1.9K views
12 comments

My relative is selling this product to everyone in our family and she insists that its the best choice for retirement. I'm not a financial expert so I don't know who to trust anymore after reading these reviews! Can someone explain the WFG whole life policy in plain English and tell me if I'm losing?

Location: Richmond, Texas

Do You Have Something To Say ?
Write a review

Comments

chat-icon

Please avoid publishing any personal information and promotional content

You will be automatically registered on our site. Username and password will be sent to you via email.
Post Comment
Prudencio Zlt

Folks, to clear up a little confusion here, thereโ€™s two basic kinds of Life Insurance: Term Life and Permanent (โ€œPermโ€) Life.

When you buy Term Life, the coverage ends at a predetermined time. E.g.

if you buy a 30-year policy at age 35, it ends at age 65. But itโ€™s super affordable, costing 6x--15x less per month that a Perm Life policy with the same death benefit. A healthy 30s man can buy a 30-year policy with a $500k death bennie for only a few dozen dollars per month.

When you buy Perm Life, the provider guarantees you will keep your coverage till you die--IF you make your premium payments. Thatโ€™s a huge IF.

There are two basic types of Perm Life policies--Whole Life (WL) and Universal Life (xUL).

WL is very pricey--several hundred per month for the same $500k DB. *But* WL guarantees you a fixed monthly premium to age 100, 120, or whatever age you and your provider agree.

xUL comes in at least three forms--straight-up UL, Variable UL (VUL) and--most recently--โ€Indexedโ€ UL (IUL).

xULs can be much cheaper than WL--at least during your younger years. The main problem with most (nearly all?) xULs: your Cost of Insurance (COI) charges skyrocket as you age into late life. xULs are essentially auto-renewing 1-year Term Life policies. As you move into later life, your COI goes up every year.

COIs start to soar higher as you get into your 60s. Some providers call COI charges "Mortality Charges." Unless you get a meaningful No-Lapse rider in your xUL, this policy is very risky and penalizes you for living a long life, quite possibly forcing you to give up your xUL and LOSE your entire investment. That is certainly the case for WFG USAโ€™s flagship policy, Transamericaโ€™s FFIUL. The ones Iโ€™ve seen have such anemic No-Lapse provisions that they deny you virtually any protection from skyrocketing late-life COI charges.

You could dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into your FFIUL over a lifetime and be forced to give it up and you and your heirs LOSE EVERYTHING by the time you reach your late 70s/early 80s.

From the math I've seen and presented here and elsewhere--and which so far no WFGer has challenged--the investment part of the xUL simply canโ€™t keep up with these soaring COIs. Hope this helps.

Prudencio Zlt

Anon, what's the exact name of the insurance product your relative is trying to sell to the rest of the family?

In your review title you say "...Flexible Premium Adjustable Life Insurance..." However in your review text, you say "...WFG whole life policy..." These two statements contradict each other.

Whole Life policies don't have flexible premiums.

Is your relative talking about Transamerica's Financial Foundation Indexed Universal Life (FFIUL)? Thanks.

Guest

The product itself is not bad. I do believe it is inappropriately sold at times by bad agents or greedy agents.

Whole Life is type of Permanent or Cash Value Life Insurance. The policy matures when you reach either 100 or 121 years of age. The cash value has a particular schedule to reach the maturity date so by the time the the contract ends you have whatever death benefit amount in cash value. Example.

I am 40, I buy a 250k Whole Life, I pay about 280 a month and by the time the end of my policy comes up I will have 250k in cash Value. Which also means by the time I hit retirement age, I will have accumulated a decent amount of cash value that can be withdrawn without paying taxes. In order to determine if it makes the most sense for you, we have to determine your objectives and prioritize them.

My recommendation would be to buy a term policy, max out your Roth IRA and if you still want to stash more money away, then consider making a portion of your life insurance solution a permanent one. Hope that helps

Prudencio Zlt
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1173822

Anon, I'm not sure the reviewer's talking about a Whole Life policy. He/she talks about "Flexible Premiums." She's probably talking about a Universal Life (xUL) policy. What other types of Perm life policy--besides xUL--you know of that has flexible premiums?

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1173822

Yes, but when it's time to collect, they will find a way to deny payment.

Prudencio Zlt
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1176503

Anon, yes, I agree. Especially on the Long-Term Care and Accelerated Death riders.

Guest

Yes its a rip off. Your relative is either young or just gullible to the slick pitch by WFG in presenting their platform .

In short it is a pyramid multi level marketing scam. You can go on wew dot healthcare dot gov to find the best health insurance policies, and be aware that tgete is more than one type of governmeny subsidy, so be sure to only choose a silver level policy as this is the ONLY level with which the CSR subsidies work. It is not someyhing that is offered up by most salesleople, even when a silver licy is sold, to anyone choosing thos level of coverage who earns $46k or less annually. Withholdong this info.

Is basically a lie by omission and it stinks like old fish. Tbmhey love to withhold another crucial bit of info. Too, when someo e with a limited budget limes the premium offered ny a bronze level policy. This is tbe fact that the prescription benefit in a bronze plan will not kick in until the annual deductible has been met, while in a silver policy the prescription benefit can be utilized before one ompenny of annual deductible has been met.

True info. I know because I sold Blue Cross policies for the 2nd open enrollment period of Obamacare.

LIFE insurance policies are even more dependent on your age than ate health policies, just remember that IF YOU ARE 40 OR UNDER you should not be considering any TERM life policies. Stick with WHOLE LIFE.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-1172534

Horrible advice! First of all he asks about Life Insurance, you go on a tangent on Health Insurance and then end your lovely comment with Stick with Whole Life!?!

Guest

Life insurance is not meant to be an investment it's meant for protection. You can get 500k term life insurance for 500 a YEAR.

WFG is going to try to sell you whole life insurance that's going to cost hundreds a month plus maintenance fees. The only people who should consider whole life insurance are people who make over 200k a year and have maxed out all other retirement tools such as 401k.

Guest

Whole life makes you think you are saving but if you take the money out they charge you interest. Then if you die they will subtract the amount you took out from your payout.

It's a scam.

Get term life. It's cheaper, then invest the savings.

Prudencio Zlt

Anon, is your policy Whole Life or Universal Life? Do you have the exact name of your policy? Maybe I can help you.

Guest

Well if you die at 45 you might not loose but if your a healthy male and live to be 80-82 you might have put 100k,200k in this and not have a penny or even be able to afford the premiums when reaching your 80's?!

There's a review on this tread( about IUL'S plan to live long..i show you the math)..but every policy can be a bit different so you need to find an independent financial agent that will show you with a normal rate of return 4-5% at what age you will run out of money and have to pay exorbitant monthly premiums as these go up by ridiculous amounts later in life...so short answer is you need to find an agent that doesn't work on commission(charges a fix rate 100$)and explains everything to you.But chances are if you live to see 85 you will have to pay so much that either you will have to dump this policy or need to put so much money that you will have put double what your insurance is worth.ex 250k,500k...etc. We are talking about putting in 10's of thousands in premiums/year when you near the 90 years old mark..so either your already rich and don't need a life insurance or you will need to dump it sadly!

World Financial Group Reviews

  1. 108 reviews
  2. 9 reviews
  3. 11 reviews
  4. 6 reviews
  5. 32 reviews
World Financial Group reviews