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Life insurance rarely figures prominently in U.S. Supreme Court cases. But there are scattered exceptions, and on June 6 2024, the Court released its decision in Connelly v. United States, originally a Tax Court case involving life insurance in an entity stock redemption arrangement between two brothers who owned a closely held corporation. The Court ruled in favor of the IRS and held that in this case, for purposes of establishing the value of the corporation for estate taxes, the corporation's obligation to purchase the deceased brother's shares did not offset the value of corporate owned li...

The 2024 Pacific Life Underwriting Symposium took place recently with an excellent slate of discussion topics and life insurance industry representation.  Most platform discussions were in a panel format with Pacific Life, Distribution, Reinsurance, Retrocessionaire and Technology representatives contributing and participating. It's not often that we have the opportunity to pull together important life industry players to exchange views on critical and relevant underwriting topics that impact our businesses.  Congratulations go to Susan Ghalili and her team at Pacific Life for being ...

In May of 2019 we posted a conversation with Bobby Samuelson to Windsor's website that we ambitiously called, The World of Indexed Universal Life.  That blog has led all Windsor blogs in popularity right up to today.  Indexed UL has expanded beyond the boundaries of those early days to become a formidable product with wide appeal to financial professionals and to insurance-buying consumers.  And, because of its rapid growth in the marketplace, it has more than once caught the eye of insurance regulators. Today, Bobby Samuelson graciously joins us again for a conversation wi...

After a two-year hiatus, the Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU) was held recently in person with over 900 attendees present.  Meeting participants included underwriting leadership from all major life carriers, reinsurance companies, exam/lab vendors, industry data/information providers and several technology companies among others.  It was terrific to be back in person at this meeting, networking with industry pros and peers, and gaining important insight and perspective on the current state of life underwriting. Over the past few years and accelerated by the pandemic, th...

You've met with your clients and their financial advisors on a few occasions and discussed the clients' financial planning and insurance objectives. Things are going well.  The insurance plan and product you are proposing meet the clients' needs exceptionally well, and provide the financial stability they are seeking.  But then you hear it.  The clients want to think about it some more.  When queried, your clients indicate that maybe they will look at this again, but are not sure when that will be. We have all heard it many times before, and know that procrastination and th...

  If we had a nickel for every time a carrier suggested we spend more time showing life insurance as a supplemental retirement income strategy, we would have a ton of nickels.  After all, Windsor was started by Jerry Schwartz and Hal Brooks when Universal Life and Interest Sensitive Whole Life were first invented.  From that time on, we've been steadily promoting the unique advantages of life insurance, most recently in our June 2021 Blog on Life Insurance Retirement Plans (LIRP). But we have a stake in the game.  So when life insurance companies encourage us to emphasize t...

- by Jeff Driscoll, Vice-President, Product and Carrier Management, Partners Financial Let's start with good news.  Your clients and many life insurance carriers definitely need your expertise in selling and servicing Indexed Universal Life (IUL) products.   And now, with the growing trend of volatility control (VC) indexed accounts, your value is more than solidified.  The trade-off for your increased value is that more homework is required to understand and make the correct recommendations with these more complicated indices.  Before going any further, one could argue tha...

We're guessing that Roth IRAs probably don't show up on your radar these days.  What with the S&P, NASDAQ and the Dow ringing the bell on new records almost weekly, investment advisors focused on wealth creation might just pass right by a qualified plan option with income ceilings of about $200,000 and contribution limits of $6,000 to $7,000 (depending on age) annually, as of 2021. But Peter Thiel of PayPal fame might change your mind.  He simply used a Roth IRA to create a $5 billion tax-exempt fortune. Roth IRAs were created in 1997 to provide for a need not filled by other qua...

For life insurance industry veterans, using cash value life insurance to supplement retirement savings is as old as the rate book.  Overfunding premiums and enjoying the advantages of both insurance protection and tax-free accumulation (without the burden of qualified plan rules) is what makes our products unique.  And with the potential for tax-free income down the road, we really have an unmatched solution for clients wanting to enhance their retirement in a very tax-efficient way. If life insurance is new to you, or if you just need a refresher on the LIfe Insurance Retirement Pla...

No matter where you live, no matter where you do business, if you actively participate in the recommendation or sale of a life insurance or annuity product to a client in New York, Rule 187 directly applies to you.  And if it doesn't apply to you today, probably all you have to do is wait. Because, when it comes to insurance regulation, what happens in New York never stays in New York.  Although Rule 187, the new Suitability and Best Interests in Life Insurance and Annuity Transactions rule, exclusively applies to insurance and annuity sales in New York, we have seen regulations like...