Podcast Episodes

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Today we are talking about a very important aspect of insurance underwriting. So as everyone quits listening at that point…no seriously hang in there to the very end and we'll reveal something super secret!

No really, there's no big secret but we promise to make this an interesting episode.

This is one of those topics that we should have covered in the first five episodes and/or blog posts but we didn't. And we are attempting to go back and right the wrongs of our past.

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Didn't we just talk about the Dow broke 17,000 for the first time? Yes we did. Since then the average has fallen and come back just a bit. As of this very moment, its sitting at 16,651.

But honestly do we think the market is headed back up and will keep moving up? Or will it all fall part and accelerate downward trading.

We honestly have no clue.

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The CFP board is struggling with how it wants to define “Fee Only” financial planning. It's a bit of a quandary–and that is how do we define this term? What is fee only? Who has the right to use that label to describe themselves?

Over the last couple of years this debate has been heating up, however, it only seems to have to muddied the waters that much further. Some people have been sanctioned by the CFP board for doing things that others have not been sanctioned for. In short, there seems to be a fair amount of inconsistency among the CFP board and its dealing with its members.

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There is a worrying trend that we are seeing in the financial services industry recently. That trend involves selling indexed universal life insurance to people that have previously purchased fixed indexed annuities with some sort of guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit (GMWB) or lifetime income rider.

Now that isn't necessarily a problem as one could certainly own an annuity with this sort of benefit and an IUL policy for distinct reasons. 

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Are millennials making a big mistake by not investing enough of their retirement funds in stocks? Well, someone over at the Motley Fool seems to think so and today we're going to tell you what we think about their (the Motley Fool) opinion.

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Today we're discussing the other “i” word–illustration. We are diving into how illustrations are manipulated to sell the sizzle and not so much about focusing on the substance.

It seems that far too many of the people working in the marketing department feel that they need to really “push the envelope” in terms of illustrating projected product performance. In other words, they like to distort reality to make their products seem a bit more attractive than they would otherwise be.

This is particularly true when it comes to variable and indexed products as it is somewhat easier to inflate things based on using unrealistic returns on the investment sub-accounts and/or indexed accounts.

We have seen illustrations that used static returns of 8-12% depending on the product and when we saw them as the “standards” of what is allowed have changed over the last few years.

There really is no academic argument as to why anything should be illustrated at rates this high, however, someone in marketing decided that it makes their product look really nice when shown these sorts of rates and that will convince people to buy.

What's more…

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We’ve talked about a lot of scary financial concepts on the Insurance Pro Blog in the past and it seems as though few economic topics strike more fear in the hearts of Americans than unrelenting ‘i’ word. We are, of course, talking about inflation.

But what is this seemingly cryptic topic all about and why is it so frightening? Further, is it really the harbinger of death for our economy—or at least your personal financial life—so many others have suggested?

Probably not.

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Today we are discussing one of our favorite financial products…the 401k. We really wish you could see the red hot glow of the sarcasm light in our studio.

If you've been listening to the Financial Procast for any length of time, you will surely be familiar with our disdain for the 401k. It's not necessarily that we think the product or idea is bad, we just think there's been way too much emphasis placed on it as a tool to solve the retirement income woes of America.

Those who think the 401k will save them from the meow mix diet during retirement are surely destined to be disappointed. We have witnessed firsthand the problems that are created by having too much of your liquid net-worth invested in qualified plans of any kind.

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The Certified Financial Planner designation stands as a testament of one’s dedication to excellence and superiority in the world of financial planning. Or at least that’s what the CFP Board and the designees want you to believe. And they’ve done a good job convincing the world that CFP® holders are the wise wizards of the retail financial services industry.

Our personal experience, however, hasn’t quite match up with the marketing machine’s hype…

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Well the Dow was at 17,000, but this week certainly hasn’t been very generous to American equities. Ignoring that ugly truth for a minute, we wanted to take a minute to look at last week’s awesome new highs and discuss what it really means for the real return of the stock market.

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