I would urge anyone who intends to read this write up to first read all of the rest of the Whole Life “How it Works” write-ups with the exception of the “infinite banking” write-up which pertains to a unique and ill-conceived WL sales approach. This is one of two final write-up in that series discussing obstacles pertaining to attempts to compare WL products.
STANDARD INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS
Whole Life (WL) is the most complex product ever developed by the life insurance industry. Complex in the sense it cannot be broken down into its parts. It is a bundled product.
What complicates matters with WL is the fact it is a bundled product. One where all the moving parts are obscured. No individual income or expense information is ever made available to those who sell it, or those who buy it. Only a few company executives and actuaries have access to this information.
Those who favor selling WL often base their understanding on a handful of half-truths and misunderstandings shared with them as fact by other under informed or misinformed (albeit well intentioned) mentors or peers. A bold statement perhaps, but sadly one that all too often has proven to be true.
Only when a properly educated individual who really has a grasp as to how WL works asks detailed questions of the ill-informed (the answers to which they already know) does the validity of the above statement become painfully clear. Those who understand how WL works are endlessly amused (or saddened) when witnessing the floundering efforts of those who do not attempting to explain it. Since they usually are answering the questions of potential clients who are even less informed the resulting scenario is akin to the time honored “blind leading the blind” result.
Sadly, the client is in no position to evaluate the accuracy of the answers they receive. This gives the under or ill-informed sales associate a wide degree of latitude resulting in obscure or over simplified replies. The client is all too often left to assume they are just too under informed or “insurance ignorant” to understand the answer they’ve been given. Most are also too nice to assume the often professionally attired and earnest person giving them an answer they can’t understand is just as clueless as they are.
Offsetting this lack of knowledge, or perhaps because of it, WL is often sold with an almost evangelical fervor. Assertions surrounding its guarantees often make the product sound as if it embodies all that is good and holy. A biblical level of enthusiasm often prevails among those devoted to the sale of WL. Ignorance can be a very powerful thing.
Unfortunately, even those with the best of intentions and deeply held beliefs can end up making blatant misrepresentations that can be every bit as damaging as the falsehoods shared by those with ill intent. Or even worse considering the level of sincerity typical of the WL devotees who share misinformation. Sincerity goes a long way in selling. People can sense it and they like it. It breeds trust.
The WL product itself is neither good nor bad. It’s just a design developed before the advent of computers which are needed to track the myriad of assumptions and details involved in the WL products structure. Imagine the challenge of attempting to do so with a manual hand based calculation and posting system when there are hundreds of thousands of in force WL policies outstanding. Only with the advent of computers did it become possible to create an alternative policy design (universal life) that allows for tracking and reporting each and every income and expense factor on an individualized policy owner basis. Prior to that it was simply impossible to do so. Hence the WL design.
The decade’s old design of WL was actually miraculous. It allowed for reporting cash values accumulating within a policy and death benefits covering tens of thousands of policy holders. Its “unallocated” design was the key. This avoided the need to breakdown and assign general account assets, earnings and expenses to individual policies. Said differently, the total of the cash values of all of a company’s inforce WL policies does not equal the balance in the general account. While clearly in some way they are related there is no direct relationship. If that makes any sense.
With WL all of these factors are “bundled” together and less formally allocated based on formulas embedded in the WL products design. This collection of interrelated formulas is often referred to as the “master” WL formula. It (the master formula) differs for every series of individual WL product ever sold by every company selling them.
As with any product design WL has its plusses and minuses. What makes WL good or bad at any given point time is very often a function of what is, or has transpired in the real world economy since its sale. Certain economic realities (like high interest rates) favor WL while others do not.
So, at any given time and depending solely on economic and assorted other realities, WL may or may not be the best product for any given person. Which also depends on the intended use of the product, the actual life span of the insured party and the focus of any given purchasers goals or needs.
As noted earlier it does not require ill intent to misrepresent a products features or benefits. Ignorance works just as well. Perhaps even better. Most of those who sell WL have nothing but the best of intent. It’s their lack of actual knowledge that creates problems. They tout the WL product as rift with guarantees that work to eliminate all of the elements of risk. Which sadly just isn’t so.
Economic trends, in particular those pertaining to interest rates, have a tremendous impact on WL products. The reason being, WL is an interest sensitive product. Whatever is and has happened since a WL policy was issued with interest rates has a tremendous impact on the products ability to deliver on illustrated dividend fueled cash values and its death benefit.
Regulations also have a tremendous impact on the value a WL product can deliver. Among a great many other things regulations prohibit investing general account funds in equities (stocks). They allow only a modest single digit percentage level of stock ownership which usually relates only to stock owned by the general account in subsidiaries of the company selling the WL product. Regulations also require reserves be set up for different asset classes. A fact that drives the company’s investment behavior since the establishing of reserves creates reportable expenses impacting reported profits and capital levels.
The reality of interest rates today could not possibly be more different than the reality of interest rates that existed decades ago in the heyday of WL product sales. In fact, the realities of today are literally 180 degrees the opposite of what existed then.
Which brings us to the topic at hand.
One way a product can be understood is to compare it to other products of its type.
This borders on impossible on many levels with WL. One of the main reasons being with WL most of the details, formulas and assumptions that make up any given WL product are never disclosed. Therefore they can’t be analyzed and compared.
As a result it’s virtually impossible to compare one WL product to another in any conventional sense. The materials needed to do so simply aren’t accessible at the time of purchase. And, the subsequent actual results are difficult to obtain for the many variations of WL sold by different companies in any given time period. Making it challenging to say the least to make subsequent future comparisons.
That said, this isn’t necessarily true in every respect relative to WL’s guaranteed elements. The reason being the guaranteed minimum earnings rate and the table of guaranteed maximum mortality rates per $1,000 of death benefit built into the guaranteed cash value calculations are spelled out in the life insurance contract.
Beyond that the “formula” that determines how much of previously paid premiums will be shifted into guaranteed cash surrender values in any given year is not published or known to the public or those who sell it. This is important because to a large degree the increases in cash surrender values between years 3 and 20 are driven primarily by the releasing previously restricted prior premium payments into the policies cash surrender value. Which is a function of the surrender factors built into the master WL formula that drives all guaranteed and dividend driven illustrated cash values.
This “releasing of prior premiums” into policy surrender values gives the impression during these years that policy cash values are growing at a high rate. This is often incorrectly interpreted to relate to general account investment performance which during the first decade or two of a WL policy actually has little to do with illustrated accumulation values. Meaning most of the growth in those years has absolutely nothing to do with the “dividend scale” as announced by the respective WL company.
The fact is the majority of the growth occurring in these first two decades of a WL policy is fueled by two factors. The level of premium payments being made and the release of prior premium payments into the guaranteed surrender value of the policy. Again, solely a function of the surrender factors built into the original master formula that dictates all WL policy values.
It is this master formula that determines the progressive and accumulating guaranteed cash surrender value totals. The more in premium charged per dollar of death benefit the higher that value is likely to be. The faster the surrender factors in the master formula reduce and reach zero, the greater the values illustrated. It’s that simple. At least for the first decade or two.
Somewhere between 20 and 30 years (it varies by company) after issue the surrender factors built into the master formula finally reach zero. Which means all prior premiums paid and the earnings thereon, are included in the illustrated cash surrender values. Only then can the subsequent growth in policy cash surrender values be attributed solely to currently credited dividends made possible by general account earnings.
Generally speaking, and aside from premium level differences, after 20 or so years it is the illustration of future assumed dividends to be credited into the policy that makes one WL product perform better, or better said illustrate better, than another. What this means is any company willing to skew its assumptions in favor higher future general account earnings levels and lower future expense levels will outperform (out illustrate) any other company electing to use more conservative assumptions. Assumptions which in either case are never disclosed and impossible to discern.
To make any sense of this discussion the reader really needs to have first read the write ups on WL policy “design basics”, “guarantees” and “surrender charges”. Even then it can be challenging to follow the logic being provided here. But that’s the nature of WL.
The bottom line is, while it would be ideal if we could see the original assumptions built into the sales illustration tied to the master formula for any given WL product, the bottom line is we can’t. We are basically blind as to the facts. All we see is illustrated values growing year after year. These values could be compared to the symptoms a sick patient exhibits from which a doctor attempts to divine the ailment causing the patients symptoms absent any other facts to go on.
So the question remains, with this near total lack of transparency, how can two or more companies WL products be compared to determine which one might represent the better value? And, if we can’t actually do this at the time of issue, is there a point in time where can we?
PER PREMIUM DOLLAR BASED COMPARISIONS
The starting point for any comparison at the time of purchase would be obtaining multiple illustrations for a given death benefit face amount for the same age insured. This would allow for the comparison of the premium amounts each company required to put that death benefit in force.
Which truth be told really doesn’t tell us much. It’s simply one perspective among many people use to compare one WL product to another.
The premium level charged just leads us to other elements of the product that would then also need to be compared. For instance, does the higher premium result in a higher general account earnings rate and higher future credited dividends and cash values (which it should) in later years. If higher premiums drive higher cash values perhaps they are worth paying, versus lower premiums that fail to deliver much in terms of future dividend crediting. But what if the lower premium level actually produces a higher “per dollar of premium paid” dividend crediting rate driven growth in cash values than the higher amount.
Perhaps that means the lower premium product offers a better value relative to a “per dollar” of cash value growth each premium dollar generates. Which, of course, totally ignores the death benefit levels being offered in each respective WL policy “per dollar” of premium paid, which also merits consideration.
Determining the “per dollar” value generated within a WL product requires the calculation of the internal rates of return (IRR) applicable to both illustrated future cash surrender values and death benefit amounts. Which means we need multiple illustrations from a number of companies so we can make comparisons.
So these comparisons, as a starting point, might revolve around the premium amount required by any given company to put in force a certain amount of WL death benefit for a specified age insured. The basis for the comparison would be a function of the desired death benefit amount. Conversely, if the premium amount to be paid is the constant, then one would obtain illustrations from multiple companies for that premium level. The death benefit illustrated would be a function of the specified premium amount.
Either approach to running WL illustrations is possible. The software that produces illustrations is designed to function either way.
The above comments ignore the fact the cash value growth element of a WL policy is critical because most people don’t buy WL just for its death benefit. If all most people were concerned with was the death benefit a dollar of premium would create then making comparisons would actually be easy.
But that is not the case. The cash values with WL are actually “the tail that wags the dog”. The “dog” in this case being the WL death benefit.
Those who purchase WL policies often do so, as opposed to term life products, because they are interested in the future illustrated total cash value accumulations the premiums they pay will generate. They are also interested in knowing how much of that accumulated value they can anticipate being able to remove from the policy during retirement to help meet their future spending needs. Most people assume they will live to a ripe old age. Very few people are inclined to view themselves as dying young.
So obtaining the most dollars out later versus the premiums that must be paid to put in force a WL product represents the basis upon which many WL proposals are run. Hence the need for a “per dollar of premiums paid” approach to determining relative value of any given WL product when one is being compared to another.
PREMIUM BASED CONFUSION
The fact is every whole life company, and even WL products within a given company, require a different premium amount “per thousand dollar of death benefit”. So, while comparing the premium required to buy a given amount of WL death benefit is one way to compare WL policies, as noted above, the real issue is comparing the cash values generated per dollar of premium paid. Adding to the confusion is the fact dividend driven cash value growth can also impact the level of growth in the non-guaranteed total death benefit illustrated as payable at certain points in the future.
Since even a cursory review will find WL premiums between companies vary widely there is really only one way to make “apple to apple” comparisons. As also noted earlier, that involves calculating the IRR needed to generate the illustrated future cash value totals as of certain future points in time based on the annual premiums paid to date. The same calculations can also be done relative to the total death benefit amounts (and need to be for a balanced comparison effort).
These IRR calculations allow for a determination of the relative value generated within any given WL product as a function of the premiums paid. This methodology reflects the range of resulting IRR’s between different WL products. All else being equal, the best IRR represents the best value “per premium dollar paid”.
And the range of IRR’s can be and often is rather large.
REAL WORLD COMPLICATIONS
The above IRR based approach to analyzing relative WL policy values as a function of premiums paid provides a method for comparison. However, it can be very difficult for the typical life insurance agent to accomplish this type of comparison between companies in the real world.
The reason being WL products are typically sold by career companies; meaning companies with a captive sales force. Generally speaking, these companies don’t broker their WL products. If they did they’d be creating competition for their own sales force, which its members would aggressively resist.
While this situation was more the case in decades past it is still true to a large degree today with WL oriented companies today. The fact is the life insurance industry is in the midst of an ongoing demise of “company” supported “captive” sales distribution systems.
The resulting gap is being filled by a growing number of non-company affiliated “marketing organizations” representing an evolution from what once would have been referred to as outside brokerage operations. While these marketing organizations go by a number of names or acronyms (FMO, CMO, etc.) the gist of the situation is they contract with independent sales associates and make a range of company’s products available to them.
Still, in order to join one of these organizations and gain access to multiple company illustrations a sales associates typically must have a substantial proven life insurance sales history. A great many life insurance sales associates can’t meet the required production minimums. Meaning most life insurance agents cannot access multiple WL product illustrations in order to make comparisons.
Only the top tier of financial sales associates specializing in life products have access to the best of these organizations. The odds of the average individual interested in buying life insurance encountering one of these top tier sales professionals is slim. They typically work by referrals from existing clients to other potential clients. They focus their sales efforts on large profitable companies and individuals with either a high level of income or net worth.
The bottom line is few if any agents can obtain multiple current WL illustrations to facilitate a comparison of the values being illustrated by various companies. They can’t just run out and get appointed with a dozen or more WL companies so they can compare their products. It’s even worse for sales associates new to the life insurance or financial sales business. With no history of success track record they have zero chance of gaining access to them.
Relative to sales associates who can qualify to join these organizations the bad news is most of these firms will only make one or two WL products available. The market for WL has been dismal for decades and the demand for WL products is at an all-time low. As a result few successful life insurance sales associates are interested in accessing WL products.
However, the good news is from time to time those organizations will distribute summaries containing assorted IRR calculations comparing multiple currently available WL products or WL products sold in decades past. Still, with the interest in WL being minimal it isn’t easy to find organizations that make the effort to obtain this type of information. Even if one does find one, gaining access to all their resources is not a given for all but the top tier of sales associates they support.
All of this means the typical WL salesperson is unable to determine how competitive the WL product they have available to sell is versus the competition. They are usually mid-level to low level producers working for a career oriented company. They are left to rely on the representations made by that company and or any studies completed by the company employing them (whose WL products they are limited to selling).
It is fair to say when it comes to “internal” company competitor comparisons the norm is to leave out any competing products that illustrate better than the product of the company that prepared the comparison. They are trying to get their sales associates interested in selling their WL product. They are not in the business of gratuitously educating their sales force how their products compare to perhaps better versions of WL on the market.
Sad perhaps, but true.
Those working in executive positions at these companies view this as a sin of omission for which they make no apology. They exist to facilitate the products the company they work for sells. Products that must be sold to support the companies overhead, including their often bloated salaries, allowing them to remain employed. These companies are not in the business of alerting their sales forces as to which competitors have an advantage over them. If they did their best sales associates might be inclined to leave and join that competitor.
That’s just the way it is.
ADDED COMPARISON COMPLICATIONS
Adding to the complexity of the comparison task is the fact some WL products are designed to maximize death benefits, while others are designed to maximize cash values and yet others are designed to maximize guaranteed values while others attempt to provide a balance all these attributes.
Those that attempt to balance the benefits illustrated in their WL proposals do so based on the thought a balance of the possible benefits is in the best interest of the buyer. After all any given buyer may live a long life or die young. There’s no way to tell. So biasing values in one direction or another will definitely backfire on some of those who buy the product.
There are two possible extremes in WL product design.
One approach is to use a design that minimizes the premium required to purchase the desired amount of death benefit. The consequence of this approach involves sacrificing cash value accumulations. The other extreme is to maximize cash value build up by minimizing the death benefit. This is accomplished by illustrating the lowest level of death benefit per dollar of premium paid to the extent legally possible under the IRS rules. The resulting lower cost of paying death benefits allows for higher levels of cash value growth.
A WL product designed to have a very low premium per dollar of death benefit will appear to be “cheap” compared to a WL product designed to maximize cash value growth. A company with that focus will advertise they have one of the lowest WL premiums in the industry. By doing so they are implying they are underpricing the competition and delivering a great death benefit value by doing so. Of course they fail to mention the fact the cash value buildup in their product is abysmally low per dollar of premium paid.
A WL product designed to maximize cash value growth does so by charging a higher premium level per dollar of death benefit, thereby allowing for more premium dollars to be invested in their general account producing more earnings (dividends). These companies tout the higher level of dividends they historically have paid versus competitors. However, they fail to mention the lower death benefits their products offer per dollar of premium paid. Both companies might claim to be rated “number one” in the life insurance industry in their respective area of chosen design strength. And both are correct.
Then there are the companies that design their WL products to provide a balance between cash value build up and death benefit amounts. These companies sadly can’t advertise being “number one” in either category.
Aside from the ability to tout “number one” rankings in one area or another, the “balanced” approach between cash value build up and death benefits payable might be the best overall approach to WL policy design. After all no one buying a WL policy knows if they will be among those who live long and benefit most by cash value build up, or those who die young and whose families benefit most by receiving a larger death benefit.
Only time will tell which design approach proves to have been the best for any given WL buyer.
Which begs the question, is there a different, better and workable approach to comparing WL products that doesn’t focus on either of the above extremes. And one which also avoids the need to attempt to decipher the myriad of design and performance assumptions buried in the master formulas that drive WL sales illustrations. An exercise doomed to failure.
The biggest problem with comparing whole life illustrations, if we can obtain them, isn’t the fact they are based on assumptions that are both unknown and perhaps unlikely to occur. The real problem is any company willing to illustrate the most aggressive assumptions on future general account earnings and mortality experience will always “out illustrate” the values shown by other companies with similar design formats that use more conservative assumptions. That doesn’t mean their product is actually better. It just means it will always illustrate better at the time of sale.
To combat falling victim to this marketing strategy of optimistic undisclosed assumptions a totally different comparison approach is needed. Just comparing illustrations doesn’t really do the job.
So a better approach might be to take previously issued contracts of multiple companies and compare the subsequent actual performance to the originally illustrated values. That would identify the companies that have a history of over promising and under delivering. Once that result is known the illustrations of those companies can be taken with a grain of salt and the values shown can be discounted to reflect prior underperformance.
Unfortunately, when it comes to gathering up old illustrations from the past and obtaining actual subsequent values delivered all the same constraints noted above exist relative to gathering this type of data. Which hasn’t always been the case.
A.M. BEST FLITCRAFT COMPEND RESOURCE
If we step back in time about 35 to 40 years we would find a company named AM Best was publishing an annual book called the “Flitcraft Compend”. They had done so for the better part of the last century.
The 1984 Flitcraft Compend was the 97th edition. As with previous additions it contained a gold mine of historical whole life product comparative performance data. This edition compared $100,000 and $250,000 WL face amount policies (considered to be large amounts at the time) issued 10 and 20 years earlier. It recapped results for multiple different issue ages, like 35, 40, 45, etc., and for both sexes and for smoker and non-smoker insureds.
NOTE: It is worth noting that the policies with smaller face amounts had substantially reduced dividend levels versus policies with higher face amounts. This reflected the fact many of the expenses associated with issuing and administering a WL policy are fixed (like medical exams) and therefore they comprise a larger percentage of the premium for small face amount policies than for high face amount policies with larger premiums. As a result the buyer of smaller face amounts does not receive the same economic “deal” as the buyer of larger face amount WL policies.
The last Flitcraft Compend edition was published in either the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. AM Best stopped publishing it after the advent of newer product designs made possible by Section 7702 (added to the IRC in 1984). Included in 7702 was a set of parameters that allowed for the design of a totally new and completely different type of cash value life insurance; subsequently branded “universal life” insurance. This section for tax purposes is the legal definition of what qualifies as life insurance. Products that meet its parameters enjoy several tax benefits (tax free death benefits, tax free cash value growth and non-taxable access to cash values via loans. Those that don’t have no tax advantages.
Subsequent to this new IRS regulation “universal life” policy designs were created and the sales of WL products plummeted. The new policy designs featured absolute clarity regarding assumptions and charges. Even more important they also made possible the use of alternative sources for creating earnings (called separate accounts) which over time evolved to include every imaginable type of mutual fund like alternative available to the public in non-insurance related investment alternatives.
So over time fewer and fewer financial sales associates opted to buy a Flitcraft Compend since WL product sales were no longer the norm. Sales fell to a point it was no longer profitable to publish it. Unfortunate because without that data making performance based comparisons between WL products sold by different companies became infinitely more difficult. The data required to do so became extremely difficult, if not impossible, to locate.
Since then the majority of the few remaining life insurance sales associates devoted to the sale of WL have been largely unable the data needed to compare WL policies based on actual performance versus originally illustrated values. But some still can!
FULL DISCLOSURE REPORTS
The good news is there is an organization that does from time to time still publish information on WL policies issued ten and twenty years ago. They prepare comparison reports similar to those produced by AM Best in decades past. They call these “Full Disclosure Whole Life Reports”.
At some future point an example will be posted on this website in the form of an article titled “Full Disclosure Whole Life Report”. The text of that article provides a link to one series of National Underwriter studies and resulting reports. It is most informative. As noted above, it provides all the data A.M. BEST used to provide in the Flitcraft Compend book. The very data needed to create a series of IRR reports that allow for properly comparing the performance of various WL products sold ten and twenty years before.
The umbrella organization making these reports available appears to be called “Life Health Pro”. Unfortunately, they are not so easy to communicate with or obtain information from.
Apparently they release an occasional summary to certain industry organizations, like National Underwriter. If that organization chooses to publish some or all of the summarized results then it becomes publicly available to those who can track it down.
MORTALITY TABLE COMPARISON COMPLICATIONS
No education on comparing whole life insurance would be complete without at least a brief discussion of mortality tables. These are formally referred to as the “Commissioners Standard and Ordinary” mortality tables; or CSO table for short.
Regulators require the industry to update mortality tables from time to time. The intervals typically are about twenty years apart. After the new tables become available a point in time is announced after which new CSO tables must be utilized in the assumptions built into all life insurance policies being sold in every State. This is a classic example of the States coordinating their regulatory efforts resulting in nationwide conformity regarding mortality charges being built into all life products being sold.
These CSO tables dictate the maximum guaranteed cost per thousand of life coverage built into each WL policies guaranteed assumptions. Said differently, the tables state the guaranteed maximum charge per dollar of death benefit at every possible age that can be built into a life policies guarantees. Which is also the basis for the reserves life companies fund to support said death benefit guarantees.
Longer life expectancies reflected by updated CSO tables find policies sold using the most current CSO table to be a better value than policies sold under prior CSO tables. This is most evident in the pricing of term policies sold today (which use the 2010 CSO table as of this writing) versus policies sold in the 1960’s (and subsequent decades) where previous tables were used. Suffice it to say term insurance rates today are a fraction of what they were five or six decades ago.
It’s important to understand policies issued before a new CSO tables takes effect remain unchanged. Regulators are content to let policies priced on prior mortality tables operate as designed. If they didn’t the expense and revenue recognition accounting of life insurance industry would be turned upside down. Not to mention the fact all “in force” policies previously issued would have to be amended relative to the pricing of its death benefit guarantees. Which simply isn’t practical. So existing policies are left as is.
The CSO table in use as of this writing is the 2001 CSO table. It was mandated to be incorporated into all life policies sold starting in 2010. The two prior tables most often encountered are the 1958 and 1980 CSO tables. Combined, these three CSO tables embody the mortality factors built into the overwhelming majority of policies people own today.
So long as improvements in life expectancies continue the periodic adoption of updated CSO tables will find policies sold currently will always be a better value than policies sold in decades past under prior CSO tables. The practical result, at least as relates to the buyers of WL insurance, is the same premium amount today for any given age will buy more guaranteed death benefit than it would under prior CSO tables.
Which concludes the brief education on how mortality tables impact life insurance pricing.
WRAP UP COMMENTS
This is just a brief discussion of the problems encountered when trying to compare WL products. This includes obscurities in policy design, the lack of assumption disclosures and difficulties in obtaining subsequent actual versus illustrated values.
One thing above all else is true with WL. Aside from performance issues, determining what WL policy design is best for any given buyer of WL is impossible to know in advance.
If the insured party (usually also the owner) lives a long life they would benefit most from access to high cash values in retirement. This favors policies with high premiums per dollar of death benefit, minimum possible death benefits and resulting higher cash values. However, should the insured party die young their survivors would benefit most from a maximum death benefit design; favoring policies with a maximum death benefit per dollar of premium paid (which will always deliver lower resulting cash values).
The trouble, of course, is no one knows which group they will be part of. So, even if the design focus is important it still does not tell us which WL policy type is “best”. Only time will tell. All we can say for sure at the time a WL policy is sold is the answer to the question which design is “best” will be different for any given insured. The many other write ups in this “How it Works” series will shed more light on how WL works and its relative value today versus its value in the past. They include another comparison based write up that digs deeper into previously issued WL policies providing at least some comparative insights supporting many of the comments made in this write up and providing a few more for the reader to digest.
