IUL vs. Roth 401k/401k vs. Roth IRA/IRA

[Captain Save]

It wasn't meant as an insult to say you have made up your mind, but when you have you really aren't open minded. Just how we work. I've done the same thing here before with other things.

Now, I hold a life insurance license and I only sold term. Most agents push these not beacuse they are better for you. They push them because they are better for them. They get a much higher, yearly reup on the payment where as term you only get a smaller one time payment up front. You don't have to to understand all the details, because they do all have the same basic bad features.

I will list why I do not like these types of policies.

1. You set yourself up to be broke. Most people buy all these permanent policies for no reason if they plan to actually build a retirement. Why do you need a 500k$ life insurance policiy if you have over 1 million in the bank? You are paying massive premiums for no reason. For the average person it gives a false sense of preparedment thinking they are good to go with these. They simply do not perform as they advertise.

2. Most don't buy enough coverage because they can't afford it on these poilices. Sold by the idea of bundling investments with life insurance the premiums are so outrageous most are under insured to be able to have one. The average american cant' afford a stupid high 2k$ or 3k$ premium for proper coverage to buy into one of these, and those who can are not aware of what they actually bought.

3. I've never met a single person who kept these that actually performed like they were advertised, and that did anywhere near as good as the market.

4. UL policies do cover better than normal whole life, but only on a plan B can you get your Cash and DB. Those are even higher in payments. And in the end a UL will never, ever, give you the results you get investing in an index fund or even a mutual fund. You are paying massive fees in the form of a high premium in return for a guaranteed low return investment. They have caps btw. Just because the maket does fabulous one year doesn't mean you get in on that. They will cap it. They have built in protections to keep money in their pocket.


You forget you still have that payment to make. If you have a 3k$ a MONTH payment, you are far from an unlimited stream of money unless you plan to live like you never saved a thing. Trust me, they win...not you.

Your examples are simply unrealistic, btw. I get the point but if the market was negative for 30 years we wouldn't be American anymore. We'd be China. And that company sure wouldn't be in business because they make money on investing your money just like a bank does. Everything requries that the market does well, overall. If that fails, everything fails. No guarantees.

I missed the 1st part of your response ..

1 the purpose of a cash value life policy is to build cash value.. you don't want a high death benefit unless you want to save a whole lot of money .. so the if you need 1million dollar life insurance .. you buy as low of a death benefit as you can .. and make up the rest with term insurance.. by the time the term runs out .. because your cash value is increasing the death benefit you would make up that difference.. .that was a load but ask me to clarify if you don't get it.
2. your premium is not expensive.. if you just putting money away for retirment savings .. a well designed policy breaks even somewhere between years 5-10 ..
3. i'm sorry but this is not enough of a reason to tell me the product is bad.. you have to tell me why they're not performing as well.. that would show me you understand the product .. and if it's something like the assumed interest was high ... then that's easy to fix .. be conservative... the one i did yesterday was illustrated at 6% .. if that product does 6% .2000-2011 ..the IUL did better than 6.50 .. and that was a bad time for the s&P 500


there are many bad policies out there so I understand that many could be underperforming...there are a lot of bad mutual funds out there but you guys use this forum to educate people about the vanguards and fidelities.. etc..

a person who has a great one is going back to his advisor... trust me because these policies are so rare ... when someone sees an advisor do something different than the status quo .. they respect that advisor a lot more.. so that would probably explain why .
another reason is that you need the initial illustration ... if you don't know what you're doing an inforce illustration does not tell you what the projection was at the beginning ..
4. if you're doing a UL and not a plan B.. run away... see part 1 .. the purpose is buiding cash value not buying cheap life insurance that premium you're paying is going back to your retirement savings and earning interests.. that's why they call it "flexible premium" .. because you're paying more than you have to .. if you want to buy pure death benefit buy a GUL .. it has no cash vallue and can be permanent

[GoodSteward]

I missed the 1st part of your response ..

1 the purpose of a cash value life policy is to build cash value..

I think you missed the part where I used to sell insurance. Your payments may not appear to go up,, but they go up. They are built into the policy to have your cash value make up the difference so years later you suddenly don't have the cash you thought. Yes, there are ways to avoid a payment that late in life, but you are getting into even more absurd payments at this point for a reasonable policy. If you are needing to supliment with term then why in the world do you use this to start with? You keep mentioning this magical IUL you know about, but the more complicated these plans are the more you need to stay away. It's complicated to avoid you knowing what you are getting. I've listened to people who had these policies after 10 years and are very eager to get out of them. They are not what they appear which is why there are pages and pages of fine print and stipulations. They are a terrible way to invest, and a terrible way to have life insurance. The reason there are so many bad policies is because they simply are bad policies. Just buy term, invest with vanguard and go on with your life.

[GoodSteward]

Oh, and this buy whole life to build cash and suppliment with term. You can't build past the face value of the account so if you only can afford a 50k$ policiy and you supppliment with term you'll never build more than 50k$ and it will take until you are 100 to see that much. Plan B options might allow more room to grow both, but it is stupidly slow and unnecesaryly high. For those wondering these policies by default are designed to have the cash value hit the face amount by age 100, unless you buy a paid up policy to hit it sooner(much higher premium), but you can't by law have the cash value pass the death benefit. Under plan b the insurance company is at the greatest risk since they allow the DB to move up, therefore these plans are even more absurdly high.

You keep talikng like these are even within reason for 70% of the population. Ive seen these policies hit 5k$ a MONTH for a million dollar poliicy. Most americans don't even make that much. But many, many can afford 200-300 if they really want 1 million coverage in a term. Thats a big difference and dollar cost averageing will pay off in the long run with an investment. Also, when you are in retirement you need to move that money into a more secure location and live off the interest. Not pull from it hoping the interest will even out with the internet you are paying to get your own money from one of these. iF the market is down to 0% when you are pulling the money out you are not making anything with this policy either since it is based on the market, but I gurantee you are paying in interest to the loan. the more money you pull out, the more money in interest you are paying in. They will get their money. It doesn't protect you.

If normal investing doesn't beat these policies the companies would go out of business. You simply can't do worse with mutal funds or index funds (if you use a properly mature account) because if you did do bad with say vanguard, then that means the whole market is down. The insurance companies can't sustain unless normal investing stays on top. That's why they don't invest into IUL's themselves, they invest into the market.

Stop drinking the coolade. Here are my final qestions to you. Do you have an IUL policiy? If you do, what is your age, premium, and coverage?

[DavidLewis]

Simply put, is it a good idea to invest in an IUL (indexed universal life) policy rather than a 401k/IRA or Roth 401k/IRA?

I've seen illustrations showing that a specific type of IUL (Penn Mutual Accumulation Builder II) outgrows these other types of accounts if they all have the same average rate of return. For example, if over 40 years, a Roth 401k and an IUL average a 7.5% rate of return, the final value of the IUL is a lot more than the Roth 401k (and moreover one receives a death benefit).

However, I've also read posts that say the IUL is a "scam" and it is illegal to sell it as an investment product because the policy value is technically the property of the insurance company.

Any info/help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

A lot of this depends on the contract, but for the most part IULs aren't the deal agents make them out to be. They aren't scams, but it's important to know EXACTLY what you're buying because the insurer gives you EXACTLY what's specified in the contract.

But... let me give you some background first because this can be a complicated topic. I design and sell custom life insurance policies (and plans) for a living and have done this for the past 11 years. I also design custom financial calculators which reverse engineer an insurer's life insurance product so I can see what's going on "under the hood" and build models to show what the product is capable of.

I have a team comprised of several life insurance underwriters and case design specialists. We eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

Finally, I own both whole life and term insurance so I'm not just speaking from an ivory tower.

Most of the good info you're going to get about insurance is going to be books written by actuaries, not blog posts on the Interwebs and sometimes not your agent (depending on how, if, or where they were educated). Ideally, you'll have an agent who is familiar with this stuff and is willing to translate the gobbledygook into English.

I also want to address people who argue you should never mix insurance and savings: these people have absolutely no clue what they're talking about.

An insurance and savings plan is always comprised of either buying whole life or buying term and investing the difference. In both scenarios, you are mixing insurance with investing.

When you buy level term insurance, the insurer collects more than what's required to pay the death claim and... invests it to hold down the rising costs of insurance. The only way around this is to buy YRT or "annual renewable term." Those types of insurance are "pure insurance" which renew every year. The costs are guaranteed to go up (because there's no embedded investment component) and they get to be ungodly expensive. Mixing insurance with investing is what helps keep those costs in check.

It's a basic function of level premium insurance to combine both insurance and investing.

Whether you bundle your policy with savings (buy whole life) or not depends on what you want to get out of your insurance and savings plan.

Which brings me to the IUL.

IUL is an annual renewable term policy with a cash value account (which is different from the cash value of a whole life policy). The way these products work is:

1) You pay your premium.
2) The insurer deducts its costs (sales expenses and state premium tax).
3) The remainder goes into the cash value account. Every month, the insurer deducts the cost of insurance to support the term policy.
4) The insurer invests some or all your premium dollars in bonds and other income-producing assets.
5) The interest from those bonds (and possibly part of the premium) is used to buy index call (or put) options. Call options on the S&P 500 or some other index. Some insurers use non-hedged strategies, but the call options are the traditional way this works.
6) If the index options are profitable, the insurer credits your cash value with the gain they made, up to a cap, using either a proprietary or non-proprietary crediting method/calculation. They can also set "participation rates" to control their costs and profit margins (which may or may not lower interest credited to your cash value).
7) If the options expire worthless, the insurer credits your policy with whatever interest the bonds make. They will tell you in the contract how and when they credit this interest.
8) As long as there's money in the cash value to pay the term costs, you're good to go. If your cash value account ever drops to $0, your policy terminates.

That's it.

All universal life policies exchange the guarantees of whole life for a potential to earn higher rates of return. In a UL policy, the insurer can set minimum interest rate, maximum mortality and expense charges. In an IUL, they can also set participation rates, interest crediting caps, and a few other things to limit their exposure and your gains.

You probably noticed I said these are comprised of term + a cash value account. You are basically "buying term and investing the difference" under one contract. Like ordinary annual renewable term, the term component gets to be pretty expensive in your old age, which is why these policies assume your cash value grows steadily over time — to hold down those costs and/or eliminate part of the pure insurance component of the policy (depending on the death benefit option you choose).

You assume much of the risk in this scenario, which is why a lot of people who buy permanent insurance still prefer level premium participating whole life.

...because a participating whole life policy typically has only one moving part: the dividend. Everything else is guaranteed.

Penn Mutual is a very strong mutual company. One of the strongest in the industry. Not a fan of their IUL, but they're an excellent company. You shouldn't have any problems with them.

Anyway, the reason you're seeing a higher accumulation value is because IULs do not count losses. So, an average rate of return in a 401(k) assumes you lose some money when the market falls.

With an IUL, this will never happen so the first time the market corrects, you're effectively "ahead of the game" as long as the insurer doesn't change the cap and participation rate.

Now, this doesn't mean you won't lose money in those products. If the market tanks, those insurance charges are still due and they can start depleting the cash value account, so keep that in mind.

Insurance should never be sold as an investment. If your agent is comparing it to the stock market, this is not good. It's technically against the law to do this.

What permanent insurance does is provide a "floor" or safety net for your other assets or investments. For example, let's say you have $10,000 to invest or save.

You allocate 40% to an investment paying 2%. You allocate the remaining 60% to an investment paying 12%. Your blended or weighted average return is 8%. This is the classic diversification model.

Now, let's say instead of diversifying, you decided to purchase whole life insurance and let's further assume you've got $10,000 in cash value built up and it's earning a guaranteed return of 2%. You can borrow against the cash value to invest in whatever you were investing in before without it affecting the interest you earn on your cash value (effectively stacking your returns).

But, in this scenario, you only need to allocate $5,000 of that $10,000 (or 50%, instead of 60% as was the case with diversifying) to your 12% investment and you'd earn about 11% (after paying interest cost for the policy loan) because the guaranteed cash value is still growing alongside your investment. And it's a fully collateralized loan so you'll never go "upside down" on it. This also means it can be repaid using internal policy values if your investment ever goes south on you.

You took less risk and made a higher rate of return on your money, which is the point of owning insurance (to reduce risk).

In an IUL, this doesn't work so well because nothing is guaranteed. It's a pure interest rate play (which isn't always bad, but you want to know this going into it).

These are the kinds of things you want to consider before buying any kind of permanent life insurance. You need more than just a product. You need an insurance and savings plan.

Anyway, I hope this helps and good luck to you.

Edit: I missed one thing here on the "property" issue. It's true that the cash value of a permanent policy is the property of the insurer. If you are not part owner of the insurance company (e.g. you don't own that company's participating whole life product) then this may or may not bother you. But, it shouldn't bother you anymore or less than putting money in the bank (the same thing happens there — once the bank takes receipt of your deposit, it becomes property of the bank until you demand it back... which is why some people are worried about "bail-ins", like what happened in Cyprus). All of these are trust arrangements. Anytime you hand your money over to a financial institution, it's in their trust and becomes their property. Brokerage firms actually take ownership over your investments when you purchase them (they hold them in their name), so they have both.

[GoodSteward]

I also want to address people who argue you should never mix insurance and savings: these people have absolutely no clue what they're talking about.

An insurance and savings plan is always comprised of either buying whole life or buying term and investing the difference. In both scenarios, you are mixing insurance with investing.

I felt like I just read a copy and paste from an online insurance page. Yeah, we do know what we are talking about. You just see the bit of good these policies can have (permanent life insurance, some savings mixed in, tax benefits later in life) and completely gloss over the bad that ends up making these a bad option for almost every single person. The company I used to work for wouldn't even touch those kinds of policies. They missed out on a bunch of revenue because those make a lot more money, but they put the needs of the people first. The whole reason these policies came out were to compete against term mixed with personal investing. Most insurance agents don't have a securities license, so this is the only option they have to offer people any kind of savings/retirement options. Plus this makes the insurance company and agents much more money <- That's why they love them so much. They are like the payday loans of insurance. They technically give you the loan you wanted, but at a much higher expense to you.

Let me ask you something. When a potential client comes in, how do you create a package for them? What guidelines do you use?

[GoodSteward]

Edit: I missed one thing here on the "property" issue. It's true that the cash value of a permanent policy is the property of the insurer. If you are not part owner of the insurance company (e.g. you don't own that company's participating whole life product) then this may or may not bother you. But, it shouldn't bother you anymore or less than putting money in the bank (the same thing happens there — once the bank takes receipt of your deposit, it becomes property of the bank until you demand it back... which is why some people are worried about "bail-ins", like what happened in Cyprus). All of these are trust arrangements. Anytime you hand your money over to a financial institution, it's in their trust and becomes their property. Brokerage firms actually take ownership over your investments when you purchase them (they hold them in their name), so they have both.

Except a bank doesn't charge you interest to use your own money.....

[DavidLewis]

This is because the insurance companies use options contracts on the index, and the options contracts don't pay dividends.

All legit ways to invest, but no reason a person could not do this on their own outside the insurance contract.

Actually, there are lots of reasons a person couldn't do this on their own. Position sizing is one reason. The ability to match cash flows to long-term liabilities is another. They can buy assets you can't buy, and you can leverage those assets to reduce your own risk.

A person's lifespan is, what, maybe 70-80 years? An insurance company has a 100 year time horizon on every policy they sell. You cannot beat the insurer because you won't outlive them.

[GoodSteward]

From what I've experienced people either love whole life or they hate it. If they realized the bad in them they hate them, but if they only recognize the good they offer they like them. Some people are fine overpaying for the idea of having life insurance until death.

In talking to these people they also don't have a full understanding of how they should be addressing their money. They don't understand the concept of being self-insured at retirement. They assume they'll never be able to hit that million dollar mark. If they only knew how easy that really was.

[DavidLewis]

Except a bank doesn't charge you interest to use your own money.....

They sure do. How do you think banks make money? You deposit with them. They lend it back to you via a mortgage, credit card, etc.

The difference is, with a mutual insurer like Penn, you'll get a credit back against the interest you pay (assuming you own a participating policy) since you are part owner of the insurer.

[DavidLewis]

From what I've experienced people either love whole life or they hate it. If they realized the bad in them they hate them, but if they only recognize the good they offer they like them. Some people are fine overpaying for the idea of having life insurance until death.

In talking to these people they also don't have a full understanding of how they should be addressing their money. They don't understand the concept of being self-insured at retirement. They assume they'll never be able to hit that million dollar mark. If they only knew how easy that really was.

Take that million dollars and buy a single premium WL policy. Your death benefit will always be higher than your cash value. You'll be able to spend all your savings and still have some left over as a death benefit. Whether you'd want it is another matter. But, you can't have more without insurance than with.

[DavidLewis]

The whole reason these policies came out were to compete against term mixed with personal investing.

Let me ask you something. When a potential client comes in, how do you create a package for them? What guidelines do you use?

Maybe you should have read my lengthy response to the OP before commenting.

When a client comes in, I sell maximum premium because an insurance plan should never get in the way of an investment plan (or any other plan for that matter). I'm not in competition with these investment advisors and usually when I explain what I'm doing, the RIA loves me because my clients always have more money to invest with insurance than without.

In fact, a good permanent insurance plan should make it easier and less risky to invest. It should also make it easier to purchase sufficient term insurance.

If someone is arguing whole life versus term, they really don't understand how to create a good insurance plan and are probably a danger to their client.

[GoodSteward]

They sure do. How do you think banks make money? You deposit with them. They lend it back to you via a mortgage, credit card, etc.

The difference is, with a mutual insurer like Penn, you'll get a credit back against the interest you pay (assuming you own a participating policy) since you are part owner of the insurer.

Apples and Oranges. I am not charged to pull money out of my savings. If I want to borrow someone elses money I will pay interest. Two completely different concepts. You are obviously a salesman using tactics like this. No good.

Take that million dollars and buy a single premium WL policy. Your death benefit will always be higher than your cash value. You'll be able to spend all your savings and still have some left over as a death benefit. Whether you'd want it is another matter. But, you can't have more without insurance than with.

Greedy, man. You should not be trying to sell any life insurance to a millionaire unless they request it for a particular reason. When you care about people you look at their situation to make sure you are advising them on what is the best vehicle for their money. You can't just even trade 1 million dollars for 1 million life insurance and not lose anything. Bogus information.

Maybe you should have read my lengthy response to the OP before commenting.

When a client comes in, I sell maximum premium because an insurance plan should never get in the way of an investment plan (or any other plan for that matter). I'm not in competition with these investment advisors and usually when I explain what I'm doing, the RIA loves me because my clients always have more money to invest with insurance than without.

In fact, a good permanent insurance plan should make it easier and less risky to invest. It should also make it easier to purchase sufficient term insurance.

If someone is arguing whole life versus term, they really don't understand how to create a good insurance plan and are probably a danger to their client.

You see, this is my point. You are looking at it from what you think is the best policy. You need to look at it from what do they need based on their current situation. You can't do that unless you go through the time to do a financial needs analysis to understand where they are at right now, and where they want to be. You might be selling this high priced insurance to someone who can barely afford what they have. They might be up to their eyeballs in debt and you just want to make sure their policy is the best you think they can get. You need to realize you're in a position to help people achieve something in life, not sell them something. The company I worked for knew that and made sure before we were done they understand WHY they need insurance, WHY they need to be out of debt, HOW to be out of debt, HOW MUCH they need to achieve their goals for retirement and how much protection (LIfe insurance) they need to get there. They are not just trying to sell a product, They are trying to educate people how to win with money. I quit selling because I didn't like the idea of being seen as a salesman and I already hold two jobs(IT and ministry). I still believe in the cause and I use this forum to promote it.

I don't have a problem if you show me a IUL policy really is the best option for a particular situation. I've seen it work around to help an elderly person have insurance (as long as the cash value maintained to keep the premium level). Term was simply too much. It isn't for everybody, and in fact it isn't for hardly anybody. But people who push it above all else are too caught up in the idea of whole life to realize they are telling people the wrong thing. These are speical policies and will not work for most people.

[Captain Save]

I think you missed the part where I used to sell insurance. Your payments may not appear to go up,, but they go up. They are built into the policy to have your cash value make up the difference so years later you suddenly don't have the cash you thought. Yes, there are ways to avoid a payment that late in life, but you are getting into even more absurd payments at this point for a reasonable policy. If you are needing to supliment with term then why in the world do you use this to start with? You keep mentioning this magical IUL you know about, but the more complicated these plans are the more you need to stay away. It's complicated to avoid you knowing what you are getting. I've listened to people who had these policies after 10 years and are very eager to get out of them. They are not what they appear which is why there are pages and pages of fine print and stipulations. They are a terrible way to invest, and a terrible way to have life insurance. The reason there are so many bad policies is because they simply are bad policies. Just buy term, invest with vanguard and go on with your life.

again you are totally wrong .. about that ... if your policy is not designed properly .. your payments will go up.. but if it's designed up to the MEC guideline .. your Net amount of risk shrinks as your cash value increases... so the cost of insurance decreases... now during the distribution period.. as you're getting older . the COI goes up but again if it's designed properly your cash value will return way more cash than the premium.. it will cover that cost and still make money for you .. now if you have a 10 year streak of earning 0 .. there's no cahs to cover that but if you were in the market instead you would have ran out of money ..

[DavidLewis]

Apples and Oranges. I am not charged to pull money out of my savings. If I want to borrow someone elses money I will pay interest. Two completely different concepts. You are obviously a salesman using tactics like this. No good.

Not apples and oranges. Money is fungible. If someone puts money into the banking system (regardless of the bank) and then borrows money, they are effectively paying interest on their own savings. The money doesn't care where you do your banking.

Now, if you pull money out of your savings, you do avoid an interest payment, but not an interest expense. I'm not sure why, but people who pay cash have this odd belief that cash has no value. But if that were true, TVM wouldn't exist as a financial concept. Run a TVM calculation on spent cash. That opportunity cost is very real. Whether you pay interest to a bank or to yourself, there's always a cost of money because time has a value, expressed as an interest rate. The entire banking industry is based on this concept.

When you pay cash, it's so easy to ignore that cost and that becomes an expensive mistake later on. The best analogy I can think of right now is it's sort of like pretending inflation doesn't eat away the value of your savings because you still have a specific number of dollars in your bank account.

You can't just even trade 1 million dollars for 1 million life insurance and not lose anything. Bogus information.

It's not bogus information. You were a life insurance salesman. You should know how single premium whole life insurance works and how it is priced. You always get a cash value and a multiple of the premium as the death benefit. Now, there is a cost, of course, but because of the guaranteed growth of the cash value, that cost is recovered pretty quickly. If it didn't work this way, it wouldn't be insurance. It would be a savings account or an investment. This is something you can hop onto Actuarial Outpost and ask them about.

You see, this is my point. You are looking at it from what you think is the best policy.

Yes, of course I am. That's because I'm the specialist. If the client were the specialist, they would be designing policies and selling insurance instead of me.

You need to look at it from what do they need based on their current situation.

If I did needs based planning, I would be making the clients choose between savings, insurance, and investing. That's an expensive mistake and is one of the reasons people can't save enough. That doesn't help them when they need all three. My way allows them to do all three without making sacrifices so I'll stick with that.

You might be selling this high priced insurance to someone who can barely afford what they have. They might be up to their eyeballs in debt and you just want to make sure their policy is the best you think they can get.

Do you know for a fact I'm putting people in a worse position or are you just projecting a fantasy on me? I think maybe you need to back off the premise that permanent life insurance is evil. The solution is never the problem. The problem is the problem. No need to bash investments, insurance, etc.

You need to realize you're in a position to help people achieve something in life, not sell them something.

Wrong. Selling them something is exactly what I'm supposed to do. That's how problems get solved. When Bogle sold people on the idea of indexing (by the way, no one wanted it when he first came up with the idea but eventually he changed their minds), it helped investors lower their cost for investing. That was very good.

When I sell people permanent insurance, it lowers their long-term cost for insurance (which we can objectively measure using various financial calculators) and frees up more money so they can save and invest for their future. I think maybe you have no idea what I do for a living or how this kind of insurance planning works.

I quit selling because I didn't like the idea of being seen as a salesman and I already hold two jobs(IT and ministry).

Translation: you were ashamed of selling insurance. I'm glad you got out. At the same time, I have to wonder why you were ashamed. What were you doing that you weren't proud of? Usually, when people are ashamed, it's because they're doing something they know is wrong.

I don't have a problem if you show me a IUL policy really is the best option for a particular situation. I've seen it work around to help an elderly person have insurance (as long as the cash value maintained to keep the premium level). Term was simply too much. It isn't for everybody, and in fact it isn't for hardly anybody.

IULs are not whole life policies. You keep mixing up the two. They are very different animals.

I tend not to sell them because of the inherent risks embedded in the contract. Many years ago, I knew a life insurance actuary who designed a lot of the IULs that are on the market today and so I became fascinated by them. But, the more I looked at them, and the more he told me about them, the less interested I became.

I understand other people love these products. But it's just not the way I want to run my business. Still, the OP wanted to know about IULs so I took the time to respond.

I appreciate the fact you're concerned about people's welfare. So am I. That's why I'm in this business and not in the cigar business.

[Captain Save]

From what I've experienced people either love whole life or they hate it. If they realized the bad in them they hate them, but if they only recognize the good they offer they like them. Some people are fine overpaying for the idea of having life insurance until death.

In talking to these people they also don't have a full understanding of how they should be addressing their money. They don't understand the concept of being self-insured at retirement. They assume they'll never be able to hit that million dollar mark. If they only knew how easy that really was.

whole life is a self insurance plan.. you put away money to build your cash value.. but if you happen to die before you accumulate that cash .. you still get a higher death benefit than you've been saving... and after you're self insured.. you can take that money out and still have a death benefit.. what's wrong with that?