If you just bought a car, a new super hybrid of some kind, and the salesman told you that it would never run out of fuel, would you just drive on down the highway and trust that guarantee? Would you get a second opinion? Maybe do some research? You might find out that the “guarantee” that it would never run out of fuel was only valid as long as certain assumptions panned out.
Let’s suppose you trusted that salesman and went on down the road. The worst thing that could happen is that he kind of misrepresented the facts and you run out and have to do some hitchhiking.
Your whole life or universal life insurance have guarantees and they also have assumptions. I can tell you that, in my experience, most of those life insurance policies are sold based on the assumptions because the car that doesn’t run out of gas may cost a little more. If one of those assumptions doesn’t work as hoped, your life insurance policy will run out of gas. It will lapse or you will find out that it will take an exhorbitant amount of money to keep it in force.
Your life insurance and the benefits that it could provide to your family are far more important than a car. My guess is that you would never leave the car salesman’s claim unchecked. Are you going to drive on down the road and not check out your life insurance policy?
Call an independent life insurance agent today and find out if your universal life or whole life policy is really good to go forever.
February 22nd, 2007
Would everyone who has a whole life or universal life policy please stand up and raise your hand so I can see you! There is not a day that goes by that a case doesn’t cross my desk where someone believes they have a permanent life insurance policy (defined as you can’t outlive it) and when we dig into the guts of their policy we find out if they continue paying as they are, it collapses within a short period of time. When I say collapses what I mean is that they no longer have insurance unless they agree to pay substantially more than what they were led to believe would be their level premium for life.
Today I spoke with a doctor whose parents had carried a whole life policy on him from childhood. They gave the policy to him several years ago and he just let it sit until a captive agent from the company called him up and suggested the do a conversion to another type of policy. So, the doctor tells me that this life insurance agent showed him rows and rows of numbers and assured him this was a policy guaranteed for life. He said he was so overwhelmed by all the numbers that he finally just caved in and told the guy to sign him up.
The doctor was 55 at the time. Today we looked at the guarantees in his policy, and it collapses at age 71. We worked the numbers and found him a new policy that will be paid in full in 15 years and will be GUARANTEED not to lapse before his death. The life insurance quotes are almost identical to what he is paying now for a life insurance policy that will likely be gone at his age 71. His supposed “permanent” policy isn’t guaranteed as long as his term life policies.
Life insurance agents that don’t have the moral and ethical values to sell guaranteed policies should be asked to leave the business. If you have purchased a whole life or universal life insurance policy in the last 20 years, find an independent agent and have it analyzed. As they used to say in the Navy, “this is not a drill, this is the real thing. The cost of waiting is much higher than you can even imagine.
Again, please raise your hands!
February 22nd, 2007
