Life Insurance Book Review

What can I say about this book that hasn’t already been said? This is the best written and most widely read financial planning book of all time. It’s also turned into a tv program, it was that successful. Well, I suppose I could brag that I’ve met the author a number of times (he lives locally) or that I own my autographed copy that Mr. Chilton gave me.

Anyway - I read this book cover to cover when it was first released well over a decade ago. The book is still a vital read today for anyone - investors, actuaries, consumers, even insurance agents and financial planners. The reason it’s such a great book is that it’s chock full of fabulous and grounded advice for everyone. The reason it’s been so wildly successful is because it’s actually delightfully readable. It’s an easier read than a pocket novel. I can personally guarantee you’ll enjoy this book no matter what your background - and you can read it knowing that the author David Chilton is really as nice and down to earth as the characters in his book.

The Wealthy Barber is the story of a common sense barber who’s spent his time learning about financial planning. In the book he relays this information on to a number of customers who come in once a month for a haircut. Each haircut is a different lesson, one on mutual funds, one on life insurance, and so on. The story is told in the first person, by one of the guys who’s in getting his haircut (his successful sister is also along for the lessons, so there’s no ‘guy’s barber shop’ atmosphere to the book).

Title: The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton, CFP. ISBN 0761513116
Rating: 6 Stars out of 5.
Who should buy this book? Absolutely everyone. If you’re a consumer, there’s a wealth of knowledge you’ll be able to ingest without dozing. For financial planners or industry experts, it’s a good dose of back to basics.

Use the above button to buy this book in the U.S. or
buy it in Canada

This book is like a bad porn movie. I had no idea where he was going at the start of the book, but then it got interesting. And the finish! Well, let’s just say it was worth the wait.

The author I think does himself a bit of a disservice when he titles the book ‘Pension Strategy for Canadians’. I think the book is well suited for any investor who wants a bit of a handle on their finances. It’s also equally relevant to Americans as far as I can tell, there seemed to be little if any Canadian specific content.

The book really talks about how to diversify your investments to earn the best long term rate of return at the lowest risk. The author indicates in the book that most people think they know what a diversified portfolio is, but in reality are wrong. As I’ve been in the insurance business for about two decades and know what a diversified portfolio is I found that a bit of an odd statement. Until I continued reading and realized the author was absolutely correct - I was waaaay off base when I thought I knew what a diversified portfolio was.

The section in the book on standard deviation gave me an ice cream headache, and I already know what standard deviation is and how to calculate it. Nevertheless, that’s the worst thing I could say about the book, and I don’t think his math is material to the appreciation of his message.

The author does ultimately build a credible case for how he suggests you create a properly diversified portfolio. Then at the end of the book he actually pins the solution down to some exact numbers. Fabulous. I expect you could take that part of the book verbatim and apply it to your investments.

In summary this is a great easy to read book that anyone who invests more than $10 should pick up and read.

Title: The Pension Strategy For Canadians, by Andrew Springett, CFP. ISBN 1-894663-73-X
Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5.
Who should buy this book? I strongly recommend this book to anyone who invests.
Buy this book (Canada)

Welcome to my first blog post - ever. Quite the non-event. I was surprised how smoothly the blog software installation went. I had originally tried Moveable Type software - it seemed a bit more robust. However the templates weren’t installing smoothly. And since this is basically a hobby site I didn’t feel inclined to spend much time figuring out how to make the templates work. Wordpress OTOH went in and ran first time. So by default - Wordpress it is .

By way of introduction, I’m Glenn. I’ve been in the insurance and software field for about 20 years now and currently own and manage a life insurance hosting company. Recently I’ve been dragged into search engine marketing for many of my clients as well - most life insurance agents want to develop leads and sales from their websites and this neccesitates our driving traffic to their site.

I also run www.actuarialoutpost.com, a site for actuaries. Actuaries are the folks who price insurance, kind of a boring statistician. I handle the advertising and tech issues for the site in my spare time, leaving the moderation to my friend Traci (who is also active in the actuarial community).

But this is starting to sound like I’m looking for a date or something (I’m not) so enough about me. I set the site up because I am a voracious reader and figured I’d try my hand at blogging. As I’ve been kicking around the insurance field for so long, some of it’s rubbed off on me, so I figured reviewing insurance and related books would be right up my alley. So here we go .