A few years ago, we began one of our most popular blogs by writing, "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 created almost 50 years ago 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.  But we have a stake in the game."

The "view from outside the industry" that we discussed in our Blog was from the renowned accounting firm Ernst & Young, LLP.  Their findings then were a revelation, except to those of us who understand the unique potential of life insurance and annuity products:

"More exposure to Personal Life Insurance and Deferred Income Annuities produces better retirement outcomes because it does not result in an under-allocation to equity assets earlier in the household's life cycle."

"Allocating up to 30% of annual savings to Personal Life Insurance and up to 30% of wealth at age 55 to DIA with IIP may be appropriate when optimizing retirement income and legacy value outcomes."

"The majority of the integrated strategies that include Personal Life Insurance produce higher retirement income and legacy at the end of the time horizon."

Today, Ernst & Young's (EY) previous evaluation still holds true.  And their recent 2025 update "Benefits of Integrating Insurance Products into a Retirement Plan," offers more thorough analyses and more diverse case studies, using products that are composites of the latest index annuity and index universal life into their Monte Carlo simulations. 

You can download the full EY Update here

 As a financial advisor who places your clients' interests first, you will find all of EY's analysis and examples worth reading when you have the time and opportunity. In the meantime, we've distilled down a few of the most important points for financial professionals that we think are worth your and your clients' attention.

EY's 2025 update on integrating insurance products into retirement planning offers compelling evidence that a hybrid strategy — combining investments with permanent life insurance and deferred income annuities with increasing income potential — can generate stronger long-term results than an investment-only approach.

Three case studies are thoroughly analyzed – a 35 year old couple, a 45 year old couple, and a 65 year old couple.

To compare the six alternative strategies used in each case study,  EY employed a Monte Carlo analysis to generate 1,000 scenarios, each containing a time series of interest rates, inflation rates, equity returns and bond returns over the planning horizon.