I was sold a Global Index Universal Life by Western Reserve Life. The index is a mixed bag of SP500, European Index and Hongkong Hengseng. high cap is set at 13.25%, and the bottom is set at 2%. When I ran a simulation for the past 20 or so years, I can expect a compounding annual return of 9% from the product. Comparing with the return of SP500 at the same period, the return is a dismal 6%. Investing in stock does not match the life insurance even I added another 2% of dividend from stock. Overall, in spite of heavy charges and expenses, this UL outperforms the scenario of investing the same amount of money in Roth IRA and a term life. Therefore, I am pretty attracted to it. The only uncertainty is that the insurance company can change the cap at its will, and so I am worrying about the probability that the insurance company will lower its cap. Some of my argument is
1) Can insurance company consistently makes more than those on stock market for a long long time, I mean, my life time? I know the money is not invested in stock, but on fixed-return investment and call options (learned from a website). I heard many times that 90% of mutual funds cannot outperform index fund for a 10 year horizon. and I guess some of the mutual funds use sophisticated strategy, which could include fixed-return investment and options. If these mutual fund cannot outperform index, can insurance company?
2) Of course, insurance company need not to worry about how much return they offer now, because they charge a heavy "per unit charge" (about 25% of target prenium) for the first 8 years (in the product I was sold). That is a reserve they keep for future uncertainties. Anyhow, the Equity-indexed life insurance is only around for 9 years, and the company I was sold may have the product for only several years. By that, I mean the possibility of reducing cap won’t be seen in the near term. But I will be locked in the product for life time (of course, I can surrender and pay tax, or transfer the cash value to another product, which is not a good idea either.)
1) Can insurance company consistently makes more than those on stock market for a long long time, I mean, my life time? I know the money is not invested in stock, but on fixed-return investment and call options (learned from a website). I heard many times that 90% of mutual funds cannot outperform index fund for a 10 year horizon. and I guess some of the mutual funds use sophisticated strategy, which could include fixed-return investment and options. If these mutual fund cannot outperform index, can insurance company?
2) Of course, insurance company need not to worry about how much return they offer now, because they charge a heavy "per unit charge" (about 25% of target prenium) for the first 8 years (in the product I was sold). That is a reserve they keep for future uncertainties. Anyhow, the Equity-indexed life insurance is only around for 9 years, and the company I was sold may have the product for only several years. By that, I mean the possibility of reducing cap won’t be seen in the near term. But I will be locked in the product for life time (of course, I can surrender and pay tax, or transfer the cash value to another product, which is not a good idea either.)
3) I want to know some history of related products.
a) Whole life is indexed to the rate of saving account. Were there any decrease of returns in history? Are they big?
b) I heard on a website (forgot where it is exactly) that indexed annuities are offered earlier than indexed UL, and some of these annuities got into trouble, and the problem is spilled to EIUL now. Can anybody offer a little more insight on this?
Modus Operandi 7:03 am on August 27, 2010
1) insurance companies are generally risk averse. In order to beat index returns, I’d imagine there would be significant risk an insurer is not willing to take. At least any insurer I’d want to do business with. Liquidity is a concern, especially with the volatility in the markets not completely diminished. There was a push towards holding higher risk-based capital and the companies would likely not risk money for unsure things at this moment.
2) I wouldn’t be so sure about the cap reductions in the near term. It depends on the market fluctuations and other considerations. I don’t know if there was a question in point 2.
3a. It would depend on the company, there is no blanket answer for the whole industry. I’m not familiar with Western Reserve Life. I don’t think many whole life policies (at least policies considered whole life) have any kind of variable element to them. That sounds like Variable universal life or some other kind of product. Whole life I see is strictly pay your premium(s) and your cash values accrue at a certain rate and that’s the end of the story.
3b. Some of the EIA problems stemmed from the accusation that companies issuing EIAs were preying on the elderly and charging unreasonable fees for the products the buyers didn’t understand. Variable annuities got creamed in general with the recent market decline and EIAs have guarantees which were probably not favorable for the writers of them. Like your guaranteed minimum return of 2% when the stock markets drop 30%. Another consideration is the prevalence of other benefits. It seems rare that a policy is sold plainly anymore and there are usually things like guaranteed minimum accumulation benefits, or income benefits or death benefits that act as buffers against certain uncertain future events. Most of the above options go into the money as the market declines, so there may be some of that happening.
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