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Universal Life Memo

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Pool “A” Topic #3
TO:
FROM:
DATE:
SUBJECT:

I’d like to present a new life insurance product called Universal Life (UL) that I heard about from an actuary conference. A UL policy is very different from other traditional products in terms of flexibility and adjustability. This memo will go into details on how Universal Life works and why it will be attractive to customers of the Leading Life Insurance Company. Below are the specific topics that would be covered in the following paragraphs:
• The typical mechanics of a UL policy
• Different patterns of death benefit
• Options of premium payments
• Advantages of a UL policy
A typical mechanics of a UL policy is demonstrated as follows: a policy owner starts the contract by paying a flexible premium, …show more content…

Because of this flexibility, the policyowners can modify their policy to meet the needs of their family. For example, the death benefit can be altered at the birth of child. Similarly, premium payments may increase or decrease as their financial circumstances dictated. They may want to withdraw money from the policy if they want to purchase a house or a vehicle. Moreover, they are allowed to cease their premium payments for a while. For instance, they may need money to help defray a child’s educational expenses, provided they’ve made enough reserve to cover the policy charges during that period. A UL policy, unlike other rigid life insurance products, allows changes and gives many choices to suit an individual’s or a family’s life cycle.
Another advantage of a Universal Life policy is its transparency in operations. Policyowners are able to see how their funds are allocated to each payment. For those people who wonder how their money flows in a life insurance product, a UL policy may be the best choice since there is no behind-the-scene operation in it. Additionally, a UL policy has tax advantage that any earnings of an individual that go into a UL policy are tax-free.
As you may realize, the new product, Universal Life, is very different from other traditional life insurance products. I would recommend this new product, as its flexibility may be attractive and novel to our prospective …show more content…

That is, the two indices moved up and down together, but sometimes behaved significantly different from each other. From 1996 to 1999, S&P 500 and NASDAQ increased in the same pattern. However, from 1999 to 2000, NASDAQ exceeded S&P 500 and reached the highest peak in its history, more than twice as many as the S&P 500 index. Since then, the NASDAQ plummeted back quickly and finally stopped falling in 2002 where NASDAQ and the S&P 500 started to follow a similar pattern again. The reason why NASDAQ behaved significantly different from the S&P 500 was that NASDAQ focused on technology companies that crashed after the Internet boom, whereas the S&P 500 took care of major stocks from all industries and sectors and represented a more comprehensive performance of the market. From 2002 to 2009, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ increased and decreased at almost the same rate. They both went to the top in 2007 and fell back down in 2009 to where they were a decade ago. It is not hard to explain why a technology index would fall when the housing bubble burst. As the whole economics in the United States was in a crisis, investors did not trust the stock market at the point and refused to purchase stocks from any industry sectors. As a result, the financial crisis had a huge influence on all the market indices including NASDAQ. Since 2009, both indices began to recover, but not in the same speed any more. NASDAQ was moving in a faster pace,

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