ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
The Market and Your Life Insurance
For most life insurance policyholders, there’s no particular reason to be concerned about what effect the market will have on your policy. Why should you? Life insurance is traditionally rock solid, and a temporary upset in the market has no bearing whatsoever on your returns or death benefit. Life insurance policies tend to invest heavily in treasury bonds, the most stable investment on the planet. For the holders of some policy types, however, there’s reason to for grave concern over what they New Year’s stock market plunge may be doing to your long-term financial plan.
Indexed Universal Life Insurance
For holders of Indexed Universal Life Insurance, tumult in the stock market can mean big changes in your Life Insurance Policy. When returns are based on the performance of an index, and the indices are underperforming, it can throw off the returns on your policy and derail your retirement plans. Although brokers and salespeople often claim that Indexed Universal Life insurance produces higher returns than traditional life insurance, this is rarely the case, and especially not when the market is in a slump.
Additional penalties
In addition to the fluctuating returns, many Indexed universal Life insurance policies have additional penalties that kick in when policy holders try to use or reallocate their funds. Liquidity charges, surrender fees, market adjustments: any number of things can cause you to pay fees to access your own money. For some policyholders, it’s like having your money trapped in a sinking ship and not being able to get at it without throwing some overboard.
Major Sellers of Indexed Annuities Include:
- Pacific Life
- Aviva
- Athene
- Accordia
- Minnesota Life
- Aegon USA
- National Life Group
- Penn Mutual
- Old Mutual Financial
- Midland National Life
- Allstate Life
- NACOLAH Life
- Transamerica
- Nationwide
- Voya
Contact us
If you believe that you may be the victim of an improperly sold or administered Indexed Universal Life Policy, or any other type of annuity or Life insurance product, contact the Evans Law Firm for a free initial consultation. Our firm handles Insurance, annuity, and investment fraud, as well as financial elder abuse, qui tam and whistelbower cases, and nursing home abuse. You can reach our attorneys at (415) 441-8669, or online at www.evanslaw.com.
