Blog #83: Crystal Clear Alternatives

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Laura Lake Johnson, age 35, is an established landscape painter specializing in seascapes in watercolor and oil.  She has a four-year old daughter, Caroline.

As a self-employed artist, retirement planning is solely Laura’s responsibility, and she is reviewing an illustration for a cash value life insurance policy.  It includes a substantial $1,000,000 death benefit to help care for Caroline should anything happen to Laura.  It also illustrates almost $1,500,000 of total, after tax, retirement cash flow for Laura from her age 65 to her life expectancy of age 85.

As is typically the case, her Basic Illustration is 25 pages long, and although it includes very valuable information, it is an appalling presentation piece.  What can you add to this tedious document that not only brightens the presentation but makes it more easily understood by Laura?

Click here for my suggestion.  It is one of the most straightforward reports from the InsMark Illustration System: Illustration of Values.  By including it as a forerunner to the Basic Illustration, communication to Laura can be significantly improved.

This is the key graphic from Laura’s Illustration of Values:

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Do you want it even simpler?  Click here for the most uncomplicated of all, Life Plan from the InsMark Illustration System.

This is the key graphic from Laura’s Life Plan illustration:

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We refer to our supplemental illustrations as “diet” proposals — plenty of white space with no numbers or text printing edge to edge.

I am not suggesting that you ignore Laura’s 25-page Basic Illustration — only that you disregard it as your primary presentation tool.  It is complex because it serves too many masters: actuarial, legal, compliance, you — and finally, Laura.

Please understand that the purpose of InsMark is to augment the carrier’s Basic Illustration; however, our Supplemental Illustrations are not valid without this footnote (or some carrier-approved variation of it) appearing at the bottom of our numerical data:

This illustration assumes the nonguaranteed values shown continue in all years.  This is not likely, and actual results may be more or less favorable.  This illustration is not valid unless accompanied by a basic illustration from the issuing life insurance company.

While InsMark has plenty of advanced illustration capacity, our Supplemental Illustration formats are what has made us so popular.  It is all we do, and I hope they prove useful to you.

A Little More Complex

For those who prefer comparing alternative investments to the values of the life insurance, adding our popular Various Financial Alternatives produces a compelling, although more complex, presentation.  You can choose from 21 different alternative investments or customize your own.

Click here to view illustrations of Various Financial Alternatives from the InsMark Illustration System.  Included are a Taxable Account (7.50%), a Tax Deferred Account (7.50%), and an Equity Account (6.50% growth; 1.00% dividend).

This is the key graphic from Laura’s Various Financial Alternatives illustration:

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You may find the illustration from Various Financial Alternatives too busy with numbers.  In this event, I recommend Other Investments vs. Your Policy from the InsMark Illustration System which compares the life policy to your selection of just one of the alternative investments.

Click here to view illustrations from Other Investments vs. Your Policy.  I chose “Any Taxable Investment” at 7.50% as the alternative to the life insurance.

Below is the key graphic from Laura’s Other Investments vs. Your Policy illustration.

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Important Note:  Laura’s retirement cash flow in all the examples consists of participating policy loans.  Many of you are rightly concerned about the potential tax bomb associated with life insurance policies with loan activity that can accidentally be triggered by a careless policyowner.  Click here to read Blog #51: Avoiding the Tax Bomb in Life Insurance.

InsMark’s Digital Workbook Files

If you would like some help creating customized versions of the presentations in this Blog for your clients, watch the video below on how to download and use InsMark’s Digital Workbook Files.

New Zip File Downloaders
Watch the video.

Digital Workbook Files For This Blog

Blog83.zip

Download all workbook files for all blogs

Experienced Zip File Downloaders Download the zip file, open it, and double click the Workbook file name to open it in your InsMark System.

Note:  If you are viewing this on a cell phone or tablet, the downloaded Workbook file won’t launch in your InsMark System.  Please forward the Workbook where you can launch it on your PC where your InsMark System(s) are installed.

Licensing

To license the InsMark Illustration System, contact Julie Nayeri at julien@insmark.com or 888-InsMark (467-6275).  Institutional inquiries should be directed to David Grant, Senior Vice President – Sales, at dag@insmark.com or 925-543-0513.

InsMark’s Referral Resources
(Put our Illustration Experts to Work for Your Practice)

We created Referral Resources to deliver a “do-it-for-me” illustration service in a way that makes sense for your practice. You can utilize your choice of insurance company, there is no commission split, and you don’t have to change any current relationships. They are very familiar with running InsMark software.

Please mention my name when you talk to a Referral Resource as they have promised to take special care of my readers. My only request is this: if a Referral Resource helps you get the sale, place at least that case through them; otherwise, you will be taking unfair advantage of their generous offer to InsMark licensees.

Save time and get results with any InsMark illustration.  Contact:

Joint Interviews

If you want or need help from a qualified producer for joint interviews with any InsMark illustration and are willing to share the case, email us at bob@robert-b-ritter-jr.com, and we will provide you with recommendations.

Testimonials:

“The reason I use InsMark products is because they are so good at explaining financial concepts to all three parties: 1) the producer trying to explain the idea; 2) the computer technician trying to illustrate it; 3) the customer trying to understand it.”
Rich Linsday, CLU, AEP, ChFC, InsMark Power Producer®, Top of the Table, International Forum, Pasadena, CA

“InsMark is the Picasso of the financial services world – their marketing savvy never fails to amaze me.”
Doug Peete, Past President, Top of the Table, InsMark Silver Power Producer®, Overland Park, KS

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