There is a worrying trend that we are seeing in the financial services industry recently. That trend involves selling indexed universal life insurance to people that have previously purchased fixed indexed annuities with some sort of guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit (GMWB) or lifetime income rider. Now that isn't necessarily a problem as one could certainly […]

The post 129 Leave the Annuities Alone appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

Are millennials making a big mistake by not investing enough of their retirement funds in stocks? Well, someone over at the Motley Fool seems to think so and today we're going to tell you what we think about their (the Motley Fool) opinion. It turns out that Millennials are pretty good at saving money. However, […]

The post 128 Buy More Stocks! appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

Today we're discussing the other “i” word–illustration. We are diving into how illustrations are manipulated to sell the sizzle and not so much about focusing on the substance. It seems that far too many of the people working in the marketing department feel that they need to really “push the envelope” in terms of illustrating […]

The post 127 Beware of the Illustration Beauty Contest appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

We’ve talked about a lot of scary financial concepts on the Insurance Pro Blog in the past and it seems as though few economic topics strike more fear in the hearts of Americans than unrelenting ‘i’ word. We are, of course, talking about inflation. But what is this seemingly cryptic topic all about and why […]

The post 126 What’s the Real Rate of Inflation? appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

Today we are discussing one of our favorite financial products…the 401k. We really wish you could see the red hot glow of the sarcasm light in our studio. If you've been listening to the Financial Procast for any length of time, you will surely be familiar with our disdain for the 401k. It's not necessarily that we […]

The post 125 Yet One More Problem With Your Company’s 401k appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

The Certified Financial Planner designation stands as a testament of one’s dedication to excellence and superiority in the world of financial planning. Or at least that’s what the CFP Board and the designees want you to believe. And they’ve done a good job convincing the world that CFP® holders are the wise wizards of the […]

The post 124 Certified Financial Planners do very little Planning appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

Well the Dow was at 17,000, but this week certainly hasn’t been very generous to American equities. Ignoring that ugly truth for a minute, we wanted to take a minute to look at last week’s awesome new highs and discuss what it really means for the real return of the stock market. 17,581.9 Who Remembers […]

The post 123 What’s the Real Rate of Return of the Stock Market? appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

When it comes to Gen X and Retirement all is not well with the MTV Generation. But this despair doesn’t seem to be rooted in a systemic lack of effort—one of the core flaws often noted by its preceding generation—rather it originates from a demoralizing late-in-life shift in world view coupled with a struggle to […]

The post 122 Gen X Retirement: Gloomy appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

“We want to let everyone know that life insurance is like that guy on the TV selling his little oven thingy…you just set it and forget it!” That was the utterance of a Friday morning sales meeting I once labored through when I was a relatively new agent at one of the big mutuals. The […]

The post 121 Life Insurance is not a Rotisserie Chicken appeared first on The Insurance Pro Blog.

Recent announcements have surfaced saying that both Amazon and Google are kicking around the idea to sell life insurance. Are we worried that this going to bring some stiff competition to the life insurance market? Do agents (like us) have to worry? We think not. They both will focus on selling term life insurance policies […]

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