The New Life Insurance Investment Advisor
Before I review the book, I need to take a moment to rave about the author. Ben G. Baldwin is clearly a life insurance agent that can call himself a ‘financial advisor’. I never expected to run across a book like this in my reading - factually correct and boatloads of information on everything from who should buy various types of life insurance, to annuities. And! he’s managed to write over 400 pages of text without any sales hype.
The New Life Insurance Investment Advisor is primarily a textbook on Variable Universal Life. I’m not kidding about the textbook part. This book could easily be used in a course on Universal Life Insurance. It should be required reading for any life insurance agent. Any new life insurance agent who reads this book is going to know more about these complex products than many experienced agents. Even extremely knowledgeable and experienced agents could use this book as a refresher and reference tool. In short, if you are a professional life insurance agent you should have a copy of this book.
What it is - an extensive and factual - yet still quite readable - compilation of information on variable universial life and annuities. Legislation, sales tools, how to get life insurance quotes, comparison methods and calculations, who should buy what product at what age, on and on. As I mentioned, there’s no sales hype in the book either. The author readily admits that he loves variable universal life - but he states quite openly that if you’re not prepared to also use it as an investment you’re probably better off buying term insurance. It’s hard to find fault with a book that’s that open about your product choices and is backed by an author armed with more facts (and the ability to present the facts properly) than ebay has video games. In short, what this book *is*, is required reading for any life insurance agent or broker who sells variable universal life.
There is also a reasonably extensive section on annuities. The annuity section is slightly more technical than the life insurance section, without the benefit of covering the basics. Nevertheless, again very suitable for an insurance broker to read over.
What it is not - a quick read or primer for the uninformed consumer. Admittedly if a consumer managed to read this book, well, I don’t envy the job of a poorly informed agent trying to then sell that consumer a universal life insurance policy. But the fact of the matter is that it’s probably too overwhelming and just too much information for a consumer to pick up and read through.
Title: The New Life Insurance Investment Advisor, by Ben G. Baldwin, ISBN 0071363645
Rating: 5 stars out of 5. Best product book by an insurance agent that I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
Who should buy this book: Life insurance agents, brokers and financial planners.
Use the above link to buy this book in the U.S. or
click here to buy it in Canada.