How to evaluate life insurance companies is a question that plagues both consumers and industry professionals. Many companies love to market on ratings or a single financial metric at which they excel. But highly rated life insurance companies are a dime a dozen and what financial attributes truly matter when it comes to crossing life …
Whole life insurance dividends are a fun subject we discuss quite regularly. But a more obscure and advanced topic on this subject is the way life insurer adjust dividends (if at all) whenever a policyholder takes a loan out against a whole life insurance policy. We refer to this concept as dividend recognition–it’s a reference …
Buying whole life insurance or universal life insurance as a cash accumulation tool or even because you want a permanent death benefit requires you to make a long term commitment to the life insurer. Even buying term life insurance commits a rather lengthy attachment to a life insurer. It’s understandable that anyone would want to …
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 features come together and work compared to another. Additionally, aggressive selling of policy projections overstated by extraordinary economic circumstances from the 1980s resulted in the industries …
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 opportunity) but all of this will become much more clear in the next few paragraphs. You really don’t need an …
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 from a few life insurers and we are awaiting announcements from the others. We figured we’d take a moment to discuss what …
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 it, they often refer to as their whole life insurance dividend rates. Generally, the companies make their announcements by noting the sum of dividends–expressed in dollars–they …
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 became a bit boring to me. Year in and year out the list didn’t change much, and the reason for various …
For five years, we have tracked the investment yield trend of whole life insurance companies and we continue to analyze this data every year because investment income is a primary driver of dividends paid to participating insurance policy holders. Investment income is not the only contributor to any insurance company’s dividend payout. The other …
We’ve reported on operational cash flow among life insurers in the past and note that we hold this metric in high regard for a multitude of reasons. Our philosophy is that operational cash flow shows us true profitability of a life insurance company, especially among whole life focused insurers. Why is that? Well, it’s primarily …
