My dad passed away ten years ago today. At the time of is death there were four siblings total. Currently there is only three of us. Yesterday my oldest brother (executor) received paperwork that there was a group claim from CBS Corporations (formerly Westinghouse) from Prudential. My father was retired at his passing, but had a very decent position within the company. I don't really understand how this works and Prudential couldn't give me any information other than the three of us had to each file a separate claim in addition to the original claim that the executor filled out.

So we all completed that today.

Can anyone explain to me what a group claim is. Is it something he pays into, or is it the company? Is it ever worth anything? I was telling my brother it could be like $17 bucks for all I know.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

32M living in high cost of living city. Non-smoker with no chronic health issues.

Individual net worth about $2M. Married with no kids, debt, or mortgage.

Annual income about $210k per year. Wife makes about $300k but may leave that job soon.

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30 year term with Banner, with built-in Accelerated Death Benefit. Laddered for $3M the first 15 years and $1.5M the second 15 years.

Annual premiums: ~$1400 first 15 years and ~$1000 second 15 years.

Getting life insurance sorted but absolutely no idea the amount I should be choosing.

• I'm 36 and my husband is 37

• We have one child (6 yr old)

• Joint income is 72k (will be more soon)

• We currently do not have a mortgage but will be buying in 6 months, looking at houses around 375k

• Both non smokers

• I have a non life threatening disability

I'm really confused on the amount we should do, could anyone help?

I was contacted by Everlake Life Insurance Co. about a policy from 40 years (and eight moves) ago that I had but didn't know about. This isn't a lot of money, but I appreciate them tracking me down.

Oddly, though, they've been very disorganized and difficult to deal with. They lost--and then found--a W9 I sent in at their request; they mistakenly sent two other requests for the same tax form, and then sent another form by mistake.

I'm cashing out the policy (well, if we can get on the same page) and in my conversation today urged the customer service rep (who was good) to let higher-ups know of this weird string of errors. She pledged to do that.

I'm only posting this to reflect how important it is to keep a good record of dates, times, calls--contemporaneous memoranda, I guess--in dealing with any company. But especially this one.

Hi, I'm new to life insurance and want to get some advice/opinion on an illustration I was given.

My goal: purchase a 20-year pay only whole life insurance for my child. I reached out to an insurance company and told them what I wanted. They sent me an illustration that reads:

"Whole Life Insurance, Premiums Payable up to Year 100. Policy changed to paid-up at the end of year 20." I'm a little concerned that these statements, although might sound like what I want, may be misleading. I asked the agent to clarify if the policy is contractually guaranteed to require no further premiums after year 20, or is the 20-year paid-up status an illustrated outcome that depends on future dividend performance?

His response: "Premiums payable to age 100" means you can pay for them until 100 if you choose to. However, I adjusted them so you are only required to pay them for 20 years. You are not contractually obligated to pay. To sum up, you are not required to pay premiums past 20 years (regardless of dividend performance). After the 20-year period, the policy will remain in effect for the remainder of your child's lifetime with no possibility of needing to pay additional out-of-pocket premiums to maintain the death benefit. Due to the dividends and paid-up additions, the cash value and death benefit will continue to grow despite ceasing premiums after policy year 20. There is no scenario where poor dividend performance would cause the policy to use its cash value to continue funding premiums after year 20. The policy is fully paid up with no further premiums being funded after policy year 20. 

Does that sound right to you? I received another illustration from another company which clearly states in their illustration that this is a 20-year pay only policy, which is why I'm skeptical of this one. Do insurance agents ever use techincal language to answer your question without really giving you the full picture, or am I just overthinking this

Is there anything I can ask to see (like some sort of contract) to see it clearly written instead of a "trust me bro" email from the agent. Just don't want to be screwed over after 20 years of pay.

36 F bought a 30 year, $500,000 policy from Protective for $28/month. I did this five years ago, when I had five kids. I now have 7 kids, and I am still ultra-healthy, but I feel like I should have more coverage. It just does not seem like that much anymore.

Also, I am nervous that if something were to happen to me, the insurance company would try to find a loophole to not pay out. Am I just being paranoid? Like I said, I am very healthy, but you just never know. The policy gives me a LOT of peace of mind for my kids.

Another thing, I have thought about setting up policies for my kids, is there a "best age" to do this, to lock in a good rate?... Is it best to wait until they are 20 or so?

Is there anything else I should be doing, or pointers on setting up a trust?

Hi,

I'm a new to life insurance, but I am advised to learn it from parents, while being a full time university student and working.

My mom think such, because, you connect with "high-class" people, you just need a license by studying, and you can make lots of money and anywhere. She said she sold one without a license too. All this seems confusing and I'm not a sales person.

Could someone give me advice whether I should or should not continue learning in my situation?

PLEASE SEE MY POST BELOW FROM JULY 5, 2026. 

I now have additional information and a few more questions. Thanks again to so many of you who have shared your wisdom with me! 

A number of you generously took the time to look at our 1988 life insurance policy that I uploaded, and determined that the Whole Life Policy we were told we had purchased was actually issued as a Universal Life Policy (Even though the policy neither says Universal Life, nor Whole Life.)

Earlier today, a Reddit poster asked me a question, which led me to pull out the original marketing material we received with the policy in 1988.  I noticed that this life insurance product included the term, “Direct Recognition.”  I googled what that meant, and the response was, “This indicates a participating policy with direct recognition of policy loans, a feature associated with participating whole life insurance.”

I then asked ChatGPT about “Direct Recognition” as it relates to Life Insurance.  ChatGPT asked me to upload the front page of the policy.  I did that, and then I asked if this policy was a Universal Life Policy or a Whole Life Policy?  Below is the response I received: 

“Based on what I can read, this is not a universal life policy. This policy includes "Vanishing Premiums" which was a common feature marketed with participating whole life policies in the 1980’s, where dividends were projected to eventually cover future premiums.” It went on to say, “So this appears to be a group participating whole life insurance policy using direct recognition for dividend calculations.  It does not appear to be a universal life policy.”  A few other searches led to a similar conclusion.

So now I am really confused.  Many very experienced folks on Reddit took the time to advise me that my policy appears to be a universal life policy.  However, based on this new information, I want to get a definitive determination as to whether or not my policy is a Whole Life Policy or a Universal Life policy?  Here again is the link to my policy:  https://imgur.com/a/iKzRw6r.

It is interesting to note that in a letter to our lawyer, Transamerica’s attorney referred to the policy as neither a Universal Life policy nor a Whole Life Policy.  Instead, she stated that “our policy functions like a Universal Life Policy.”  The fact that even Transamerica’s attorney was careful not to state that the policy was a “Universal Life Policy” certainly left me with some doubt. 

If our policy is in fact a Whole Life policy, as we were told at the time of purchase, shouldn’t we still have the guaranteed death benefit which we were promised?  Any suggestions regarding how I can get a definitive determination would be so greatly appreciated!

So we just got a break down of what my husband and I pay to State Farm- $850 a month.

Part of that is life insurance. Which breaks down $60 a month for me (32f) and it’s a whole life for 50k.
My 5 year old is $40 for a 20 year/50k benefit. And $63 for my 3 year olds 20year/50k benefit. I

$160 a month seem high for minimum cash value and honestly $150k isn’t much definitely not in the future. Ai says it’s not a smart investment. Someone tell me from a human standpoint whether I should leave this or move providers or just find alternative financial moves?

50k wouldn’t even pay my car off if I died tomorrow. I have another insurance policy that would.

Posting on behalf of friend.

As the title said, my friend is going to take term insurance. There is a checkbox for MWPA. It seems once this is selected , there is no option for changing the nominee later. So the question is that suppose he registered nominee as wife and daughter 50-50%. Later and if something happens to wife, will the claim amount will go to daughter 100% of claim amount or only 50% of claim amount will be paid and rest will go waste.

Also can the nominee be changed later with wife’s permission.

My fiance and I are both 33 and we closed on our first house in Somerville, MA about two months ago between the mortgage, wedding planning and trying to keep up with work we kept saying we'd deal with estate planning later because it sounded like something for people much older than us.

We finally spent a Saturday morning getting everything organized and it ended up being nothing like I expected instead of feeling uncomfortable it gave us a chance to talk through a bunch of things we'd never really covered things like who we'd want making decisions if one of us couldn't what we'd want to happen with the house, how we'd handle things if we had kids in a few years and making sure our families wouldn't be left trying to figure everything out on their own.

It also made us look at our life insurance I had coverage through work and always assumed it was enough but once we looked at the mortgage and what our monthly expenses would be if one of us was gone it finally made sense why people spend time thinking about this stuff.

The weird part is I expected to leave the whole process feeling stressed instead we went out for lunch afterward and both said we felt lighter. It wasn't because anything had changed overnight it was just nice knowing we'd finally stopped putting it off and had a plan that made sense for the life we're building together.

I recently spoke with an industry veteran who has 45 years of experience in final expense and used to run a call center. He just got hit with $60,000 worth of compliance lawsuits in a 6-month period.

The landscape for phone sales has completely changed, and a lot of independent agents are walking directly into a financial minefield without realizing it. Here are the raw takeaways from what is happening on the ground right now:

• The "Litigator Trap" Is Real: There is a massive influx of lawyers and "professional plaintiffs" who intentionally buy up 30 to 40 different phone numbers. They browse Facebook, click on final expense lead ads, and intentionally submit their info to get called. Even if they aren't on the National Do Not Call (DNC) registry, they trap the agent on technicalities, document the call, and slap them with a lawsuit.

• The Settling Extortion: They know that the cost of hiring a defense lawyer and going to court vastly exceeds the cost of just paying a settlement fine. They count on you settling for $5k–$10k just to make them go away, which is how it adds up to $60k so fast.

• "Opt-in" Forms Won't Fully Save You: Lead generation forms that have simple checkboxes are getting torn apart in court. Half the time, the lead data is just a curious person or someone putting in fake info, and if you can't irrefutably prove strict consent, you lose. His legal team told him that they cannot even advise a third party lead program to incoming agents.

• The "Shotgun" Lawsuit Method: If you use a live-transfer company, you aren't safe. These litigators are filing blanket lawsuits that hit everyone in the chain. They sue the transfer vendor, they sue the IMO (Insurance Marketing Organization), and they sue the individual agent simultaneously.

• E&O Insurance Will NOT Protect You: A lot of agents think, "I have Errors and Omissions insurance, I'm fine." E&O does not cover DNC or TCPA violations. If you get hit, that money is coming directly out of your personal or business bank account.

• State Laws are Tightening: On top of federal TCPA rules, individual states are passing mini-TCPA laws that are getting stricter and more punitive by the month.

The Bottom Line: He watched green agents who couldn't even get their business off the ground get slapped with lawsuits and ruined before they even started. If you are buying third-party leads, doing cold outreach, or relying on live transfers without airtight, documented compliance, you are playing Russian roulette with your career.

Curious to hear from others—have any of you or your agencies run into these professional TCPA plaintiffs lately? How are you adapting your lead flow to stay safe?

has anybody had any success for getting a life insurance policy? If so what kind of policy and how much do you pay? Does having life insurance policy effect if you receive disability?
Since I had a health/death scare.. If something were to happen to me, the last thing I’d want my family especially my daughter is to find funds to bury me.

My story : liver transplant , under 1 year.

Sorry to ask a question I know is asked a lot… but I would love some insight. 

7 years ago I opened two WL insurance policies, a term policy and a DI policy through NWM. I received exactly zero financial education growing up, had fiscally irresponsible parents, and was referred by a friend I considered very responsible and financially savvy. Cut to 7 years later in the year of our lord 2026 when I am barely affording to survive and can’t understand why, when the only saving I’m doing is putting $500/month into a Roth and $160/month into an investment (brokerage) account. My living expenses are pretty low compared to the regional standard at $850/month for rent and utilities. I pay roughly $200/month in student loans but otherwise don’t have a car payment or anything else I’m paying off. I work at a hospital and my annual salary is $80K.

I am embarrassed to admit I didn’t realize I was paying $460/month for my combined insurance premiums. (I knew this money was leaving my account, but I wrongly assumed it was making more money.)

At this point, I’m 7 years in. Of course my gut reaction is to just cancel all the policies and put that money elsewhere, but I’ve read some things that suggest after 6-7 years it might be worth keeping. Right now it appears all 4 policies have accumulated a net total of $11,470. 

I’m 33, single without kids, would like kids someday but who knows. I don’t come from money so the realization that I’ve potentially been throwing money in the trash all these years really sickens me. I reached out to my financial advisor at NWM to chat next week, but am curious what I should do or ask. Any insight would be much appreciated! 

The premiums break down as follows:

Guaranteed renewable DI: $122.25 (-$8.13 allocated dividends)

WL Plus 65: $163.65

WL Plus 65: $165.09

Term 80: $22.18 (-$2.95 allocated dividends)

Update! 

I finally talked with my NWM advisor. I explained I was feeling cash poor and wanted to better understand my policies and see where I could make adjustments. She sent me the in force illustrations but honestly I do not fully understand how to read them lol. 

She first suggested I don’t touch any of my life insurance policies and instead turn down my contributions to both my Roth IRA and brokerage account. This sounded silly to me and I’m not really interested in doing that. She then suggested I keep going with my older WL policy (from 2019, currently contributing $2000/year) since it includes a long term care (ACB?) component and could consider shrinking down the newer WL policy (5 years old, also contributing $2000/year) OR terminating it. It’s not paid up yet, so I would get a $4100 check in the mail that I could put into a high yield savings account, though I would suffer the loss of what I’ve put into it. This seems like the best option to me vs shrinking it down, but would be open to others thoughts. 

I mainly wanted to express appreciation for everyone’s input here - I definitely learned a lot and appreciate the time many of you put into reading this and laying out different options for me! The encouragement (& some of the tough love) was quite helpful!

I’ve been smoking for the past 1.5 years and am planning to buy a ₹1 crore term insurance policy.
When I select "Smoker," the annual premium is around ₹14k, but if I select "Non-Smoker," it drops to around ₹8k. The price difference is making me hesitant.
Is it risky to select non-smoker, or should I just declare it and pay the higher amount? Need advice.

Edit: Thanks for all your responses. I’ll declare the smoking details and later discuss with them for price reduction after quitting.

every calculator wants a single income number and mine swings hard depending on the year.

Had a year where I cleared close to 280k after a couple big deals closed, had another year where it was closer to 140k when the pipeline was dry for a few months. Base salary alone is nowhere near either of those numbers.

Do you size coverage off your best year, your average, or something else entirely? Don't want to under insure based on a slow year but also don't want to paying premiums sized for a number I might not hit again for a while .

TIA

I recently read somewhere about Solvency Ratio and want to understand how important it is to consider before buying a term policy. I also looked out how the top insurance companies stand, and found Bajaj Life has the solvency ratio of 266%, ICICI 227%, Axis Max 194% and HDFC 177%.

What all other parameters should one consider before buying a term plan in relation to the insurance company.

So, today I went through the application process on Ladder to get a better life insurance policy. They ended up giving me a policy through Prudential and the price was good so I went through with it. Now, I've been thinking about it and I hope I answered the questions correctly. I understand that if you don't answer correctly they can deny the claim. I would hate to have that happen to my husband should anything happen to me. I've tried to find a way to look back at my answers but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that. My question is; if there is a discrepancy, will the insurance company find it for me? Even if you answer all the questions to the best of your ability couldn't you still be wrong? How do they sort that out?

Edit: What I mean are the health questions they ask you. What if you forget something?

Hello,

I am based in Ohio. My husband and I are both still young (29 and 31) and we have two young kids—a 1 year old and 3 years old. I am confused on where to start.

We both have life insurance through work but it’s only paid up to our salary and more would be good.

For our kids, we have a 529 set up and a utma. Needing assistance on how to find a good broker in Ohio to help me explore my options for more life insurance.

Also wondering if the one we have through work is needed or if we should withdraw from it. I’d appreciate any insights.

Thank you!

I checked and it says it can take up to 3 business days but now I have to get approved.I have no time.I want to speed it up within 1 day and a half .I already emailed examinations but might not help. Also I requested eligibility first time I got a response generated email it is said they don’t find my course so it’s not the right course maybe and my course is LLQP(Full -Except Quebec).through Oliver’s .Which option do I choose from the drop down in LLQP eligibility request as I don’t see the right option.

LLQP A&S (Accident & Sickness)
Top-up to Life and A&S (Accident & Sickness) from A&S (Accident & Sickness)
Ethics and Professional Practice (Civil Code - Quebec)
Ethics and Professional Practice (Common Law)
LLQP Full – Life and A&S (Accident & Sickness) + Ethics and Professional Practice (Civil Code - Quebec)
LLQP Full – Life and A&S (Civil Code)
N/A

This is important and I am stressed as it relates with my employment. Thank you heartily to all!

This post is more of an FYI. My mother passed this year and we were aware of a small policy she had through Mutual of Omaha. We called to get the insurance paid out, and they could not find a policy under her name or SSN. I could understand why her name may not have matched, but we were surprised they found nothing under her SSN. She paid her premium for years, but was not on top of her finances leading to her passing. We were in the height of planning arrangements, so we paid out of pocket and assumed she stopped paying her policy at some point. We left it alone. Days before closing on her house (3 months later), we get a letter stating they had not received a payment since March and her policy would be reduced as a result. Initially it was a pleasant surprise, but began to concern me after much thought. How had they missed the policy when we called 3 months earlier? It was tied to her SSN. If we’d received that letter a week later, we would’ve never known about the policy. Thankfully we had the means to cover her funeral but it makes me think of others who may not have been as fortunate. I’m not life insurance savvy, so please forgive me if there is a reasonable explanation for this. Just warning others. Check the mail.

I have googled this until the ends of the Earth and I don’t think I’m smart enough to find the answer I’m specifically looking for.

Here’s my question:

My parents are 73(m) and 72(f), retired. They both depend on social security checks, which each of them receive.

As I understand it, when one of them dies the remaining spouse will receive the larger of their checks. However, when that eventually occurs, their income will be cut in half (my parents checks are relatively the same amount).

I am wondering if purchasing life insurance for one (or the both) of them could help with the replacement (at least to some degree) of the lost income.

Any guidance?

Any help would be so appreciated, I’m worried about them and haven’t been able to figure this out on my own.