Is Indexed Universal Life Insurance an Alternative to Stocks?

Indexed Universal Life InsuranceIndexed universal life insurance showed up in the early 90's to a somewhat mixed reception. For years it was a relatively obscure product, made available by a minority of insurance companies. But then, the 00's turned out to be a really boring decade and the buy-and-hold mantra was starting to show signs of ware.

So, many companies that threw mutuality to curb in the 90's and early 00's (and even a few that didn't) turned to a new idea that would entice market hungry “investors” whose stomaches were turned inside out by a decade with not one but two recession. Actually, in all fairness the second recession came a few years after the popular adoption of the new product.

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Life Insurance Companies Hate Being Compared

Life Insurance Companies Hate Being Compared

It’s our practice to compare all the companies that may have a chance of providing the best solution for our clients.  Some people have a preferred bias toward using participating whole life insurance as their choice for cash value life insurance while others lean more toward using some type of universal life insurance.

Quite honestly, we don’t feel there’s a right or wrong answer here.  Both types of policies will work well with a cash accumulation strategy so long as the policies are structured properly.

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Guaranteed Universal Life Insurance and AG 38, Some People get what they Deserve

AG 38Though we've talked about it in other venues, I just realized we've never spent time here on the Insurance Pro Blog discussing much about AG 38 and its impact on the industry. That ends today.

Guaranteed universal life insurance has always been a somewhat boring topic to me from a daily professional life point of view. It doesn't fit all that well into my usual paradigm of life insurance plan design, and as a result is often skipped over (rightfully so) by me. However, purely from a thought exercise point of view, guaranteed universal life insurance is quite possibly one of the most fascinating products the industry has ever dreamed up.

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The Smartest Guy in the Room: Being a Competent Life Insurance Agent

Being a Competent Life Insurance Agent

Warning: I should preface this post by warning our readers that this is mostly directed at our fellow life insurance agents.  However, if you're at all interested in the industry and it's inner-dysfunction, you'll probably be interested enough to keep reading.  This post is not intended to be arrogant but it is direct and truthful.  You've been warned.

Competitive intelligence in the insurance and financial services world can be the deciding factor between us and our competition.

I can't begin to tell you the number of times we've either been in a competitive situation, or have been contacted to assist with a competitive situation where it was apparent the client didn't care about who could present the better product.  They were much more concerned with who appeared to understand the complexity of the problem and had the competence to understand the solution.

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Cash Value Life Insurance: Are You Getting Screwed?

Cash Value Life InsuranceFor a blog that loves cash value life insurance, I'm about to pull inspiration from a source that might leave many of you scratching your head. About a week ago, Leo Laporte gave a great keynote speech at the New Media Expo (formerly Blog World) that spoke specifically about the advertising world. His speech was about the nuance new media has regarding advertisers and how their adoption of new media will be a bit of a challenge. But there was a comment within that speech about how advertisers (i.e. marketers) view you and me and what (or should I say, who) they target.

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Do we need more life insurance agents: Northwestern Mutual to Hire Over 5,000 This Year

Do we need more life insurance agents

A couple of days ago this headline appeared on my google alerts that are automatically shuffled to my inbox.  I thought sure this is a mistake.

But no, it’s not…here’s a link to the story so you can read all about Quiet Company’s grand plan.

The official word from Mother Mutual is that they had a banner year for recruiting in 2012, hiring over 5,000 new agents or as they call them “financial professionals”.  So, naturally they gotta raise the bar…right?

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Allan vs. Pam Bank on Yourself Round 2: Pam Hits Back

Pam Bank on Yourself Round 2

Some time ago, I covered an article written by CBS Market Watch contributor Allan Roth, which was an exposé on the popular book Bank on Yourself®.

I had hoped that it wouldn't die with Allan Roth's swipe at Pam Yellen, but several months passed and I began to think that Pam was going to pull a card from the old public relations bag of tricks and just ignore this until it went away. But about a month ago, Pam struck back, and came out swinging.

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