By David C Lewis, RFA
Today, life insurance is based around the idea that if you or your spouse dies, that your family will be made whole by replacing your spouse's income. This essential foundation for effective financial planning is often overlooked by many individuals. Most advisers agree that life insurance is necessary.
This is where the agreement between financial professionals ends abruptly, because the next question that arises is: OK, so what kind of life insurance should people buy? The debate between which is better - term or cash value/permanent life insurance - is seemingly a "never ending battle". For many various reasons, many investment houses, stock brokers, mutual fund managers (and the agents who sell their funds), as well as many popular financial "gurus" like Suze Orman, Ric Edleman, and Dave Ramsey presumably (according to their many published books and comments on national radio and television) hate cash value life insurance.
Some financial advisors love cash value insurance, others hate it. Who's right? Who's wrong?
It is shocking that the financial industry is responsible for informing and educating the rest of society about saving and investing. I say shocking because many of the advisors that represent the industry seem to be less concerned with the truth, and more concerned about pitching products.
I say that in light of the fact that on both sides of the debate, neither is doing a very good job of defending their position. Many financial professionals are simply leaving out critical information, or appear to not have a very good grasp of how life insurance really works.
The motivation for lying can be as simple as "money". There is a lot of money floating around in the financial industry, and everyone is competing for it. So, while isn't anything wrong with demonstrating flaws in a financial product, it has to be done objectively. In regards to life insurance, it's not. The attacks are baseless and unsound, and most, if not all, of them are coming from very well known financial professionals. Here are a few of the misconceptions being passed around. Many of them have been repeated so many times, that most people think they are true (they aren't):
Lie Number One:
Cash value life insurance is one of the worst financial products available, and it is definitely the worst type of insurance you can buy to insure your life. The BEST kind of insurance is term insurance because it's cheap and I'm not paying all those extra fees to the evil and greedy insurance company. Besides, don't insurance companies have a record of being reckless, cheating their policyholders, and systematically going out of business.
Fact: Term insurance can be the best type of insurance if all you are considering is the cost. But it is generally the worst type of insurance you can buy to insure your life if you want it to pay off, at least statistically speaking. To understand this, we need to understand how life insurance companies position their product line, and how they make money.
You may have heard of the "law of averages". Well, insurance uses something called the Law of Large Numbers. The larger the group of people you are insuring, the more certain you can be about the number of losses.
For example, if we were to start an insurance company and we only had one customer, we would be taking on an incredible risk because of the nature of life insurance, if that one person dies, we could be out of business very quickly (imagine that one customer giving you $20 for a $250,000 death benefit and then dying the very next day). If, however, we have a million customers, then we can better control the risks we are taking by insuring other people's lives. No one can predict when an individual will die, but if we study a large enough group of people, we can make surprisingly accurate predictions about the number of individuals within that group that will die in any given year. Given that insurance companies have an excellent record of predicting deaths every year, what do all of the statistics say?
Term insurance just doesn't pay, at least not for policy owners. That's because most people live to age 65. Term is expensive long-term. Permanent is a good deal long-term. A few critics will still say "no Dave, term is cheaper - always cheaper". Oh yeah? Watch this:
A male (let's use Jim again), age 25 and in good health with a wife and a child finds that he needs life insurance. Jim is looking for $250,000 in coverage. A typical 30-year term policy - a policy that has level premium payments for 30 years - should cost Jim around $370 per year until he reaches age fifty-five. At that point, the premiums jump up significantly (as all term insurance premiums do) to a tad over $4,700 per year.
By the time he is 65, he will have spent $58,780 on premiums. Keep in mind that the insurance company collected this money but never has to give it back. There's no cash value in term insurance, so the contract only pays when he dies.
What would have happened if he had, say, purchased the same amount of death benefit but used a universal life insurance policy with slightly higher but level annual premiums of $1739 every year to age 100? By his 65th birthday, 'ole Jimbo would have had a total premium outlay of $69,560 ($1739 x 40). But, he would have built up $157,000 of cash value inside the policy.
This money is part of the policy's living benefits, and can be used on a tax-free basis to supplement his retirement or left alone to continue growing. Some life insurance companies also offer an option to spend down up to 100% of the death benefit if you become chronically or terminally ill. If you haven't been able to accumulate a lot of money, this can be very helpful.
Lie number two:
Cash value life insurance is overpriced. You can never tell how much money you are spending on death benefit and how much money is actually going into the cash value of the policy. With term insurance, the costs are clear.
Fact: Whole life insurance carries a stigma in that it is often difficult to determine how much the death benefit is costing you. However, universal life insurance is, in actuality, a term policy with a separate savings account - often called 'the pot of money'. The costs are broken down and the policy is very transparent. Cash value insurance can seem expensive in comparison to term insurance because of the front loaded nature of the contract and the fact that you are forced to save money in a cash account. Sadly, the fees charged by the insurance company are being stressed (I guess they don't know that all financial products carry similar fees).
The fees aren't so bad. I'm serious. Think about how much more difficult it would be if every time you wanted to save or invest money, you had to call a lawyer to draft a contract for you? With respect to life insurance, you have a few choices: you can structure the contract for maximum cash (minimizing the fees) or maximum death benefit (maximizing the fees, but getting more death benefit as a result). All of the expenses associated with permanent life insurance can be made very reasonable if cost is the concern. But why compare insurance to an investment?
Over the long-term, you should get all of your money back that you put into a cash value policy with interest (note: the exception to this is variable life insurance which doesn't guarantee cash values). If the policy is structured properly, you can also be left with a sizable amount that can be drawn on in retirement.
Lie number three:
If you are smart with your money, pay off your mortgage and other loans, and put money into retirement plans you won't need insurance 30 years from now to protect your family.
Fact: You may not need life insurance in 30 years to protect your children from financial ruin when you die. But you may need it to protect your beneficiaries (whoever they may be) from taxes. And, even if you are "smart" with your money, you can't predict the investment returns in a mutual fund (or a stock for that matter) inside of a 401(k) or IRA unless you are very good at researching stocks (hint: 99% of the general population is not). It takes years of practice, and even some of the best stock brokers and financial analysts don't always get it right. The stock market ebbs and flows, and goes through cycles of boom and bust. If your investments take a hit right before you are ready to retire, it doesn't matter how "smart" you were with your money.
Still don't think life insurance is necessary as you get older? Consider that dying isn't free. What does the average funeral cost in your home town? Ask a funeral director how quickly the costs double over any given time period. You will be shocked...shocked I tell you. Also, ask any child whose parents left them a sizable IRA what they paid in taxes and if it was financially disruptive.
The cash value life insurance that your financial guru told you was evil and that you didn't need could have prevented all of this by bypassing probate, providing an income tax free death benefit and, inside of a life insurance trust, completely avoided the estate tax thereby giving your heirs, your favorite charity, or your church 100% of the money you wanted to give them.
There are an alarming number of financial professionals that try to draw a connection between life insurance and investing. It's a huge mistake (even supporters of CV insurance make this mistake). Comparing cash value insurance to investing is like asking "how many walkmans does it take to equal an Ipod?". Even if you find an investment strategy that "beats" the insurance product...so what? Cash value insurance is supposed to provide a death benefit with a savings component, not an investment component (despite the mistakes of variable life).
Before you make any decision on whether to buy term or cash value life insurance, think about what you are trying to accomplish. If you want to invest your money, then learn about investing. Learn how to value corporations and buy stocks, bonds, no load mutual funds. If you want a long-term savings, then find an adviser that can maximize your savings through cash value life insurance.
About the Author:
Author information: Only so much information can be covered in one article. If you want more information about any aspect of
planning your personal finances, please visit David's website.