Latest Content
#384 | Global Atlantic Axes In-Force Rates
Ask anyone who is fundamentally skeptical about Indexed UL why they feel that way and, invariably, they’ll bring up the issue of non-guaranteed elements. It’s a valid point. Indexed UL product performance ultimately hinges on non-guaranteed elements. But that’s also…
# 383 | Mid-Year Insurer Financials Observations
To say that 2023 has been a turbulent year in the financial markets would be an understatement – but that turbulence seems to have left life insurers largely unphased. Life insurance looks very much like a safe harbor in a…
#382 | Protective Gets the Golden PLR
Full Article The running joke on fee-based life insurance and annuity products is that they’ve been the “next big thing” for at least the past 20 years. Conceptually, fee-based products make all the sense in the world. Financial advisors are…
#381 | End Game: Brookfield and American National
Quick Take In quick succession, Brookfield has executed four key elements of what appears to be the end game strategy for American National. First, reinsuring the entire fixed and indexed annuity block to an affiliated offshore reinsurer. Second, stripping out…
#380 | Whole Life as a Fixed Income Alternative – Part 3
Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), first formalized by Harry Markowitz in the 1950s and later earning him a Nobel Prize, is essentially the idea that the optimal portfolio is the one that provides the best relationship between risk and return. In…
#379 | Whole Life as a Fixed Income Alternative – Part 2
Full Article If we go back through the 5 key tradeoffs and decision points in fixed income investing, Whole Life – a participating all-base Whole Life – makes a uniquely compelling case. It is the only product with tabular guaranteed…
#378 | Whole Life as a Fixed Income Alternative – Part 1
Full Article For the past 35 years or so, Whole Life has often been positioned against traditional fixed income in a very particular – and peculiar – way. We all know the narrative. Falling interest rates created a long-term phenomenon…
#377 | Mid-Year Engineered Index Observations – Part 3
Quick Take What separates the performance of one engineered index from another? So far, we've tackled the two biggest structural elements - the volatility target and the return type. Those two factors constitute the lion's share of long-term performance differentials.…
#376 | Mid-Year Engineered Index Observations – Part 2
Quick Take Of the 165 engineered indices available in Indexed UL and Fixed Index Annuity products, the vast majority - 148, to be exact - are Excess Return. There is no way to understand a modern engineered index without understanding…
#375 | Engineered Indices & FIA
Quick Take The worlds of Indexed UL and Fixed Indexed Annuities are increasingly converging and with profound potential implications for IUL. All of the tactics that have been used in Indexed UL to massively increase illustrated performance and subsequently curtailed…
