there are times when it is unavoidable…either because the company

IPB 135: The Ohio National Variable Annuity Episode

Ohio National officially closed its VA biz and cut trail commissions (fees?) owed to B/D’s and brokers on December 13th, 2018 for any VA sold with a guaranteed minimum income benefit. We don’t know

IPB 134: Holistic Financial Planning is Poised to Win Big

To kick off the new year, we are raising the white flag.  We have to concede a position we've long held because consumer sentiment appears to overwhelmingly head in the opposite direction.  For years,

Why don’t more Financial Advisors Sell Life Insurance?

The holiday season now firmly has its grip around many of us and since we opted not to produce an end of the year podcast that answered questions we receive from various readers and listeners, I figured

Questions About Dividends, Direct Recognition, and IRA Liquidation to Fund Whole Life Insurance

Whole Life Insurance Rates: What’s the Cost of Waiting to Buy?

You are never going to pay less for whole life insurance than the amount you will pay this year.  Whole life insurance rates become dramatically more expensive (actual dollar cost and the cost of lost

2019 Whole Life Insurance Dividend Announcements

It's November and that means it's time for most major U.S. life insurer who have any significant focus on whole life insurance sales to announce anticipated dividends for next year.  We've already heard

Should You Intentionally UNDERfund Whole Life Insurance?

Last week I was having an email conversation with a member of our audience. As part of an email that I sent out (to those lucky enough to be on our subscriber list), I asked a question and I got quite

Is Universal Life Insurance Collapsing?

Universal life insurance is really not that interesting, but you'd never guess that by reading pretty much anything that gets published about it in the mainstream press. In fact, it has been featured in

Do You Pay Taxes on Life Insurance Payout?

There are so many questions about what taxes one must pay on life insurance proceeds. But one that we get a lot is, do you pay taxes on life insurance payout?  The subject can be a bit intimidating for

Working With Bad Life Insurance Companies

Today's episode is all about the evils of working with companies that turn out to be major disappointments. Who are we talking about specifically? Well, we're not gonna name names here. Not today.

The Key to Selling More Whole Life Insurance

Seven years ago the Insurance Pro Blog started as a resource to "demystify life insurance."My original purpose was to spread the good word on life insurance--specifically whole life insurance and eventually

Whole Life Insurance Pros and Cons

First, I feel the need to provide context for this post. 99% of our clients want to use cash value life insurance as an asset class. Which means people need to distinguish whole life insurance from

Whole Life Insurance Dividend Rates Exposed

Every year, usually sometime in November, life insurance companies that sell participating whole life insurance report their plans to pay dividends to policyholders. When the insurance companies talk about

TEFRA DEFRA TAMRA: How Taxes Effect Life Insurance

Life insurance enjoys some unique tax benefits, but it also faces limits imposed by legislation we know as TEFRA DEFRA and TAMRA.  These pieces of legislation established specific guidelines as to what

Is 10 Pay Whole Life Insurance Any Good?

Using whole life insurance as a place to store cash and to accumulate wealth works well for people who have a decent amount of discretionary income and realistic expectations. Most life insurance companies

3 Legitimate Reasons NOT to Buy Whole Life Insurance

http://traffic.libsyn.com/insuranceproblogpodcast/IPB_121__The_Top_Legitimate_Reasons_NOT_to_Buy_Whole_Life_Insurance.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadIn our last post and podcast episode,

5 Reasons Why Whole Life Insurance Is Bad According to the Internet

If you’ve been around the life insurance industry for more than five minutes, it’s pretty likely that you’ve encountered all sorts of reasons as to why whole life insurance is bad. In fact, it’s

IPB 119: Musings from Father 401k

It's not much of a stretch to suggest that the 401k has become the default option for most people to fund their future retirement. For most folks, that's pretty much the only option offered by their employer–or

Best Whole Life Insurance Products for Cash Value 2018

We originally released our opinion on the best whole life products for cash value accumulation in 2013.  We re-visited the subject in 2014, and then never again discussed the topic.  In truth, the topic

IPB 117: Why Are Life Insurance Companies Afraid to Communicate?

Why is that life insurance companies seem so reluctant to answer important questions? If you've been in the life insurance biz long enough this is probably one of your many laments. It certainly is for

IPB 116: Life Insurance Policy Loan Pitfalls

Before anyone reads the title for this post/podcast and thinks we've suddenly reversed course on our fondness for cash value life insurance, think again. We've not changed our minds, we're just pointing

IPB 115: Annuities Today, Life Insurance Tomorrow

Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission has started taking comments from the public in an effort to build their own version of the failed DOL fiduciary rule. Take a few minutes and look at the

The DOL Rule is Dead

The DOL Fiduciary Rule is dead.  It went out with an unceremonious whimper last week.  Financial media sources covered the news almost no one cares about through short articles noting the progress that

IPB 113: The Stumbling Blunders of Accordia Life Insurance Company aka Global Atlantic

Today’s topic is not so much about the mechanics of everyday life insurance but diverges into the seedy underbelly of the industry and the problems that certain transactions have caused. Well, one particular