Does your client have the right type of life insurance?

Attorneys, accountants, life insurance agents, and other financial services professionals constantly are required to provide an opinion as to the efficacy of a policy for the particular client and to assist in selecting between competing policies. 

When it comes to evaluating life insurance products, above all, the goal always should be to match the product to the problem.

Four factors in particular can help pinpoint what type of life insurance coverage is most appropriate for a given client:

1. 1. The client’s personal preferences, prejudices, and priorities;
   2. The amount of insurance needed;
   3. The client’s ability and willingness to pay a given level of premiums (cash flow considerations); and
   4. Tolding period probabilities (duration of need considerations).

Here’s a closer look at each of these subjects, from the 6th Edition of ”The Tools & Techniques of Life Insurance Planning” (2015, The National Underwriter Company).

Preferences, prejudices and priorities

The selection of a particular type of life insurance policy or policy mix is to a great extent a very personal decision. Just as some individuals prefer, by psychological nature, to lease an automobile or rent an apartment, others prefer to make their purchases with a minimum down payment and stretch out the length of payments as long as possible, while others prefer to make a relatively large down payment and to pay off the loan or mortgage as quickly as possible. Too many clients there is emotional comfort in “owning,” while others feel that owning ties them down and restricts their freedom of choice and flexibility.

Similar comparisons can be made to life insurance policies. Some clients do not want to “pay, pay, pay…and have nothing to show for it at the end of the term,” while others have been told all their lives to “buy term and invest the difference.” In reality, both positions are correct, and not correct. Even the advice of knowledgeable planners has been tainted by their own prejudices. For most clients, the right course of action usually lies where they are most comfortable—because peace of mind is really the impetus for the purchase of life insurance in the first place.

See also:

5 alternatives to Indexed Universal Life insurance

Whole life vs. term: There’s a clear winner here

(Photo: iStock)

Another useful analogy is the purchase of technology tools by professionals. Some tend to purchase the highest quality, most expensive tools that they can afford so that the tools will serve them well over a lifetime (or at least the reasonably expected lifetime of the tools). They do not tend to purchase lower priced, lower quality tools that will have to be replaced by other tools because they wear out, were inadequate to begin with, or break. But others cannot afford to (or will choose not to) purchase top quality tools. They may have other priorities. They may prefer to have the money to invest or to spend on current consumption. They may end up spending more over the length of their careers on tools and may be inconvenienced in the process of continually replacing the original tools.

Although this “preference/priority”-based decision making is not necessarily the most logical, it is a strong and important process that requires the planner to take into consideration the client’s psychological makeup. The rules of thumb here are as follows:

1. 1. Buy term if the client has a high risk-taking propensity.
   2. Buy term if the client has a “lease rather than own” preference.
   3. Buy some type of whole life insurance if the client has an “own rather than loan” type personality.
   4. Buy some type of whole life insurance if the client wants something to show for his money at any given point. The more important it is for the client to have cash values and dividends at any given point, the more whole life type coverage is indicated.
   5. Buy a mix of term and whole life if the client is—like most clients—not solidly on one end of the spectrum or the other.

What’s the amount of insurance needed?

When the amount of insurance needed is so great (as it often is for families with young children or for couples with high living standards relative to their incomes) that only term insurance or a term/whole life combination is feasible, the need for death protection should be given first priority. This results in simple rules of thumb:

1. 1. Buy term insurance when there is no way to satisfy the death need without it. The term insurance can be converted to another form of protection at a later date, if and when appropriate.
   2. Buy a combination of term and permanent insurance when the client can cover the entire death need and is able and willing to allocate additional dollars to appropriate permanent coverage.

Keep in mind, however, that buying term insurance means paying ever-increasing premiums for a constant amount of coverage. People with little prospect of increasing their income sufficiently to pay ever-increasing term premiums face a difficult trade-off. They can buy term insurance for the amount of coverage they think they currently need, and face the prospect of being unable to afford that coverage in the future. Or they can purchase as much permanent insurance (e.g., level-premium whole life) as they can afford and be relatively assured that they can maintain the coverage for the long term, but have less coverage than they think they need.