Comments on: New Life Insurance Investment Advisor: Achieving Financial Security for You and your Family Through Today’s Insurance Products

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:15:53 +0000

This book is a must own for any financial services professional as well as any investor. Ben Baldwin takes the new investor through the basics of financial planning, teaches about mutual funds, life insurance, annuities in an easy to understand way pointing out the pros and cons of each product. Originally one of the fiercest detractors of variable products, Ben Baldwin was open minded enough to take a serious look and study variable products. His volte-face is as impressive as his credentials. To those who keep claiming that variable products are expensive, fee ridden products, maybe you should really open your mind and study these products. You might even change your mind and realize maybe is knows something you don’t, that VUL might actually be the swiss army knife of financial planning.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:32:52 +0000

This book is a must read, for anyone attempting to accumulate significant amounts of wealth and ample case reserves for a secure retirement. Once you grasp the full understanding of how best to pay for Life Insurance, the hardest part may be finding a qualified Financial Advisor to assist you over the long run. This is a long term arrangement, one that requires a long term Advisor, to assist you in doing what most people are not capable of doing….accumulating wealth. The book will also be a guide to refer back to, from time to time.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: R. Densmore

R. Densmore — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:09:21 +0000

Variable life is the next best thing to 401(k). This book explains why 85% of the Fortune 500 companies use this tax strategy to fund supplemental retirement plans for top executives. Clearly, one who believes buying term and investing the difference is smart has not built much of a pile of money, so doesn’t understand what 1099 income does to their taxes. This book affirms my own actions. While I’d like to avoid the commissions, it is a worthy tradeoff – the avoidance of confiscatory taxes on the growth and, later, on the income I will intentionally generate for retirement. My program functions like a tax free mutual fund, my agent is a CFP, and the overall package was well worth the few thousand of commission I paid. Compared to the unearned commission the IRS charges, this is a bargain for anyone with the intellect and logic to overcome age old biases and heresay. Thanks to this book, I like what I own even better now.
Rating: 4 / 5

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:30:15 +0000

VUL is a wonderful product, which if used correctly, can be a great tool for lowering taxes in retirement. I’m not sure what the person below was referring to when he says to buy level term and invest the difference in a better performing mutual fund. The insurance in the VUL is term, which can even be a decreasing term if the insured so pleases. (Why not buy the term insurance with tax-free income in the VUL policy!)I’ve never heard of a level term that lasts more than thirty years and the investment subaccounts have the same managers and investments as mutual funds! The biases against this tool come from people who have not accumulated much money, since they are unaware of the tax potholes people face from their qualified plans. Other biases come from people who write for WSJ or other media who probably failed as financial professionals. I understand the desire to hate insurance, but people need to ask themselves: between taxes and insurance, (since you have to pay for one or the other)why not pay for the one that is clearly cheaper over the long haul—insurance.
Rating: 5 / 5

By: M. Keen

M. Keen — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:32:55 +0000

I’m an avid reader and have ordered dozens of books through Amazon, but this is the first one I’ve taken the time to write a review for, because I believe this book can help others in the same situation I was.

I ordered this book when I was applying for Life Insurance, based on the investment strategy in Douglas Andrew’s book, “Missed Fortune 101″. I wanted to review another reference on life insurance to learn more about it, and to corroborate Andrews’ strategy. This is the only other book I could find that discussed LI from a financial investment perspective. This is a very comprehensive book about LI. It’s a large book, and so far I’ve only read portions, skipping around to the areas I needed to understand the type of policy I was applying for, and to justify in my mind that indeed it was the right one for me (I’m working with a financial planner who recommended a particular plan, and has largely focused his practice on Doug Andrews’ strategy). This book gave me a lot of the information I needed to ask my agent questions about my policy. In fact, he was impressed with my questions and wanted the name of this book.

This is a very easy to read book, with plenty of *understandable* tables as examples. I have also found it to be very objective, discussing the tradeoffs of the different types of policies, and discussing in what personal situations a particular policy might be best. The intent of this book is clearly educational – there’s no hidden agenda or bias that I can detect. The author has CFP, CLU, and CHFC credentials.

Finally, and very importantly, this author stresses the need to manage your life insurance policy over time, as you would any other investment – especially the flexible aspects of policies, and including, where necessary, 1035 transfers to a more appropriate policy.
Rating: 5 / 5