Bill Boersma: On Life Insurance

Last September, I wrote a response piece to a New York Times article titled “Skyrocketing Premiums.” I was taking issue with some aspects of the article, which was interesting and made some valid points, but wasn’t entirely accurate. As expected, I got some interesting responses.

They came in two flavors:

1 Though I was somewhat blaming carriers for some of the problems with underperforming and collapsing life insurance policies, I was also deflecting blame directed at carriers, which was unwarranted. In response, I received fervent notes about how wrong I was. This response further proved much of the ignorance in the market regarding how life insurance actually works.

2 The other response came from some agents who specialize in whole life (WL) policies, as opposed to universal life, variable life and indexed products. I often hear from this constituency that their products don’t have the problem of rising premiums because WL premiums are guaranteed. I feel sad for these agents for they’re either appallingly ignorant regarding the polices they sell or they very well know better but purposefully keep up the façade for sales and marketing purposes.

Here’s my disclaimer… WL isn’t bad. Not all WL works the same way. I don’t have anything against it. It can be a good tool when understood, properly implemented and well managed. I even own some. There! I’m not trying to dis WL. What I am going to do is tell the truth. For full post, click here…

Details of a Life Insurance Fraud Case

Some success stories are more fun to share than others. This is one of them. Sometimes this work is so fun that I (almost) feel guilty getting paid for it.

I want to start with the premise that there is a difference between idiots and criminals. Some-times the end results don’t differ but the path taken varies widely. I deal with the results of a lot of “professionals” who don’t know what they are doing but, fortunately, I don’t deal with a lot of criminals. However, they exist.

Here’s my story. As a result of a piece I wrote, an accountant who works for Best Toronto accounting firm and called me asking for advice. He was trying to accomplish something for his client and it was within my ex-pertise so we agreed on a modest engagement and moved forward. For full post, click here…