We had a really good run with the stock market over the past 10+ years. It seemed like the market was on a nonstop race to higher and higher levels. In fact, many hobbyist investors made unimaginable fortunes by launching blogs and doling out investment advice that largely parroted the long-standing ethos of the now-deceased …
Life Insurance used to generate retirement income is a slightly more advanced subject within the world of life insurance and financial planning. The stock jockeys hate it, and the life insurance agents love it. No surprise there. But is there something that life insurance brings to the table that is truly special? Or are you …
With news sources reporting every higher inflation measure–and ample signs of prices increasing across the country–it’s understandable that many people are seeking ways to personally combat the effects of inflation on their lives. The Infinite Banking crowd appears ready to pounce on this topic and celebrate their ethos as the solution to the problem. Philosophically, …
There’s no secret that continuously low interest rates cause a struggle for life insurers and this can have a negative impact on insurance products that accumulate cash value. However, lower market interest rates negatively impact all financial tools that use fixed interest rates as a savings mechanism–think certificates of deposit, bonds, and money market accounts. …
When purchasing whole life insurance, the buyer makes a long-term commitment to a strategy and–to a slightly lesser degree–an insurance company. This notion appears very simple on its face. It makes sense and we can follow the logic pretty easily, or at least assume we can. But a lot of people struggle with the inter-temporal …
The Street.com reported early last week that the Bank of America price to normalized earnings ratio indicates a negative 10-year return for the S&P500. This is the first time the metric has made such an indication since 1999, and we all know how that played out. Does this mean the S&P 500 is doomed for …
Over the course of the past several weeks, we looked at real whole life policies and evaluated their real policy performance. We specifically looked at cash value accumulation comparing original projections of non-guaranteed values to the actual performance of the policies. Every policy spans a timeline of around 10 years. we used internal rate of …
The rate of return on a whole life insurance policy will vary from company to company. The rate of return is also heavily influenced by the policy type selected and the design used by the insurance agent/broker who sells it. Despite the variables that affect the rate of return, there is of course an average …
A life insurance dividend is a non-guaranteed payment from the insurance company to the policy owner representing profits the company earned during the policy year. Insurance companies often view dividends as a sharing of the surplus created by their insurance activities among policyholders whose insurance contracts generate profits beyond the insurer’s expectations. A dividend also …
Cash value life insurance, also known as universal life or whole life insurance, is a form of life insurance that builds cash value. You can use this cash value for a number of different options including pay premiums due, withdraw a portion of the cash to use as retirement income, or surrender the entire policy …
