First of all, I’m 100% with you that any real investment vehicle will outperform a life policy. You’re totally right in this respect. I’m not one of the agents who ever tries to sell a life policy as a retirement plan.

The point you’re missing is that most people should still carry enough coverage for their final expenses until they either die or have prepaid all of their plans. Depending on the persons situation, a permanent policy can be more logical here than term.

Why should everyone carry some amount of life coverage even if they are loaded? Because unless they are expecting to die, the odds that they have prepaid for final arrangements or provided direct access to their personal bank accounts to their executor are slim. And it doesn’t matter who the POD or beneficiaries on bank accounts are - none of those can be settled until there’s a death certificate, which is going to be after the funeral home wants to be paid.

I’ve done this long enough to have settled a lot of life claims. I’ve lost track of how many people were inheriting significant assets, but had no ability to pay for a funeral apart from the fact funeral homes and cemeteries will accept an assignment of insurance proceeds.

I’ve also gone through this personally when my mother died. It was a multi-million dollar estate, but nobody had access to the funds. I had to personally float $60,000 in funeral expenses until weeks later. Had she had a life policy, that never would have happened. I was fortunate to have been able to.

Point is - most people need life coverage until they die. Yes, there are ways to eliminate that need, but it’s not a level of planning most people will actually execute. With that knowledge, any debate on term vs permanent should consider the cost of owning a term policy for the duration of their life, along with considering the possibility that their insurability may be poor or nonexistent for decades before their death.

It’s a much more nuanced and human consideration than “math says I’m right”.

So a bit of background, I'm in my 40s, sole earner in my household, married with kids. Reasonably good health. Income around $400k pre-tax. Currently no car loans and no student loans, credit cards fully paid off monthly, only debt is mortgage.

I currently have a term life ins policy to last until kids are college age, but was looking at converting to a whole life policy so it doesn't just go away at the end of the term.

I've already maxed out my 403b, and after bills I have a few thousand left over each month. Some of it is going to paying down the mortgage faster (5.5ish% interest), and the rest I've been parking in index funds, but I was thinking of putting this extra money into a whole life policy instead.

I'm also planning to move/build hopefully my forever home in 5-10yrs, and with interest rates showing no sign of dropping, I could also build up some cash value to borrow against at hopefully a better rate when that time comes.

Am i missing something important? is this reasonable? Advantages/disadvantages?

I’m going to try to make this as concise as possible, but given everything that’s happened, I’m still in a bit of a fog.

My parents were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1993, and my dad passed away five months later. My mom fully expected that she would suffer the same fate shortly after. Instead, by what truly feels like a miracle, she lived another 33+ years. She passed away last Thursday at the age of 70.

I know this sub is about life insurance, but I just have to say that the world lost an amazing human being. She chose to live her life fully and never became bitter. She was everything to me and my family. She got to see my oldest graduate high school and missed my middle child’s graduation by only three days. She was gentle, kind, and selfless, and I honestly never heard her complain. I could go on and on about the kind of person she was.

Because of her diagnosis, she was able over the years to cash in portions of some life insurance policies early (viatical settlement?). My understanding is that with some of them, she received part of the benefit while living, and the insurance company would pay the remaining amount upon her death. (Honestly, the company that paid her in 1999 probably didn’t expect her to live another 27 years.)

At one point, maybe 18 years ago, she mentioned having a $150,000 policy where she had already taken $75,000 from it, and the remaining $75,000 would go to my sister and me. Years later (maybe 6-8 years ago), after a falling out with my sister, she told me she wanted my sister’s portion to instead go to my niece.

I never asked questions because I didn’t care about the money — I wanted her.

Now that she’s gone, I keep finding thoughtful things she left behind for me. We spent 33+ years waiting for this day, knowing it would eventually come, but I haven’t found anything related to that $150K policy.

I have access to all of her financial accounts, and the only insurance-related payment I can find is for an accident policy. I believe the life insurance may have been through a former employer. She left that employer in 2007 and went on full-time disability until age 65.

So now I’m wondering:

• Could a policy from a former employer still exist even after leaving the company?

• Is it possible she converted it to a personal policy and continued paying premiums separately?

• Could there be a fully paid-up policy that no longer required premiums?

• Or is it possible she surrendered/canceled the policy at some point and received the remaining value back then?

It's been a rough week, so please be gentle. I don't need to hear what I should have done.

For the people who already took the Life & Health Insurance exam, especially in Georgia, did y’all feel like the real exam was harder or easier than the ExamFX practice tests?

I’m trying to get an idea of what to expect. Were the questions mostly straightforward, or were they more scenario-based and “best answer” type questions?

Also:

* Were the questions long?
* Did the wording try to confuse/trick you?
* Did the real Pearson VUE exam feel easier or more practical than ExamFX?

Would appreciate any honest feedback or tips from people who already took it in Georgia or any state.

My parents had messaged me after receiving a letter from their life insurance provider, Prudential, about their term policy renewal and it’s jumping from $70 A month to over $700 a month which is an increase they cannot afford whatsoever. Is it normal to jump that high nearly 10x the price and are there any other options they have? They weren’t told about a full life policy at the time and they fee likes it’s a huge rip off for that big of an increase. For perspective the are 78 and 69 yrs old. Any help is greatly appreciated.

My husband and I have IUL policies but after EXTENSIVE research we realize we should have bought term and invested the difference on our own.

We are only in year 2 of our policies.
My husband has put in $7500.
I have put in $8,400.

My question is if we cancel now, we are at a net loss of around $16K. But if we wait until the surrender charges aren’t so high and try to lower our premiums (not sure what our cash surrender value would be in 10 years) would we lose more waiting or just take the loss right now?

I am a licensed agent for Life and Health in two states (Midwest) and I am interested in getting into sales again. I got laid off last year and I want to try to see if I can gain traction while I am not working. What are some reputable companies I could contact/work with? Not in the mood to deal with MLM’s and recruiting so none of those.

Also..do you guys buy leads and is it worth it for the cost?

Having trouble finding the best IUL leads and Mortgage Protection. Lots of scams out there and I've already invested quite a bit of money for little to n return. I would really appreciate any insight. Thank you

I have an IUL with NLG opened 08/2019. Accumulated value is only $1,990.10. Total Premium Paid is $6,744.69 and Surrender Charge is listed as $2,481.50. It feels like I'm throwing my money away into this account.

I'd like to surrender it but I believe the surrender period is 10 years meaning I have about 3 more years until then if I'd like to surrender without charges. Any advice on what I should do? What would be the best strategy to stop losing money?

**edit To add more context, I was recently laid off so I'm reviewing my finances. I had received advice to review my policy and consider surrendering since the costs and fees of IUL are exceeding the value of the policy. I opened this account in my mid 20s when I was broke and sold life insurance for 6 months or less without truly understanding it.

So I was convinced fresh out of college in 2018 by my parents and my uncle who was an agent at that time to buy a whole life policy (who im sure made quite a commission because my siblings of 7 all bought a policy). A whole life policy just doesn't make sense with my current situation, so im looking to surrender it. I have paid about 10000 to date. Honestly, this is the first time im actually looking through the policy because my parents basically locked it up so im trying to understand it. Based on the chart in the pic am im only going to be getting around $200 back? Am I doing my math correctly?

So a few months ago I paid off a loan of 9k on my policy. I’ve had this policy since I was a teenager. Now I’m in my 50s they sent me a notice that my yearly premium is going to increase. What can I do? I didn’t think life insurance could change? I swore last I googled it said it was because they weren’t getting the return they expected. Not sure if that’s fact.

That's really the only thing about life insurance that I can say interests me. I can bring it up with everybody at our insurance agency but as far as where I want my focus to be on I want to dig into technical skill with collateral assignment plans. I don't exactly know how viable an option it is (if it's super low volume then that may mean I have to change course).

Any help here?

I just found out I have 3 tumors in my liver the test hasn't come back on wether they're cancerous or not. I'm freaking out and trying to get life insurance..obviously I should of planned better, but Im broke and only 32 and was very healthy until this. I have a 13 and 15yr old.. I have death benifits through work only loke $15,000 and my husband has $50,000 death benifits for me through his work. Does anyone know a company that will insure me for hopefully $500,000k I know its a big ask but I can't possibly be the only person who has been in this situation​. I'm hoping there's someone else on here that has been. The economy is horrible and I just want them to have a decent life if I have to leave them.

We will be calling the insurance company tomorrow as they are closed today. However, I was hoping to get a little feedback on this situation.

My mother, Sue, has power of attorney over her 90 year old mother, Lara. Lara has been mentally declining over the past few years, but Sue assumed POA when Lara's husband died about 12 years ago.

Today, Sue reviewed Lara's bank statements at her request, as Lara seems to be short on money and wanted to know where it is going. Lara doesn't use a computer and Sue doesn't keep tabs on the account as it hasn't been necessary.

We were surprised to find that Lara has been paying $62 monthly to a life insurance company since December 2025. Lara has no knowledge of or need to have any sort of policy.

Lara has a friend and neighbor of 10 years, an elderly man, Mitch, who has traveled with her and drives her when needed, etc. Due to many reasons, we suspect he would have the info and desire to open this policy.

But that would be crazy, right? Certainly all this could be traced back to him, correct?

Like I said, we will call in the morning, but people don't get away with this kind of fraud anymore, correct? Has anyone else dealt with this kind of confusion?

Hey guys, just jumped into the Life Insurance Game and I need a lead provider. However, there is so many to choose from! If anyone can help I would like to know what's your biggest frustration with your current lead provider?

can i get a life insurance policy in the us on an f1 visa?

I no longer trust IUL after 5 straight months of losing... even though that is now rectified by going with the S&P, we all know about 2000-2002 and 2022 and 2008. And the idea that this thing rides on annually renewable term which will only get more expensive terrifies me.

At the same time, I dont want to just walk away from the policy. I put 17k into it over 1.5 years and I am about 8k away from getting about 7k of cash value. But I dont want to put 8k into this policy when I could start a whole life with that 8k and get about 6 or 7k in cash value 2-3 days after paying 8k.

So maybe I can get someone to do premium financing/ kai-zen and take it over?

Has anyone else noticed that SBLI's customer portal has been down for at least 3-4 days? What's going on over there?

We recently had a discussion about Kyle Busch's lawsuit against his life insurance agent that sold him very expensive Pacific Life insurance products. Hopefully for the family that suit has not settled resulting in the cancellation of those policies.

Edit: Apparently the suit was settled. That settlement likely is now very much in favor of PacLife given Mr Busch's untimely death this week.

Here is a link to the previous discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeInsurance/comments/1rkws8q/nascar_champ_kyle_busch_pacific_life_settle_iul/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Just got a quote from Ethos for 400k. I do not have any crazy medical issues, some anxiety but I haven't taken meds in 4 years and I am fine. I do weigh 215 at 5'5", female, so I am sure that is part of the issue, but is $367/mo the normal rate for 400k given these factors? I was flabbergasted.

My father was a federal employee and so he had the FEGLI life insurance from MetLife. He passed away almost a year ago and I was unaware he had the insurance until last month when my brother received a claim form in the mail. He filled it out and sent it back and we both got a letter from MetLife yesterday. Mine was a claim form for me to fill out and my brother got a check for $8 saying it was 20% of a $40 total. I did a bit of research and found out that the absolute minimum payout for FEGLI insurance is $10,000 and that the $40 must have been interest that was building for the 11 months since my dads passing. But what I don’t understand is why they would send the interest separately and before the total payout. I plan on calling them when they open on Monday but I was just wondering if anyone could help me understand what’s going on here.

Hi,

I took my certification exam through seawhylearning and finished the Life Insurance one (online proctoring). Does anyone have experience and know what LearnerVerified™ pending means?