|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
In Reply to: Re: whole life posted by hindi on August 10, 2001 at 18:51:54:
Hindi,
I have to admire your consistency. You are uncomfortable with the idea
of cash value insurance in general. Is this why when you sell a
Universal Life policy, you almost apologetically refer
to any accrued cash value as a "negative cost"?
I absolutely admit that Whole Life has a heavy up-front load.
Someone who can't maintain the policy for at least 10 years
will almost certainly lose money and have paid for some
of the most expensive life insurance around. But in a long-term
comparison (15, 30, or 40 years) of total out-of-pocket
expense with accrued cash value, participating WL from a solid,
honest company will probably perform at least as well as
the equivatently funded UL policy.
You make the valid point that all life insurance is the same.
What varies is the payment plan and whether there is any accrued value.
A UL policy is term insurance tied to a conservative investment plan.
So is WL. WL is less flexible, but you typically gain partial
ownership of the company and "participation" in its earnings.
UL has more guarantees, but less potential of beating their
projections. Either type can fall short of their projections,
but some WL companies have an extremely long record of meeting or surpassing them.
On openness and comprehensibility, I think UL may have a significant
lead. I'm guessing this is one of the reasons you don't sell WL.
If the company can't explain it to its own agents, how can
an agent explain it to his clients? In my case, there was a
"leap of faith". I did not understand my policy, but I "knew"
that I wanted Whole Life. Now with the Visible Policy, I am
going back and figuring out what the heck I have. So far I have not found anything which makes me regret my decision.
I don't think I would have regretted UL either. But I'm six
years into this and don't see any reason to change what I have.
-- Rich
--- http://rocq.home.att.net