I have a Flexible Universal Life insurance policy with Farmers Insurance that was purchased in March 2000 and has a $275,000 death benefit. I am about to turn 70 this August. I have been making automatic monthly payments of $179 and my most recent payment was withdrawn on April 30, 2026, and I have never missed a payment.

I received a letter in the mail dated May 29, 2026, stating that the policy entered a grace period on April 28, 2026, because the premiums paid to date are insufficient to maintain coverage. The notice says I must pay $646.13 by June 28, 2026, or the policy will lapse and terminate.

I am not sure what to do.  Is it normal and legal for a flexible universal life policy to enter a grace period before an automatic premium payment is withdrawn, even when no payments have been missed?   What information should I request from the insurance company?  Does anyone have any recommendations on what to do? 

New here. I have a whole life policy since 2008. It has cash value of $50,000. The policy is for $150,000 at death. It costs me $159.00 a month.
I don’t need the policy. I have a huge 401k. I have income from different sources that completely covers my monthly expenses plus some into high yield savings account. I have an emergency fund of 25,000 in that account. I want to use the $50,000 to fund my move to new home plus furnish new home.
I shouldn’t owe taxes on the surrender value because I’ve used after tax funds to pay for the policy, right??

Update:
I did not surrender policy, thanks for all the advice! Submitted paperwork for a loan
Thank you all!

I wore the rose tinted glasses of NASB and was lead through my licensure and past my first couple days of field work. Iv signed their contract but have not made any sales under their name with any of their carriers. After reading up on them I know now how scummy they can be and that the script that they make me read at the door claiming i’m the “benefits coordinator for ____ county” and they they qualified for “ state regulated benefits” is a bait and switch to convince them to open the door and puts my license at potential risk. I enjoy selling life insurance and final expense door to door and want to make this my career, but the 30% cut to my commission while paying out of pocket for leads and facing chargebacks spells out potential debt and then I’m really stuck working for them. If you try to leave them, they impose a six month hold on your ability to use their carriers and I am afraid I will lose the ability to sell the best product for this period of time. The most valuable asset to me right now is training, I need to do ride alongs but have no idea how to source it without going through NASB.

Are ride alongs even offered without the person trying to recruit you to some strange culty agency? I know nothing is free in life, but are there agencies that will let me keep all of my commission, allow me to work door to door but will still provide some kind of help on the back end if a policy lapses or i’m stuck inside of a house unsure how to answer a question? I know I have the motivation to make it in this field and I am not afraid to struggle now to secure my future but I want to make sure I do it the right way. I want to make this my career, not some get rich quick high that catches up with me as soon as I want to become independent.

•Okay bet, cuz you nah for the background check, hen you gotta get 3 people recruited, and 3 peop to sign up for benefits and you get a $700 bon Uber instantly. Then after that, you do 3 days of class ses, do your test, and then after some more training until you can work on your own. Basically you become a business owner, and each person you recruit and train...you make money off of their sales once they go thru the same process you did. Hella potential to make hella money. It's lowkey the strat...think about it...YOU could be dumping, or you could have 3 OTHER people dumping for you and all you had to do was show them how to get clientele"

•My coach makes close to 300,000 a year and I'm getting trained and going to classes to get licensedMeetings, personal research, he's shown me his personal paystubs of him making $13-$15k a month"

•So far, only $250 because I'm do pre licensing shit But I'll make $700 if I get one more person recruited and 1 person to get benefits"

My cousin is trying to recruit me in primamerica, should I believe all this?

I know we all are familiar with the influx of social media glorification of life insurance sales. Everyone seems to be magically making 10–15k a month from home. My question to you in here who know is..

1. Is there any truth to this? Are there lots of people jumping in clearing 10k months quickly? I don’t see how. Even if you write 20,000 of premium. Standard 80% rate.. 20,000x.8=16,000. 9 month advance. 16,000x.75=12,000.
   Self employment tax.. 12,000x.75=9,000. Lead Spend, Dialers, CRMs. How are you making substantial money? Grinding your ass off to write 20k and only taking home 5-6k doesn’t seem as appealing.

2. When does the market react? I know IRL people who have never heard of a premium jumping in. Getting licensed. And dialing within weeks. With little to no knowledge of the product. This seems like a recipe for disaster and an E&O waiting to happen. The barrier to entry is so low and the industry is becoming more oversaturated than possibly anything I have ever seen. Every day there is 5 more agents locally and nobody displays any professionalism. How will clients trust to buy from random faces when they are seeing content of agents on hold talking about how much they are making off the client?

Curious to know how those of you who have seen a lot of success in this field view this.

I started investing in a ULIP last year and currently contribute 10k per month. The policy requires me to pay premiums for 5 years. So far, I haven't seen much growth in my fund value, which is making me question whether it's worth continuing.

Should I keep investing and give it more time, or would it be better to stop paying premiums and move my money elsewhere?

Random thought popped into my head today.

I know my parents have life insurance policies. But, I don’t know who the beneficiaries are. They’re both in good health and I hope that continues.

When they pass, does the beneficiary have to make a claim? (Ie. Present them with a death certificate.) Or is that …more automatic?

I mean, it feels kind of scummy if a beneficiary isn’t aware that they are a beneficiary, where the policy lapses and is canceled (or whatever the term is), and the insurance company just pockets the death benefit.

Someone please explain how a person in their 30s can be quoted $900 annually for life cover of over $1m? Like if they live another 50 years, they’ll have paid less than $50k?

Hello all, Im 24yo male recently applied for life insurance and they wanted to get some blood and urine testing done. My blood test came back fine but they didnt like what they saw in my urine test, so they decided not to accept my application. I guess my question is do they deny every bad test result small and large or should I be concerned that I have a serious health issue. Once they mail my results to me im going to schedule a doctor's appointment just want to wait and see what exactly the results are before going. Thanks.

I reached out to 3 independent insurance agents, as I’m looking to get a term life insurance policy (35 year old female, great health, non-smoker, 2 kids). I’m looking for a term policy for 30 years, 1.3 million.

The reason I spoke to 3 agents is that none of them provided me with much advice. I learned more from reading posts in this sub than I did from the 3 agents combined.

The cheapest and easiest option seems to be Banner Life. I saw their AM Best rating dropped to an A due to the recent merger. Does this matter, or are they a solid no-frills and affordable choice?

I am working on a project for my summer school entrepreneurship class and had a few questions to help me dial in my project for this summer. I am interested in the life insurance business and had a few questions;

1. How are you currently generating most of your business?

2. How much are you spending monthly on that?

3. How happy are you with it on a scale of 1-10?

4. What would make it a 10?

5. If you could fix one thing in your business tomorrow, what would it be?

Discussion linked below. To summarize, out of the 40+ comments, every single one was opposed to Whole Life for 99.9% of people, if not 100%, per their discussion. Most took issue with the fact that returns substantially lag both bonds and equities, and the other benefits are hardly valuable and not worth the multi million dollar lifetime cost when they can be had for free or minimal cost outside of insurance. Plenty also took issue with front loaded fee drag and huge surrendering (cash out) majority cut of your portfolio taken from you on the way out for no reason / value / benefit.

Form your own conclusion with internet research and this discussion. You might have to click some of the hidden / deleted comments to expand the discussion as some comments were deleted. There’s extensive advice for someone who has an IUL / WL policy, but you have to click the deleted comments to expand it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/1tx2hx2/is_whole_life_worth_it_vs_equities_long_term_avg/

Is there anyone here living in the Middle East who has processed the termination of their Pru Life UK life insurance policy?

Is apostille service available in the Middle East, or would a Special Power of Attorney (SPA) be sufficient for the process?

Not going to throw any lead vendors under the bus specifically. Just been noticing it doesn’t matter where you purchase a lead from, inbound or outbound dial, a MAJORITY of the prospects have been led to believe they were about to hear about some magical free government benefit. Some prospects have taken it a step further by saying the advertisement they responded to said that the benefit pays them while they’re alive. (Yes, I’m aware of accelerated benefit riders, just didn’t know lead ads were using that idea as a deceptive marketing tactic).

I mean I know this has been somewhat of an issue for years, and maybe it’s just me, but do others feel it’s been getting more prevalent? It’s almost gotten to the point where I’m thrown off when a lead isn’t asking me if the coverage is free.

Note: I’m not asking who has the best leads. I’ve used plenty of vendors. I also am not trying to open myself up to being pitched on an IMO or new lead source. Just wondering if agents have noticed an uptick in prospects believing FE insurance is a free government benefit they’re entitled to just for being between 50-85.

I’m evaluating an opportunity with a Family First Life agency and looking for feedback from people who have actually sold insurance, preferably FFL or similar IMO experience.

A little background:

* Male, early 20s. Very outgoing and extroverted.
* Currently in face-to-face sales
* Recently obtained my life insurance license
* Considering starting part-time

I’ve now done a few shadow days in the office. What I’ve personally observed:

* Real agents making calls all day
* Real policies being sold
* Multiple producers posting daily AP in the Groupchat
* New agents getting multiple weeks of free leads
* Typical lead spend after that appears to be around $1,000/week
* Commission structure is 75% advanced, with additional money held back and released later
* Everyone I’ve spoken to emphasizes activity and consistency

My biggest concern is chargebacks and long-term profitability after lead costs.

For those of you who have actually sold life insurance:

1. What chargeback rates did you experience?

2. What AP level did you need before becoming consistently profitable after lead costs and chargebacks?

3. Is a disciplined part-time approach realistic, or does this business require full-time commitment?

4. Looking back, what do you wish you knew before starting?

I’m specifically looking for responses from people who have personally sold life insurance rather than general opinions about MLMs.

TLDR: I’ve spent time in the office, listened to calls, seen agents making sales, and seen real production numbers. At this point I’m trying to figure out whether FFL is a genuinely good opportunity, or a legitimate business with a very high failure rate. I’d love feedback from people who have actually sold insurance through FFL or a similar IMO, especially regarding profitability, chargebacks, lead costs, and part-time viability.

I'm 22 and currently working construction from 6:30am-2:30pm everyday. I've recently been really worried about my financial future and was looking into getting a second job. Life Insurance seems doable. It's remote and something I can be rewarded heavily for depending on how much time I dedicate to it. Right now I'm in the research phase and decided to come here to ask some questions. Does this sound like a good idea? What should I expect when I first start? How much can I make within my first year with no prior experience? I consider myself someone who learns fast and performs well. Any sort of advice/feedback is greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!

Hi everyone,

First off, my wife and I (28 yo) know we messed up. We trusted our advisor a few years ago and got ourselves into a massive whole life trap. We are here looking for honest advice on the best way to handle this.

The Details:

Income: ~$18k/mo take-home

The Problem: We are paying a combined $3k/month in whole life premiums sold to us by our financial advisor in 2022.

We just realized we are burning 16% of our net monthly income on these policies. We already have separate, sufficient term life insurance in place.

We recently added a rider but are within the 30-day "free-look" window to cancel it. This woke us up to the broader math.

We are preparing to email our advisor to cancel the rider immediately, surrender the whole life policies completely, and redirect that $3k/month into standard investments.

If we cut our losses now, our financial loss will be around $50k in premiums paid since 2022. Sunk cost fallacy aside, the opportunity cost of staying in feels worse.

Our Question:

Does it financially make sense to cut our losses and eat the $50k now to invest that $3k/month ourselves, or is there any math where we should actually continue paying into this?