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Is Your Adviser Lying To You About Life Insurance?

By: David C Lewis, RFA
 

Life insurance is necessary. However, most individuals do not carry enough of it. The idea behind life insurance is that we all die. If your spouse dies prematurely, a life insurance policy will make sure that there is enough income to make your family whole for the financial loss you've suffered. Pretty much every adviser agrees having life insurance is a good thing.

But, this is where the consensus ends (sadly). Most every financial professional recognizes the importance of life insurance. However, "gurus" like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman have done a good job of painting the picture that cash value insurance is "evil". There is opposition though, and quite a debate over the issue.

Life insurance agents of course love cash value insurance. The investment industry does a pretty good job of putting down the insurance industry. So...who's right?

It is shocking that the financial industry is responsible for informing and educating the rest of society about saving and investing. I say shocking because many of the advisors that represent the industry seem to be less concerned with the truth, and more concerned about pitching products.

On both sides of the debate, neither is doing a very good job of defending their respective position. It amazes me to see so many financial professionals leave out important information about not only their products but about the nature of insurance contracts. I wonder sometimes if they even have any idea of how life insurance really works.

Their motives for deception can be numerous, and diverse. Now, there isn't anything wrong with pointing out the flaws in a financial product, as long as it can be done objectively. However, in the case of life insurance, the attacks being made are baseless and unsound. This is especially shocking because most, if not all, of these attacks are coming from high profile, well known financial professionals. Here are a few common lies, attacks, & misconceptions:

Lie Number One:

Don't waste your money on cash value insurance. It is a complete waste of money because the insurance company collects premiums from you for 20 years and then when you die you only get the death benefit. They keep all of your cash and your family gets ripped off. Besides, you could make more money by buying term and investing the difference.

Fact: About 1% of all term policies pay a claim. So, your family has (roughly) a 1% chance that they will benefit from that term policy. Term insurance is cheap - IF you are only considering the cost per thousand dollars of insurance. It is guaranteed to get more expensive as time goes on (and you will see this if your policy gets repriced). Life insurance companies are not dumb. They know they can collect premiums from term life and make a killing because the turnover rate is high (people drop their policies before the term is up) or the policy owner simply doesn't die before the term is up. Life insurance companies are in the business to make money and provide a product. You have to understand how they position their products and how they make money.

Insurance uses something called the Law of Large Numbers. Basically this is how it works: the larger the group of people you are insuring, the more certain you can be about the number of losses you will sustain.

If I started a life insurance company and I only had one customer, I would be taking on an incredible risk because of the nature of life insurance, if that one person dies, I could be out of business very quickly. If, however, I have thousands or millions of customers, then I can manage the risk. Since no one can predict when a specific individual will die (i.e. no one can predict when I will die), I need a large number of people to study to formulate a statistic. With a large enough number of people, I can make surprisingly accurate predictions about the number of individuals within a particular group that will die in any given year. So...what do the statistics say?

They say that that term insurance doesn't pay, since most individuals live until age 65. This is why I say permanent is a better deal. In the long-run, it's cheaper. I know, I know...there are probably a few of you saying "no way, it is always cheaper to buy term insurance". Oh yeah? Watch this:

A male (let's use Jim again), age 25 and in good health with a wife and a child finds that he needs life insurance. Jim is looking for $250,000 in coverage. A typical 30-year term policy - a policy that has level premium payments for 30 years - should cost Jim around $370 per year until he reaches age fifty-five. At that point, the premiums jump up significantly (as all term insurance premiums do) to a tad over $4,700 per year.

By the time he is 65, he will have spent $58,780 on premiums. Keep in mind that the insurance company collected this money but never has to give it back. There's no cash value in term insurance, so the contract only pays when he dies.

What would have happened if he had, say, purchased the same amount of death benefit but used a universal life insurance policy with slightly higher but level annual premiums of $1739 every year to age 100? By his 65th birthday, 'ole Jimbo would have had a total premium outlay of $69,560 ($1739 x 40). But, he would have built up $157,000 of cash value inside the policy.

This money is part of the policy's living benefits, and can be used on a tax-free basis to supplement his retirement or left alone to continue growing. Some life insurance companies also offer an option to spend down up to 100% of the death benefit if you become chronically or terminally ill. If you haven't been able to accumulate a lot of money, this can be very helpful.

Lie number two:

Cash value life insurance is overpriced for what you get. You never know how much money you are spending on the death benefit, how much money is actually going into the cash value of the policy, and how much interest you are really earning. Term insurance is so much simpler.

Fact: Whole life insurance is not very transparent. So it is difficult to determine how much the death benefit is costing you. That bothers some people. That's OK. Just don't buy whole life insurance. Universal life insurance, on the other hand, is very transparent. That's because UL policies are a term policy with a separate savings account. You can easily determine the cost per thousand dollars of insurance, how much is going to pay the death benefit, and how much is going into the cash value of the policy. Cash value insurance seems expensive in comparison to term insurance (at least initially) because insurance contracts are front loaded as far as fees are concerned. That's a good thing...because the contract becomes cheaper over time. Unfortunately, the initial cost is really driven home by the anti-cash value life insurance crowd.

The fees aren't so bad. I'm serious. Think about how much more difficult it would be if every time you wanted to save or invest money, you had to call a lawyer to draft a contract for you? With respect to life insurance, you have a few choices: you can structure the contract for maximum cash (minimizing the fees) or maximum death benefit (maximizing the fees, but getting more death benefit as a result). All of the expenses associated with permanent life insurance can be made very reasonable if cost is the concern. But why compare insurance to an investment?

Over the long-term, you should get all of your money back that you put into a cash value policy with interest (note: the exception to this is variable life insurance which doesn't guarantee cash values). If the policy is structured properly, you can also be left with a sizable amount that can be drawn on in retirement.

Lie number three:

If you are smart with the money you have today and you get rid of your mortgage, car loans and credit card debt and put money into retirement plans you don't need insurance 30 years from now to protect your family when you die.

Fact: You may not need life insurance in 30 years to protect your children from financial ruin when you die. But you may need it to protect your beneficiaries (whoever they may be) from taxes. And, even if you are "smart" with your money, you can't predict the investment returns in a mutual fund (or a stock for that matter) inside of a 401(k) or IRA unless you are very good at researching stocks (hint: 99% of the general population is not). It takes years of practice, and even some of the best stock brokers and financial analysts don't always get it right. The stock market ebbs and flows, and goes through cycles of boom and bust. If your investments take a hit right before you are ready to retire, it doesn't matter how "smart" you were with your money.

Still don't think life insurance is necessary as you get older? Consider that dying isn't free. What does the average funeral cost in your home town? Ask a funeral director how quickly the costs double over any given time period. You will be shocked...shocked I tell you. Also, ask any child whose parents left them a sizable IRA what they paid in taxes and if it was financially disruptive.

The cash value life insurance that your financial guru told you was evil and that you didn't need could have prevented all of this by bypassing probate, providing an income tax free death benefit and, inside of a life insurance trust, completely avoided the estate tax thereby giving your heirs, your favorite charity, or your church 100% of the money you wanted to give them.

There are an alarming number of financial professionals that try to draw a connection between life insurance and investing. It's a huge mistake (even supporters of CV insurance make this mistake). Comparing cash value insurance to investing is like asking "how many walkmans does it take to equal an Ipod?". Even if you find an investment strategy that "beats" the insurance product...so what? Cash value insurance is supposed to provide a death benefit with a savings component, not an investment component (despite the mistakes of variable life).

Before you make any decision on whether to buy term or cash value life insurance, think about what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to invest your money, then learn about investing. Learn how to value corporations and buy stocks, bonds, no load mutual funds. If you want a long-term savings, then find an adviser that can maximize your savings through cash value life insurance.

Article Source: Main Articles

David Lewis is a financial adviser and provides objective financial information about life insurance, SPIAs, bank CDs, stocks, and other topics related to retirement & financial planning.

This article may be reproduced wholly or in part without written permission provided the byline, resource area, and any hyperlinks remain in order to give proper credit to the author.

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