12 Jun 2015

Posted at 10:21h in The Friday Brief by
We are big fans of Seth Godin at Beacon. As a marketing genius, his focus is centered in that industry, but many of his writings are much more broadly applicable. Not long ago a friend and client asked us to review an indexed life insurance product that his buddy, we'll call him Bob, was near zealous over. Bob was so enamored with the promises of the insurance policy that he was even considering changing careers to sell it. A change of some kind was forced on him because he had just been laid off at 50 from a high-level executive position with a major pharmaceutical firm.

29 May 2015

Posted at 08:29h in The Friday Brief by
Since the Financial Crisis of 2008 and 2009, insurance agents, stock brokers, and bank representatives have been in high gear selling life insurance products to investors clamoring for anything that ensures them against the drubbing they received in the markets. They hear of enticing promises like "Guaranteed Income," "Guaranteed Principal," and "All the market's upside with none of its downside" and they find them hard if not impossible to resist. Are annuities and indexed life products as good as their promoters claim they are?

22 May 2015

Posted at 16:33h in The Friday Brief by

One of the most powerful forces in the universe is that of inertia. It is defined as a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an...