Product Reviews
#432 | North American Secure Horizon IUL
Over the past few years, there has been a pronounced convergence of the Fixed Indexed Annuity (FIA) and Indexed UL markets both in terms of distribution and product development. One of the clearest examples is the fact that Annexus, the…
#429 | Lincoln WealthBuilder IUL
Aside from some modest recent revisions to AssetEdge VUL/SVUL and lowering prices on Term, the recent introduction of WealthBuilder IUL marks Lincoln’s first real move towards recapturing marketshare in the life insurance market after exiting VULone. Despite the new name,…
#428 | John Hancock LifeCare
To say that John Hancock has scar tissue from Long Term Care insurance would be an understatement. Like many insurers, John Hancock sold stand-alone LTC back when the market was frothy from roughly 1995 to 2005, eventually amassing around $10…
#422 | Equitable Exits Third Party Distribution
At the tail end of last year, Equitable announced that it has decided to “focus our life insurance third-party distribution efforts exclusively on our COIL Institutional Series” and “will no longer accept new life insurance applications for all other products…
#417 | EquiTrust Wealth Max Bonus Life
EquiTrust isn’t a household name in life insurance, but it is fast becoming one in annuities. EquiTrust was originally a part of Farm Bureau Life but was bought by Guggenheim in 2011. Guggenheim was one of the first institutional investors…
#416 | The Continuing Evolution of Transamerica
In the life insurance industry, Transamerica is everything and nothing all at once. LIMRA sales statistics place Transamerica as the 3rd largest seller of Indexed UL by premium and the 2nd largest seller by policy count through Q2 of this…
#415 | Penn Mutual Plays for Keeps
Summarized by ChatGPT Penn Mutual ranks as a mid-sized player in the Whole Life market, positioned 10th in sales, significantly trailing behind competitors like Guardian and OneAmerica. Despite this, it maintains a strong presence in niche markets and among high-end…
#412 | Prudential Momentum IUL
When Prudential released the first iteration of Index Advantage UL (IAUL) in mid-2012, it was a massive validation of the Indexed UL market. I remember some people referring to it as a “hell freezing over” moment. What most folks didn’t…
#411 | New Accumulation IUL Releases
Over the past couple of weeks, four new accumulation-oriented Indexed UL products hit the market in what is undoubtedly the most active burst of product launches in years. The last time something like this happened was before AG 49-A was…
#400 | MassMutual Apex VUL
When MassMutual rolled out Apex VUL in 2021, the name was unintentionally ironic. If you’re going to roll out a product and call it “apex,” it better be good. Apex isn’t an aspirational term. It’s a descriptor. A product called…
