How it Works
Traditional Retirement Plans like 401K’s can be compared to alternatives like Index Universal Life Insurance to determine which will provide a longer, more reliable stream of income in retirement. The EIUL or Equity Index Universal Life Insurance policy you will get the benefit of Tax-Free loans from their cash value to supplement retirement income, LOWER FEES than their traditional retirement plan, and Life Insurance protection.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2 MINUTE ANSWERS
401k’s in the News
60 Minutes
The 401K Recession
60 Million Americans count on 401k’s for there retirement income. They have become the primary source of income but were never designed to be retirement plans in the 1st place. They were created in the 1970’s and was supposed to supplement the 2 traditional income streams for retirees including social security and pension programs. Unfortunately, it did not turn out that way.
Retirement News
401K Reboot
Attorney and Certified Financial Planner Greg DuPont it interviewed by Scott Drake of Retirement News online about the potential benefits of incorporating Indexed Universal Life Insurance into your retirement Plan
Hear what Others Think
Grant & Heather Moulden
Is Investing in Life insurance, a bad idea?
Indexed Products and How They Work
The 3 Main Factors Behind IUL Crediting:
The three main factors that make the indexed crediting inside an Indexed Universal Life policy so unique and powerful are as follows:
1. IUL Has An Annual Reset Feature.
Wouldn’t it be great if after a bad year in your investment portfolio, you could replace the loss with a zero, hit the reset button, and start over the next year from that new lower market position? You can do exactly that with Indexed Universal Life Insurance! Let’s just say that the S&P 500 drops from 2,500 to 2,000 in one particular year. Imagine that your policy cash value simply receives no crediting that year rather than seeing a 20% drop in your 401(k) account value.
Here’s where the annual reset feature really matters. Once a year passes, your IUL cash value starts tracking its growth from that new lower 2,000 level in the S&P 500, despite the fact that your policy cash value incurred no market losses on the its way down from 2,500 to 2,000. Since sharp bounce-back market rallies often follow plummeting corrections, Indexed Universal Life insurance can be an amazingly powerful financial tool to harness that volatility in a positive way.
Whereas market fluctuations may keep you up at night when thinking about your 401(k) or investment portfolio, you might even start to welcome stock market volatility once you allocate funds to an IUL policy.Unlike with traditional investing, cumulative gains in the S&P 500 do not matter. What I mean is that the S&P 500 does not need to end up at new all-time highs to get growth on your policy cash value.
In fact, with Indexed Universal Life the S&P 500 can crash and then continue bouncing up and down in a range indefinitely. Whereas your investment portfolio will never recover from the early wounds, your IUL cash value can earn crediting in every year when the index ends up higher than where it was 12 months prior.
2. IUL Has a Guaranteed 0% Floor in Bad Market Years.
In other words “zero is your hero”*. What this means is that with IUL you can participate in up to double-digit returns in good years, yet give back no ground to market losses during bad years. Imagine being able to stay confidently exposed to market volatility at all times without the fear of losing one-quarter, one-third, or even one-half of your account value to stock market losses? Now to be fair to the critics, your cash value will decrease somewhat during those 0% years because of the small policy charges and cost of insurance. However, these charges can often be greatly reduced by simply funding your policy to the maximum allowable limit within the first 5-7 years (more on this within the section about IUL Cost Criticisms)
3. Actual Market Fluctuations.
With your investment portfolio, major market fluctuations can be a perilous risk factor to your retirement. However, since IUL is suited to harness this upside movement while eliminating any downside free-falls, volatility now becomes your friend. Here’s 5 facts about the S&P Index that explains exactly why:
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S&P Index Fact #1:
The market has experienced annual gains more than three times as often as it sustained annual losses. Put another way, the S&P Index has gone up annually 76% of the time in the last 80 years. I’m referring specifically to a 80-year study period from 1937-2016 where the S&P Index has experienced 61 up-years and only 19 down-years.**
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S&P Index Fact #2:
Those up-years in the S&P were 3x as likely to give you double-digit crediting than single-digit crediting. If we look at those 61 distinct positive years referenced above, the market gained more than 10% in 47 of those years and less than 9% (but greater than 0%) in the other 14 years.**
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S&P Index Fact #3:
Fact #3: there were only two instances where the market had three consecutive negative years during that entire 81-year time period. The S&P Index had three losing years in a row from 1939-1941 and not again until 2000-2002.
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S&P Index Fact #4:
Fact #4: there was only one other instance where the S&P Index even had two consecutive negative years from 1973-1974.*
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S&P Index Fact #5:
- Fact #5Fact #5: What’s interesting is that all three of these time periods were immediately followed up by a rebound year that produced at least a double-digit advance from the new lower starting value. Although your investment portfolio may not have gotten even after this first bounce, there’s a good chance that your IUL’s cash value may pull way ahead after that first double-digit rebound (since it only paid policy charges during the consecutive 0% years).
- ** Click here to see the 80-year study on the S&P Index.
Ever heard the term “fail fast?” That’s what the stock market seems to do. When it has a significant correction, it plummets quickly. Whereas when the market rallies, it is usually a steady ascent over a prolonged period of time. One of my favorite sayings about the market is that “Stocks tend to take the stairs up, but they take the window down.”
2 Questions for You
- Do you believe that the stock market will continue to have corrections and recessions, but still produce more up-years than down-years over the next 30-60 years of your life?
- Do you believe that the majority of those up-years will continue to produce gains in excess of 10% (even if they happen to follow some harsh down-years)?
If you answered yes, then how is the unique crediting methodology of IUL a bad thing? Where else can you confidently channel the volatility of the stock market in this manner?
Questions You Should Ask Yourself
- What better way is there to protect my account value, lock-in the lion’s share of my past gains, while still staying confidently invested without worrying about when the next crash will happen?
- Other than hiding money under my bed while waiting for a crash, how can I truly take advantage of the great buying opportunities that economic corrections provide? How else can I do this when all of the investment strategies available are in some way exposed to major market’s losses?
- What portion of my assets would I be willing to forgo any upside above 11%-13% annual crediting so that I can completely erase the possibility of downside market risk?
CHOOSE SYMMETRY FOR and Eiul or Personal Pension Program?
At Symmetry Financial Group, we understand that everyone has different needs for insurance coverage, including final expense coverage. That’s why we don’t offer “cookie cutter” solutions. We will work with you to learn more about your needs and goals for insurance protection. Then, we’ll find solutions that meet those needs.
We don’t push proprietary products on our clients – we are truly an independent organization, representing multiple insurance carriers. That means you can be confident that your insurance coverage is in your best interest, not ours.
Advanced Explanations of an Eiul or PPP
Now that you have a basic understanding of how Indexed Crediting works, let’s dissect the common crediting criticisms and see if they indeed have any validity. This way you can understand the real pros or cons of IUL’s cost structure and see how you feel about using Indexed Universal Life for your retirement and pre-retirement wealth-building goals.
Growth Strategies
Retirement
Some of this Information, graphs, videos, & testimonials in this post includes material gathered from independent sources that have no direct connections or ties with S.W.A.T. Financial or Symmetry Financial Group and the information and it is not their intention to support, market, or attempt to persuade you are anyone else to purchase proudest from, or do business with, S.W.A.T. Financial, Symmetry Financial Group, or any of its affiliates. The information that is included in this post is to help educate you on the Pros and Cons of using an Eiul or PPP to help supplement your retirement while protecting your family .
Some of the sources include but are not limited to.
John “Hutch” Hutchinson is founder of BankingTruths.com, an educational site discussing how to maximize the lifetime benefits of both Whole Life Insurance and Indexed Universal Life Insurance by creating your own private family banking mechanism.
Eric Palmer, currently, Is a Financial Educator at Life’s Best Insurance and the Chief Marketing Officer at Brokers Alliance.
*- “Zero is my Hero ®” is trademarked by Warren Steinborn, a life insurance agent and financial planner
Information presented in this article by these and other sources is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities product, insurance products, financial services, or investment strategies. Be sure to first consult with a knowledgeable, ethical, and licensed insurance professional before implementing any strategy or product discussed herein.