Been studying the cryptocurrency space for a while now.
There sure are some crazy offerings out there.
For example, a couple of business doods got together and decided to create a digital token similar to Bitcoin but targeted specifically at the “adult entertainment” industry.
Ah hem.
The digital token now sells for about $0.04 per coin, as of today.
In an interview, one of the founders said:
“The adult entertainment industry quickly came to mind. I think within seconds we thought of Titcoin as sort of the perfect name. Everyone knows what Bitcoin is, and Titcoin has a very similar spelling. It’s really to capitalize on the branding.”
Too funny.
Reminds me of a lot of “me tooers” who try to copy and ape (and then capitalize on) someone else’s success without any intention of making a legitimate name for themselves or coming up with something new and innovative.
This happens in a lot of industries, including the insurance industry.
For example, when Jason Konopik helped develop the first indexed universal life products on the market, suddenly lots of other life insurance companies jumped on the bandwagon.
Eventually, even some mutual life insurance companies (who don’t really belong in that market) had to join in.
For a while, everyone was selling a carbon copy of the first indexed life product.
Companies with no way to hedge the embedded stock options in the policy wanted a piece of the action.
So… they jumped in with their own hacked together version.
Even banks started developing “equity indexed CDs”.
Truly the world has gone crazy.
But it’s actually more than that.
Some of the indexed universal life policies are “rigged” to look good but actually can’t perform worth a shyte. Here’s what I mean:
It’s difficult to properly hedge the guarantees int he policy. It’s technically supposed to be done with bonds and index call options but some insurers cheap out and use equity investments, like mutual funds or stocks and… when an insurer wants to make an indexed life policy look like it will perform better than average, it will offer a really high cap rate and participation rate. It’ll make the illustration “sing”.
The reason they can make projections look so good is because they’ve raised internal costs (which can be measured if you reverse engineer the policy)… they are basically subsidizing a higher interest rate with those extra fees. So, it LOOKS like you’re making more money when you’re actually making less.
Fancy.
Some life insurance actuaries are speaking up… disclosing what carriers are actually earning on these things… how they shift all the risk away from themselves and back to the policyholder and another third party… and so on.
Anywho, we don’t follow the crowd round these parts. Yes, I sell whole life policies but… all my designs are highly customized.
Some provisions in the basic policy contract are the same but… no 2 policies are exactly alike.
Many of them get tweaked throughout the underwriting process until… the perfect policy is born.
The primary goal is to raise the *actual* (as opposed to hypothetical) return on cash value and death benefit by lowering internal costs.
My team and I are constantly looking at the best and brightest life insurers in the marketplace and work with insurers who are offering unique products which can be “opened up” and customized.
Companies who offer simple and straightforward products, have a good company culture, and have a deep commitment to mutuality (policyholder ownership).
If you want to see what a perfect life insurance policy looks like for you… hop on my email list so you can learn how to become a client of mine.