1993 – SALES ILLUSTRATIONS – WE CAN’T LIVE WITH THEM, BUT WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THEM! – Snippets
1993 – SALES ILLUSTRATIONS – WE CAN’T LIVE WITH THEM, BUT WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THEM! – Snippets
The policyholder istaking more of the risk and the company is taking less, and we hope that’s reflected
in the cost to the policyholder. But what does the policyholder know, what does he
think and what does he expect is going to happen in the future? We have to make clear to the policyholder that the illustration is
not a prediction, it does not promise what’s going to happen. The one thing that I really liked about the Californiaregulationis its
statement that the only thing we can say about these illustrated valuesis that they’ll
never happen. I thought that was a wonderful statement, not onethat we want said
quite that bluntly,but it was very true. If the contracts will not provide for coverage for life, for example, although they put
the name whole life or universal life on them, some disclosure should be made.
If we can get away from having to show so
much in the way of numbers and focus more on the concept, we can focus on what
the need is, how this insurance is going to be used, and how it operates in that
context. We’ve gone too far to making it look much more precise than it really is.
No one is rushing to adopt any
of the existing models and very few of the states are doing anything to enforce
current models that would certainly serve to stop any really outrageous illustration
practices that are out there.
To really get a message across the face page should
show that there’s a difference between contract guarantees and what the illustration
is showing.
What can you say about the simplification problem
and the overabundance of information?
One of the reasons I was particularly enthralled with the concept of the cover page is because I’m concerned that we already have too many numbers.