Product Analytics
#427 | Domestic Bias in Indexed UL
Performance in any index-linked insurance contract is driven by two things – index performance and index participation. The vast majority of crediting strategies in Indexed UL are linked to the S&P 500 and for good reason. It’s a simple, straightforward,…
#426 | Indexed UL on the Efficient Frontier
Back in early 2019, I wrote a 3-part series entitled Indexed UL on the Risk Spectrum (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) that argued that by every metric, Indexed UL is a relatively low risk, low return proposition more akin…
#413 | The Option Tenor Conundrum
Author’s Note – Conundrum is the right term for this topic. Any time I write an article about option pricing, I feel acutely aware of the fact that most people who subscribe to this newsletter didn’t sign up to read…
#410 | The Challenge of Final Expense
Credit: Warner Bros The more I’ve come to understand Final Expense insurance, the more I’ve come to see it as something separate and distinct from what people commonly understand to be life insurance. Final Expense is better described as a…
#408 | Reliastar Raises Base Charges
8/27/24 Update - I just received an email from a subscriber about another Reliastar policy with charge increases, this time affecting both the base charges as described below in this policy and the premium load, which jumped from 0% to…
#407 | Beyond Term
If you were to put any random person in our industry up on stage and ask them to start explaining life insurance, they’d probably start by explaining the difference between Term and permanent insurance. Dividing the life insurance world into…
#406 | American National Signature Protection IUL
What happens after a private equity firm buys a life insurer? The first order of business almost always seems to be to reallocate the life insurer’s general account to align with the new owner’s investment expertise. That’s the low-hanging fruit.…
#402 | The Long Tail of Portfolio Yields
Ever since interest rates started to increase in 2022, there has been much speculation about how long it would take to see material increases in carrier portfolio yields. The simple answer is that life insurers have an average maturity in…
#396 | Lincoln’s IUL Challenge
Full Article Lincoln’s history in Indexed UL is an interesting one. Lincoln was one of the first companies to introduce Indexed UL, starting with LifeElements in 2007. Since then, Lincoln has followed basically every fad or phase in Indexed UL…
#391 | The VUL Fund Divide
Over the past couple of weeks, both Penn Mutual and Prudential have released updated versions of their VUL policies. The changes to the policy charge structures themselves are minimal. Prudential increased both commissions and surrender charges on Custom Premier II.…
