Financial Services/Insurance Cults

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 04:42 pm Post Subject:

What about the Health Insurance cults?

Those are the ones that represent being feild reps for "a not for profit association that helps people get affordable benefits" to get into peoples home to sell overpriced limited benefit plans or tacked together overpriced catastrophic coverage?

Most of their reps beleive that they have the best plans on earth. What is really strange is that their training and motivational propganda has an overtly religious tone to it.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:25 am Post Subject:

It seems that every sect try to propagate their own theories….no issues :wink:

Gary, your rants are always informative and pleasant to read. So never stop it :)

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:47 pm Post Subject:

Jeremy,

Thank you and I'm glad you enjoy reading my rants as much as I enjoy writing them.

I do have an opinion on EVERYTHING including the word opine!

For example, not one news media outlet has yet to report that the inflated money that was loaned out on these sub-prime loans that is not being paid back has to be destroyed.

The method by which the government decided to destroy the inflated money supply in the system was to crash the stock market.

See THIS RANT titled Banking and Legalized Fraud.

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 06:29 am Post Subject:

Thanks Gary for the link :D I've found that one too quite fascinating. Banking arising out of the goldsmiths safe deposit boxes!?! Interesting to know about the forefathers of the modern days bankers :D

~Jeremy

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 10:38 am Post Subject:

Yes, the banking story is interesting.

Then one day one of the smiths had a brilliant, and wholly dishonest, idea. He noticed that people so much preferred his paper money to its "gold backing" that the gold in his vault hardly circulated - some of it hadn't moved in years. So he thought, "I could print up some extra gold certificates and lend them out to gain the interest.”

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 04:32 am Post Subject:

Hey Gary,

Great job here!! In my opinion, people don't slap Primerica nearly enough any more. Call it "politically correct" if you'd like; I'd rather think that the intelligent crowd has grown out of the "beating up on the little retarded boy" stage.

Anyway, whenever someone messages me with questions about that company, I send them the following boilerplate presentation. It usually works. You'll probably like this one and you have my permission to use it again.

The following is strictly my personal opinion and should not be confused
with anything I have testified to, written about or participated in.

I must applaud your desire to "help people, do something good and avoid
rip-offs", that is quite noble and a direction in which few safely tread.
I have been investigating Life Insurance Fraud in the United States for nearly 13 years and according to some (not including my Mother) am one of the very best at determining which companies are good and which are - not the very best.

Like some of those "consumed" with the Amway theory, you may have fallen
prey to one of the most well-known pyramid schemes in history. Don't feel bad; thousands of people have been convinced they can go to work for Primerica, help people, and that God himself will somehow look favorably on what they are doing to the American insurance marketplace.

Very much like the Amway of old, Primerica will hire someone to sell insurance in their spare time, convince them to sell something to everyone they know, then encourage them to hire all their friends and family to sell insurance part time. Weren't you somehow brought into the Primerica arena by a friend or family member who swears they are the very best thing since sliced bread? The problem is, if you remain in the business long enough to "figure things out," you'll wind up going to work for a real insurance company and Primerica will have made tons of money off of you. MCI's Friends and Family probably took lessons from these guys.

I quite frequently run across Primerica cases which have been referred to me by agents who are looking for some influence from a reputable "third party." Quite often I'll meet with a young family in my office who has been convinced they need $400,000 worth of term insurance coverage. These are usually young couples - in their 20s with a new baby, renting an apartment, driving a 74 Ford Pinto with not a hope of having any sort of estate problem in the next century or two. Because term commissions are not very high, some Primerica agent has brainwashed them into purchasing a huge policy, which by all industry standards, they haven't the need for.

And the "Theory of Decreasing Responsibility" in my opinion, is the biggest bunch of horse manure I've ever run across. As I get older, I'm going to get nicer toys and live a better life. Once my children are out of college and taken care of, my wife and I plan on buying a big house on 40 acres and I'm going to put in my very own airstrip so that I can fly my airplane to see my grandkids. We may have an RV, a larger boat and a "tricked-out" golf cart.
Live extremely well and die with just enough to bury you - that's my theory of decreasing responsibility. You may find it odd that most of the Forbes' CEOs agree with me.

The "buy term and invest the difference" theory was invented years ago by
a man named A.L. Williams. Mr. Williams or "The coach” was consumed by the idea that all Americans should own life insurance policies - his life insurance policies, and that each and every one of the more than 400 insurance companies doing business in the U.S. did business the wrong way. His practices were to slander the "cash value" concept, defame the companies who'd been in business for hundreds of years and convince everyone that they should "wet on Met and/or screw Pru". In his mind, he was some sort of "savior" sent by the insurance gods on high to right that which was wrong, help people and make an incredible amount of money in doing so.

To make a very long story short, Mr. Williams got in a great deal of trouble and
was - for all intents and purposes - "run outa town" by the Federal judicial system and those who saw through his smoke and mirrors scheme.

There are bus-loads of Primerica agents who will dispute my opinions and
swear that I have been influenced by the corrupt cash value industry. ME!! – the guy who has blown the whistle on this very industry and whose work has led to well over $300 million in lawsuits against Met, Pru, NY Life, John Hancock and dozens of others.

I'm going to jump down off my soapbox and give you the opinion you asked for. If I were in your shoes, I WOULD STAY AS FAR AWAY FROM PRIMERICA AS WAS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. If you want to sell life insurance products, there is nothing wrong with the cash value concept (except that too many agents abuse it.) Primerica's term insurance is among the most expensive in the industry and their investment products often have huge internal costs or loads. Primerica is often referred to as the
"Amway of the insurance industry" and its followers are most generally looked down upon.

If you are/were trained to believe in the A.L. Williams theory, my words will offend you and I will certainly lose all credibility you may or may not have had for me. I realize that if I were standing at the front of the line telling the people in Jim Jones' cult not to drink the purple Kool-Aid there are few who would have listened to me. If I had been in Waco, Texas a few years ago, the Branch Dividian would have still been "nuked" and many people would still have died needlessly. Every society has the "leaders" and the "followers" it's up to you
to figure out which way you want to go.

It is not all that difficult to be an honest insurance agent and to help people. As an agent, had a place in the top 2% of all life insurance agents and I never wrote a policy I was afraid would come back to bite me in the future. There are good companies out there and great people working for them. The "courses" you'll undoubtedly take when/if you get involved with Primerica are available to everyone.

I hope you have gained a little insight from my ravings. If you want to challenge my point, go into your local yellow pages and call a few agents and ask them what they think of Primerica. You'll soon find that I am not alone.

Good luck in the future. If you'll tell me where you live, I may be able look into my data base and find other companies or agents who will be glad to pull you away from "the dark side".

Warmest regards,
Mark

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:05 pm Post Subject:

Great post Mark!

Ya know, back in the day, early 80s, A. L. Williams used to run proposals showing "the difference" going into mutual funds then would project 30 years into the future at 10%, 12%, 15% then compare THAT to the cash value policy.

As if the market would NEVER crash...1 9 8 7, 2000-2001, 2008 or ever have a flat or down year.

Totally bogus, absurdly preposterous numbers.

They also never factored in the cost of their ten year level premiums more than doubling every 11th year which would sharply decrease the amount of money being invested in mutual funds.

Then, of course...and one of your pet peeves...the insurance industry answered this frontal assault with the Stop Premium Option or Vanishing Premium "technique" ...the only problem is that the company, Kentucky Central Life Insurance, VANISHED before the premium!

But let's be fair, a Cash Value policy can be designed with a Stop Premium Option but the premium paid needs to be close or at the 7 Pay Annual or the Guideline Single Premium amount to make it work.

Click HERE to see a male age 40 non-smoker, $100,000 policy with an $18,000+ Guideline Single Premium.

With the No Lapse Guarantee the policy stays in-force to age 120 regardless of policy performance.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 03:57 pm Post Subject:

See that? I may have learned something new. Was the Kentucky Central Life Insurance the company that started the vanishing premium debacle?
I always thought it NYLC's baby. Around 10 years ago I sat in on the deposition of a former NYLC actuary named J Wilson Kessler. Mr. Kessler told us all about how NYLC experimented with the very first UL product with the Pihl agency in Illinois. With interest rates up around 11%, he said, It didn't take long before someone threw the mix into an illustration that showed premium stopping in just a few years.

Oh, Primerica's term rates, by the way, are amongst the highest in the industry. Not a good deal at all.

Thanks for the support

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 07:28 pm Post Subject:

Was the Kentucky Central Life Insurance the company that started the vanishing premium debacle?

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 07:46 pm Post Subject:

Back in the 90s, I dealt with a bunch of Conseco cases in southern CA. Talk about sinking boats. What that company did to a larger portion of their policyholders was just evil.