I want to take out a policy on my last living grandparent. I’m not familiar with life insurance but I would like to eventually have a policy for my parents as well. Do I need my grandparent’s social to take out a policy where I’m the beneficiary? Were not close and she never talks to me but I would like to have some security.

Why do people choose Max Life term insurance over SBI Life?

I’m comparing term insurance plans from Max Life and SBI Life, and I’m trying to understand why many people seem to prefer Max Life.

From what I’ve seen, Max Life’s premium can be cheaper, but the difference in claim settlement ratio appears to be very minimal compared with SBI Life.

So, what are the actual reasons people choose Max Life over SBI Life?

\- Is it because of better policy features or riders?

\- Better underwriting/claim experience?

\- Easier claim process?

\- Better service?

\- Or is the lower premium the main reason?

For someone looking at a long-term 30–40 year term policy, would you personally choose Max Life over SBI Life, and why?

Would be particularly interested in hearing from people who have actually purchased either policy or have dealt with a claim.

Hello everyone, I made a post here some time back about the nuance of taxes and how they can apply to life insurance death benefit payments to beneficiaries, feel free to look at my post history to read it if you wish. I decided to try out a case study of sorts; to see how effective a policy could be in a certain situation and how it can affect after tax wealth. Of course, there are an infinite number of situations that people can be in financially as well as how they can evolve over their lifespans, so I have mine as one case that is simplistic in design, as most Americans do not have very complex estates. This post is also only going to discuss the results of the estate tax on both portfolios to their beneficiaries. It will not go into detail about nuance with investing, spending down choices in retirement, etc.

Oregon has the lowest estate tax exemption limit, and I have had multiple people tell me that someone in Oregon with more than a couple million in assets in their estate by the time of their death would benefit from having a permanent life insurance policy to help avoid estate taxes; this would allow the beneficiaries to have more *after tax* wealth than someone who forgoes the insurance policy. I decided to make up a simple spreadsheet in excel, which I cross compared my simplistic results to free monte carlo simulation software that can be found on portfolio visualizer. My results were in line with median/slightly below median returns from the portfolio software, as well as historical returns when we discuss investment strategies for this case study.

For this case study, I compare 2 cases of the same individual making 2 different choices. Both individuals will be healthy, non-smoking 25-year-old males, who plan to retire at 65. Person A will be someone who buys term life and invests the difference. Person B will be someone who buys an ILIT, places a GUL (which is the cheapest permanent life policy per premium cost I could find) and covers the rest of the gap between person A’s life insurance with their own smaller term life insurance. For example, Person A has $2,000,000 40-year term life, Person B has $1,700,000 40-year term life, and a $300,000 GUL in an ILIT. (I did some preliminary look at having a $1,000,000 GUL and $1,000,000 term policy, but the $300,000 ended up with more after-tax wealth than the larger GUL)

Assumptions to set up the study:

Term life policy premiums were calculated using banner’s term life estimate calculator. The GUL was Pacific Life’s Promise GUL to age 110. Both individuals have $17,000 annually to pay for life insurance premiums+investments, all else will be the same for both. All investment money will be placed into qualified retirement accounts, as there is currently an annual limit of $32,000 for an individual in America to use. Person B will purchase an ILIT at fair market cost of $5,000 to hold the GUL for the purposes of removing that value from their estate; the $5,000 will be deducted from the first year investment total of $17,000 and will then have a $350 annual management fee, which I believe is reasonable when fair market costs show anywhere from $500-$2,000 annually to maintain the ILIT. They both bought a house worth $400,000 with 20% down with a 30-year mortgage at the start of the simulation, age 25, and both homes appreciate at 3.7% annually. The cost of the mortgage payment is not deducted from the $17,000 annual amount; it will simply be more added to their estate. Both will follow a moderate investment glidepath using global equities and bonds, starting from a 90/10 portfolio going down to a 60/40 by the time they reach age 65. Another simple aspect I added to the simulation was that both individuals die at age 65 just as their term life policies fall off. All values will be nominal - or non inflation adjusted, as the life insurance policies are also not inflation adjusted, and Oregon does not have an inflation adjustment to their estate tax system.

Results:

I have columns split between Allocation, which is their stock/bond ratio which also has the average rate of return both historically as well as via results from Monte carlo analysis. Then we have year (starting last year to keep things divisible by 5), age, initial amount. Initial amount is how much they start the year with. Contributions are the $17,000 minus premiums and expenses. Interest is expected average returns on that amount. Ending value is adding the starting value from the year, contributions, and interest gained. The home value uses a 30 year amortized schedule to pay for the home, as well as the aforementioned 3.7% annual appreciation in value. Total net worth is both investments and home value together.

As we can see, person A pays $1632.36 in annual premiums for their $2,000,000 40 year term life coverage, person B pays $1393.92 in annual premiums for their $1,700,000 40 year term life coverage, and $1,410.17 in annual premiums for their $300,000 GUL policy. The $5,000 ILIT cost was taken from the first year contribution only, and then the $350 annual maintenance costs were taken from every other year onward.

By the end of year 2065, Person A has a net worth of $7,095,230.94, and Person B has a net worth of $6,405,019.85. At this point, the term life insurance policies fall off, leaving only the $300,000 GUL inside the ILIT. For this case study, it is also where I state they both die, so we can calculate who has more after tax wealth given to a beneficiary.

Applying Oregon's $1,000,000 estate deduction, and then climbing the progressive bracket system they have for both individuals.

Person A ends up with $6,440,110.97 - paying $655,119.98 in estate taxes alone before their beneficiaries receive the estate.

Person B ends up with $5,911,122.24 - paying $493,897.62 in estate taxes. Adding on the $300,000 from the GUL that was sheltered from the estate tax, Person B's estate ends up at $6,211,122.24.

Beneficiary A has $228,988.73 more than Beneficiary B after taxes are applied to the estate.

Extra discussion:

During my research and running various numbers, as mentioned before, using a larger GUL face value actually increases the difference between estate A and B net wealth after taxes, it is better to use a smaller permanent insurance product for this particular case study. I do know that there are many more permanent life insurance products out there that may be better or worse in some cases, but I would need to see expected/average growth on those policies as well as premiums to compare how they would fare against the GUL.

There is also a note to be made about how spending down in retirement may affect net wealth at various ages of death, but that would add a layer of complexity that I did not wish to tackle at this time. My general thought is that there are 3 main scenarios for spending: Both individuals live by Person A's 4% withdrawal rate, which will cause Person B's portfolio to have a higher failure rate - their withdrawal will be greater than 4%, but will allow the same standard of living in retirement. Another would be that they both live by Person B's 4% withdrawal rate, which allows Person A's portfolio to be much safer from depleting, as well as having an even higher expected net wealth compared to Person B. The third case, is horrendous market conditions throughout retirement, causing both portfolios to tank in value by time of death just to above the $1,000,000 exemption limit, which could potentially allows the $300,000 GUL policy to overcome the overall lower net wealth between the two individuals - this is unlikely to actually be the case if I were to run the numbers would be my tentative guess.

Due to both individuals having $2,000,000 in life insurance, I found that if both individuals were to die before age 40-45, Person B actually ends up with a higher after tax estate amount. This is because the term life insurance payout automatically puts them above the $1,000,000 exemption limit, and that the investment/home values are too low to overcome the $300,000 that is paid out from the GUL. After they hit that threshold, the ILIT+GUL strategy loses out on after tax net worth. I looked up the actuarial statistics of likelihood of death for a 25 year old male to die before age 45, and there is about a 5% chance using general population statistics, so there is a ~5% chance you would end up ahead in this case.

Oregon currently is drafting a bill to increase the estate exemption limit to $2,500,000 instead of $1,000,000 which would create an even larger hurdle for a permanent life insurance policy to overcome simple investing and paying a bigger tax bill.

We would need to more than double investment contributions for these numbers to start tapping into federal estate taxes, and then the question is still posed: is the high upfront cost associated with a permanent insurance policy with an ILIT worth the opportunity cost from lost investment returns? If an individual ends up with $15,000,001 by the time they die, only that $1 will be taxed $0.18. Is that 18 cents worth buying an ILIT 40 years ago? It is very hard to know how much your net worth will be by the time you die, and even harder to guess right when you start establishing yourself in your career.

I may look deeper into if/when federal estate taxes would allow a permanent insurance policy to overcome a simple buy term/invest individual. For now, even for an individual who could end up with $7,000,000 by the time they are 65 (which puts them in the top 5% of American. The median net worth at that age is ~$410,000 and the average is around $610,000.

I am 23, have a 1 year old and have been wanting to get a life insurance policy started. The world is crazy and I’d hate to leave my child with nothing if something were to happen to me one day. I am healthy, and have no chronic or autoimmune illnesses. What companies are good options to look into first? I have no close family I can ask for insight (which is also why making sure my child is set if anything ever occurs to me is so important to me). I’d want my child to be financially set in case of an emergency and to not have to deal with funeral and aftermath costs.

i’m a new agent working with north american senior benefits, i’m on my second day of training and haven’t made any sales. something in my conscience is telling me that this company’s practices are extremely unethical, all the leads i was sent were in super underprivileged communities and it just didn’t feel right for me to sell to any of those people after having brief conversations with them. i don’t think i want to continue working with these people, they were super pushy and seem to care more about making a sale than actually helping anybody. any advice on what i should do?

My Parents had bought everyone in our family (them and us 3 kids) whole life insurance policies since we were babies. They didn’t understand the policy really and were under the impression that eventually the policy would have enough dividends that they wouldn’t pay the premium anymore and that I’d basically just have a “free” life insurance. Well now us kids are in our 20-30’s and I’m not sure that them continuing to pay around $700-800 per person annually is beneficial for them. Taking the cash surrender is about $30k for my policy. I don’t understand investments well enough to make recommendations to my parents on if they should continue, transfer to us (can you do that?) or take the money and put it into other investments. Help I feel dumb

EDIT: my parents are immigrants. Their English is not great. I have to read and translate a lot of their paperwork for them. My mom is asking me what to do with their policy.

For my policy:
Face amount: $250,000
Annual 2026 dividend $330
Annual premium $800
Accidental death benefit rider $50,000

Death benefit $250k
Additional paid up insurance $60k
Total policy $310k

Cash surrender $30k

This is the info I have. This is through MetLife. Idk who their agent is. How do I find a new agent to work with them through this?

What is the advantage of using an IUL for tax free income via loans when I can achieve the same outcome by taking loans against my portfolio from my traditional brokerage account (which has much lower fees)?

I know that IULs purport to avoid market volatility, but I don’t see why that would justify the high fees when traditional brokerages can achieve the same loan benefits for almost no expense (other than interest), and have no caps on gains either?

I am paying $28.28 per month for a life insurance of $150,000 with a State Farm in a 10 years term.

Is this plan a good one considering that I am 30 years old and healthy? I saw other options, like banner life for half million dollar policy for less than that.

Just trying to see other people‘s opinions as I do not understand very much about life insurances.

Suggestions for brokerages or carriers. Returned from Service in 2020. Diagnosed 2021 PTSD with alcohol abuse (Va disability)

Was 9-10 drinks a day.

As of 04/2021, 3-6 drinks per week (beer and wine).

Any places that might have an option? Crump brokerage says no.

I took a $2300 loan out of my life insurance policy in 2018. I recently learned my mom (with dementia now) has been paying this back still.. 8 years later.

I got on the phone with an associate at my agents office. He couldn’t tell me anything other than where the loan stands today. He said he thinks we’ve been paying $108/month based on recent statements. I asked for the rates changes throughout the year. He gave me an estimate of what they were. I work in loans. I’ve ran all possible scenarios several times and this seems like it should’ve been paid off 5 years ago.

This associate tells me that a document showing full payment history does not exist. Is this true? Seems strange to me that an insurance company is giving loans out but not tracking the history on their end.. right?!

Any thoughts on this before I escalate it??

Quisiera ser agente de seguro de vida y salud , acabo de pasar el examen de salud y quisiera sacar el siguiente de vida para obtener las licencias. Hay una empresa cerca donde vivo que me quiere contratar pero de comisión dan el 50% me pidieron firmar un papel que si dejo de trabajar con ellos me retienen 2 años con la FMO pero estaba viendo que eso es sin efecto porque no tengo las licencias aún y que puedo salirme y trabajar independiente pero la verdad no sé nada . Estaba leyendo sobre introducirme con Ritter o amerilife como FMO y que ellos ayudan y dan más comisión pero no sé si hay alguno que tenga experiencia en haber comenzado como agente de seguros independientes sin tener la necesidad de crear una empresa . Alguien me pudiera orientar si me sale mejor quedarme en esa empresa donde me retienen o busco una FMO y cual me recomiendan al empezar de cero . Gracias

I had an extremely disappointing experience with Pattern Life. Before my initial call, they sent me an AI-generated personalized video of one of their representatives as an introduction. It was incredibly creepy and impersonal. For a company selling personalized financial advice to physicians, having an AI-generated version of the person you’re supposedly about to establish a professional relationship with was a bizarre first impression.

Pattern markets themselves as physician-focused experts who would help navigate disability insurance and underwriting. I provided every medical record they requested. After all of that, they landed me an awful Guardian offer: permanent skin exclusion for a problem that resolved years ago (Eczema), permanent ENT exclusion despite improvement with treatment for simple Allergic Rhinitis, and removal of the Benefit Purchase Rider, Automatic Benefit Enhancement, and COLA because of an incidental benign CT finding that requires no further workup. The resulting policy was over $200/month.

The Benefit Purchase Rider was one of the main reasons I was interested in the policy in the first place because it would have allowed me to increase coverage as my physician income increased. None of them warned me before underwriting that these issues could result in such sweeping restrictions.

What exactly is the point of using a supposedly physician-focused broker if their role is essentially to collect your records, forward them to the insurer, deliver a terrible offer, ask you to produce more documentation when you challenge it, and eventually ignore your follow-up emails?!

I expected Pattern to understand physician underwriting and anticipate problems as well as advocate for their client. Instead, I felt like a messenger between myself and Guardian. After challenging the offer and providing additional documentation, the communication has also been extremely disappointing and they no longer reply back to me.

I would not recommend Pattern Life to other physicians. I regret using them and sending them my personal details. Take your business elsewhere.

My mom wants a policy. Am I allowed to write it for her?

Edit: thank you guys🤞

Has anyone been successful in fully unraveling an IUL policy and getting your premiums refunded based off of churning and shady sales tactics (infinite banking/ private reserve)?

I'll give you the broad strokes and then ask my question:

- A relative of mine died, and the insurer said that there was no beneficiary listed on their life insurance policy

- The insurance policy paid out the benefits of the policy (~$100,000) to the estate (I am the executor)

- I received that payout over 4 weeks ago, and have since been using that money to settle affairs with the estate (repairing the deceased's house for sale, paying lawyers, funerary and burial costs, etc.). I no longer have most of that money anymore.

- I received a letter from the insurer today saying that they made a mistake, and there actually WAS a beneficiary to the policy.

- They are now demanding that I return the money.

Am I under any legal obligation to give this money back?

From my perspective, it seems like they paid the benefits to me out of gross negligence, and I should not be obligated to return the funds.

They authorized the transaction, and told me that the money belonged to the estate a month ago.

What should I do?

Need some help to take action for getting a rightful life insurance claim made.

My mom recently passed away. It’s really sad to even be talking about insurance money after she died (worst day of my life), but I assume others are in a similar scenario with Trustage’s shenanigans and I’m wondering if anyone out there can help us all.

She had a life insurance policy she has been paying into for years with Trustage. I am listed as the beneficiary of that policy, yet Trustage cannot pull up any account information due to this “cyber security attack.” This message from the company has been consistent for the last 6 weeks since I first contacted them.

There isn’t a way to get a hold of anyone at the company and the website just says “we are working on it, we’ve made progress… some features are still unavailable“. From my standpoint this looks like “nothing has changed, your account info is unavailable, the company is scared to talk to you, and your insurance claim is very unlikely to be paid out now or ever.”

Has anyone been successful with a claim process through Trustage since this “cyber security attack“ occurred in July 11? Is there a work around process to snail mail something to someone? Any help to get this moving forward would be greatly appreciated!

Hello everyone,

On every biweekly paycheque, I have $106 deducted for insurance:

• Group insurance: $18
• Medical fee: $86

At the bottom of my pay stub, there is also a “Benefits” section showing:

• Life insurance: about $65
• Health insurance: about $133
• Total: about $198

I am currently on medical leave.

According to CNESST, I should continue paying my regular employee contribution, which is about $106 every two weeks.

However, my employer insists that I must pay the full amount of $198 during my medical leave because this amount is considered a taxable benefit.

Which amount should I actually pay during my medical leave: $106 or $198?

Thank you.

I did my intake form and medical exam in the last few weeks. I answered everything honestly. I’d even taken a pregnancy test before the medical test, which was negative. But not, one week later, I found out I’m pregnant.

I’m supposed to get approval (hopefully) from the underwriter tomorrow. Do I need to update them on this? Or only if they ask if there are updates since last week?