Bobby Samuelson
#271 | Cracks Emerge in the Guaranteed VUL Market
If you want to see what’s going to happen with Guaranteed VUL, look no further than what’s already happened with Guaranteed UL. T.S. Eliot famously wrote that “this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a…
#269 | Tackling an Aggressive Premium Financing Proposal
Over the past year, I’ve seen somewhere around 50 proposals for new life insurance transactions from all corners of our business and sent to me by brokerages, agents and even consumers who find me on the internet or are referred…
#268 | Constellation Buys Ohio National
A few days ago, Ohio National announced that it has agreed to be acquired by Constellation Insurance Holdings, a de-novo insurance holding company without even a website that is owned by two Canadian pension plans. The transaction is styled as…
#267 | The Rise of the Reverse Blend
Now that the dust is starting to settle on 7702-2%, one thing is becoming abundantly clear – compensation is a real challenge, both for agents and life insurers. As I’ve written about in previous articles, the simple math for compensation…
#266 | Lincoln MoneyGuard Market Advantage Review – Part 1
Since starting this newsletter in 2012 (and then restarting it in 2017), I’ve made a conscious decision to avoid writing about so-called Linked Benefit products. The progenitor of the product type is Lincoln’s MoneyGuard, which is synonymous with the product…
#265 | A Strategic Review at Principal
Last week, Principal announced that it is “initiating a strategic review of its business mix, capital management and capital deployment options” as a result of activist fund Elliott Management taking a 10% stake in the company. Immediately – and understandably…
#263 | 7702 Update – Symetra Moves First
Nearly 2 months after the fact, we finally have our first retail product illustrations that reflect the new 7702-2% (as opposed to the old, 7702-4%) rates. The results are in-line with what I wrote about in previous articles, but I…
#262 | Inflation & Life Insurance
The picture for this post is a meme that has apparently been floating around the Reddit forums that have been instigating the surges in trading and prices of stocks, digital currencies and other commodities. Usually it's accompanied by the caption…
#261 | The Compensation Conundrum
Now that the dust is settling on the changes to Section 7702, two big questions are starting to emerge. The first is in regards the degree to which life insurers are going to take advantage of the new latitude in…
#260 | The Hang Seng & Indexed Account Availability
Last week, Pacific Life announced that it is “pausing” allocations to its 1-Year International Indexed Account until “further notice” due to an executive order issued last year “prohibiting transactions in securities and derivatives of certain Chinese Companies.” As a result,…
