BUSINESS
By JANE BRYANT QUINN and JANE BRYANT QUINN,Washington Post Writers Group | February 20, 1994
NEW YORK -- If you need a retirement investment, should it be a life insurance policy -- even if you don't need the insurance?Cash-value life insurance is being widely sold today as the best way of building up money for the future. It's often called a "private pension plan." The insurer pays interest or dividends on the cash that accumulates in your policy. Those payments build up tax-sheltered.There are, as you might suspect, some risks to this plan that the agent may or may not explain.
NEWS
February 28, 1991
A memorial service for John G. Rupprecht, a retired life insurance manager, will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 250 Greenhill Drive, Hagerstown.Mr. Rupprecht, who was 90, died Monday at a nursing home in Boonsboro.A native of Baltimore, he joined the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in Baltimore in 1917. He worked as an instructor, teaching new insurance agents, before becoming a manager, first at the Martinsburg, W.Va., office and then at the Hagerstown office.
BUSINESS
By JANE BRYANT QUINN and JANE BRYANT QUINN,Washington Post Writers Group | October 25, 1992
New York -- When shopping for a life insurance policy, ask about "living benefits." You may never use them. In fact, it's often imprudent to do so. But having this option may serve a need that you cannot now predict. About 150 insurance companies now provide living benefits to more than 2 million policyholders, according to the American Council of LifeInsurance.With a living (or "accelerated") benefit, you can collect on your life insurance before you die. This isn't a loan against your policy's cash value.
BUSINESS
By JANE BRYANT QUINN and JANE BRYANT QUINN,Washington Post Writers Group | February 13, 1994
NEW YORK -- Life insurance scandals continue to ripple through American pocketbooks. The landscape feels like the Wild West. Too many outlaws, not enough sheriffs.The latest headline-grabber originated at giant Metropolitan Life. MetLife agents based in Tampa, Fla., gulled customers out of some $11 million, by selling them so-called "retirement plans" that were cash-value life-insurance policies in disguise. Buyers thought that their monthly payments were pure investments; in fact, they were life-insurance premiums.
BUSINESS
By JANE BRYANT QUINN and JANE BRYANT QUINN,Washington Post Writers Group | March 6, 1994
NEW YORK -- Life insurance is a free-wheeling business. No other financial institution has so little restraint on its sales practices.The result has been persistent abuse. For example, watchdogs have found deceptive pricing on cash-value policies, which combine death protection with an investment account. Customers are being widely misled as to what their cash values really earn.There are also misleading sales presentations; what you thought was a retirement plan may turn out to be an insurance policy.
BUSINESS
By JANE BRYANT QUINN and JANE BRYANT QUINN,Washington Post Writers Group | April 12, 1992
New York -- How much life insurance do you need? This question has as many answers as the number of people trying to sell you a policy.Many life insurance agents and financial planners use computerized formulas that supposedly take your individual circumstances into account. The results look beautifully exact. But these formulas actually produce widely different proposals for the same family, depending on the assumptions each company makes.I once ran a test of four of these programs, using a hypothetical family.