Policy Review

July 1 2019

Why I Do Not Like Any Carriers, Products, or Concepts

Brandon Unger Advisors Advisors, Life Insurance, Policy Review

What carrier(s) do you like?
What product(s) do you like?
What concept(s) do you like?

Have you ever been asked one of those questions? I must assume yes, because I am asked it constantly.

Feel free to let me know how you answer by emailing me, but here is how I answer.

I do not like any carrier, product, or process over another. I like good advisors. If I am working with a good advisor, then we will find the appropriate carrier, product, and/or concept that is in the best interest of their specific clients.

Inevitably, the next question I am asked is, “Well, how can you tell who is a good advisor?”.

This is slightly harder question, but I do have some criteria that I like to check-off.

Do they come off as more genuine or more salesy? This may seem intuitive, but I have met some amazing advisor who came off as very salesy, however, they were even more genuine when I was able to get by their salesyness (which was not always easy).
Do they have a sale in mind or their client in mind? If an advisor asks me about a carrier, product, or sale within fifteen seconds of bringing a case to my attention, it is usually a sign that they are more interested in moving a sale as opposed to assisting a client.
Does the advisor understand the differences and products and how they work? This is very important to me because I truly believe that if someone does not take the time to understand what exactly they are selling, then they probably do not care whether they are selling it appropriately.
I saved the most important point for last. Does the advisor take an active role in reviewing their clients portfolios? This question is the number one reason that I tell people that I do not like any single carrier, product, or concept over another. I will explain below.

Carriers have no allegiance to policy holders or shareholders. It sounds coarse but it is true. It is as true for mutual carriers as it is public carriers. Their first and foremost concern is the same as any business. Profits. If an old block of business is no longer profitable, they will find a way to make it more profitable, generally at the expense of the policy holders. If the carrier is still having trouble, they may just stop selling new policies all together. This will almost always have negative impact on policies with the added negative impact on servicing those contracts.

This is why the advisor is the key. I cannot tell the future. I cannot tell you what carrier, product, or concept will be best when your client needs their living or death benefit(s). However, if we review their policies every year or two together to make sure they are still appropriate, I am confident that the carrier, product, or concept will not be an issue when the time arises.

That is why I do not like any carriers, products, or concepts.

April 1 2019

Quit Smoking For Good

Brandon Unger Underwriting Policy Review, Smoking

Many friends become clients and many clients become friends. That is the way of the world. And it is a truly good thing, because who does not want what is best for their friends?

Remember when you first met your friends/clients? Things were different. Maybe it was in the 60’s or 70’s or 80’s. Maybe they did not have kids yet. Maybe they still smoked.

We get a lot of requests to do policy reviews. One thing that stands out the most is the amount of older policies that have smoker rates. It makes sense, smoking was much more mainstream. However, it has been decades since Americans stopped smoking en masse.

If someone committed to living a healthier lifestyle than they were, shouldn’t their premiums reflect that as well? According to most carriers, that answer is, YES! At the same time, these carriers are still charging many people as though they still take a cigarette break every hour, or if they use hqd vapes – in the form of a vaping state tax. An alternative for smoking is to find the Best Vape Shop Online Canada to help ensure that you consume only the best. Your friends, clients, family members, and even you should review older policies and you just might be surprised at how many people can free up some money by removing the smoker status from old policies. It is time to finally quit smoking, for good.

June 25 2018

Revisiting Reviews

Brandon Unger Advisors Policy Review

I walk into many of our advisors offices and their screens are blinking the reds and greens of the market. They can tell me what every trendline represents on every advanced chart, who they are buying, and who they are selling for their clients.

When I ask them which insurance products they are bullish on and which they wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole I get a blank stare.

I understand that insurance is not sexy but for those of us that pay attention there is blaringly red and green performers, red and green products, and red and green carriers in the industry.

Due to this I always advocate offering your clients insurance policy reviews. For the most basic review, the only requirement is that you must send Algren an annual statement. It is as easy as adding one more statement to your fact-finding meeting with clients. If you want to get more in depth we can advise the next steps required.

Some policy reviews we have assisted on in the past few months have yielded some of the following results:

An advisor had a client with three under-performing Whole Life Insurance contracts. We facilitated 1035ing them into a brand new IUL contract that cost him about half the premium of the original contracts with substantially greater opportunity to grow his cash value. The advisor earned five-figures in commissions.
An advisor had a client with an old policy that was owned by a no longer needed trust. The client could no longer afford the policy do to an illness that had a major impact on his ability to earn income. He was going to surrender the policy when we discussed with the agent the opportunity to do a Life Settlement. The client walked away with over twice as much in cash than had he surrendered the policy for its cash value. This advisor also earned five-figures in commissions.
While reviewing another advisor’s client’s decades-old policy we noticed that the selling agent had set up the policy with the client’s parents as owners and their special needs child as beneficiary. The owners had passed over a dozen years ago and we pointed out the taxable implications that had existed. This lead to a brand-new policy being purchased inside a special needs trust. When the advisor went to get the forms signed by the trustee he found that the trustee was in the market for a financial advisor. This advisor walked away with good commissions and over $1,000,000 in new AUM that the trustee transferred to him.

These are just three recent policy reviews that have been successful. There are dozens more.

Warren Buffet advocates “If you don’t feel comfortable owning a stock for 10 years, you shouldn’t own it for 10 minutes.” We agree; however, many clients and advisors do not undertake the same due diligence with Insurance products that they do with investments.

Through policy reviews, we can help you see the reds and greens in your clients’ insurance portfolios. Let us assist you in showing them where we are bullish.