News & Editorials
#438 | News Digest – 9/8/25
Guardian SafeGuard 360 Goes Mainstream When Guardian released SafeGuard 360 back in 2022, the storyline was – understandably – a little bit muddled. Was it simply a marketing wrapper for separate and independent life insurance and disability products, similar to…
#436 | News Digest – 8/6/2025
This is a new format for TLPR, as discussed in the very last section. Here’s what we’re covering this week: Guardian Enhances 10 Pay Whole LifeLincoln Restricts Term Conversions – AgainMassMutual Makes a Play in Guaranteed ULUpdate to the IUL…
#399 | The Simple Case for Permanent Life Insurance
I’ve noticed that some things have changed since I’ve gotten older. A few rogue gray hairs are sprouting up over my ears. My joints pop a little bit when I get out of bed in the morning. I feel nostalgic…
#388 | 2023 in Review
Looking back over a year’s worth of articles is always fun and gratifying. There were 44 articles published on The Life Product Review last year, pretty close to the one-per-week standard that I try to maintain, and all of them…
#345 | 2022 in Review
With 2022 in the rearview mirror, I thought I’d go back through the full list of articles and give a few current comments on the topic covered. Articles are listed chronologically. If a bunch of articles were on the same…
Survey Responses & TLPR Update
Thanks to those of you who generously took the time to fill out the survey that I sent out earlier this week. The responses have been incredibly insightful. If you haven’t filled it out, please do (click here). Here’s what…
#246 | The Architect Fallacy
Years ago, I was invited as a guest to a meeting of a distributor’s top agents to decide how to message the role of an insurance agent. The group was naturally drawn to the concept of the life insurance agent…
#242 | Prudential Files a VUL Protector Reprice
At the end of a recent 4-part article series on the two products with a duopoly on the Guaranteed VUL category, Lincoln VULone and Prudential VUL Protector, I wrote the following about Prudential’s product – “sell the daylights out of…
#239 | Filed: PacLife PDX Class Action Lawsuit
I’ve uploaded the lawsuit and you can read it by clicking here. While working at MetLife, I was struck by how often the notion of “ending up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal” was invoked as a…
#234 | PacLife Reduces Caps, Again
PacLife announced this morning that they are reducing caps to 8.5% in September from 9.0% currently and 9.25% at the beginning of the year. My first instinct was to write a commentary on the rate action, but I kept having…
