Why are Insurance Salesmen allowed again?

[Hank]

Look at the replies to WCI's blog posts on whole life insurance and its many variants.  To some extent, it's useful to innoculate financial newbies to the arguments made in favor of permanent life insurance and the often mathematically superior arguments against such products.  Pretending that whole life doesn't exist or barring discussion of it entirely could lead to it being forbidden fruit.  Oh, the guys over at Bogleheads and WCI don't want you to know what a great deal it really is to "Bank on Yourself" (or some other inane argument).

If you or your parents bought a policy a long time ago, run the numbers to see if you should keep it.  Despite the sunk cost, it might be acceptable to keep a policy going forward.

If you already have achieved financial independence and have an estate worth over $22M, you could conceivable benefit from an ILIT.

If you don't fall into either of the above situations, the person most likely to benefit is the the salesman selling the policy, not the person buying it.

[Hober Mallow]

To be clear, my earlier post was purely in jest.  I don't think the insurance salesmen should be banned.  I agree with Hank's post above - it's far better for their potential clients to counter the salesman's arguments than to ban them.

[Peds]

jacoavlu wrote:

WCI has said it, and I respect it, that the goal is not to ban people, but rather certain behavior.

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another thought....why not make them actually answer the questions asked/prove their statements with actual data before they are allowed to progress and respond to anything else.....?

[jacoavlu]

Peds wrote:

jacoavlu wrote:

WCI has said it, and I respect it, that the goal is not to ban people, but rather certain behavior.

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another thought….why not make them actually answer the questions asked/prove their statements with actual data before they are allowed to progress and respond to anything else…..?

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what questions/statements? I don't get it.

Any new user's first post has to be mod approved before it posts to the forum. You may surprised how much straight up spam/solicitation is screened out by this.

[MPMD]

Not an overwhelming problem at the moment, something to keep an eye on and if this forum starts to become a haven for WL salesman then might be worthwhile to think of options.

The CAPTCHA suggestion was absolutely hilarious, the problem is that the answer will always be "well every client is different we should meet and go over a personalized plan for you."

[Hatton]

Maybe a non-recommended insurance agent post should be shown with a yellow background.....Caution.  Then a newbie forum reader would hopefully view the post with a grain of salt.

[ENT Doc]

I'll preface my statement by saying that I loathe whole life insurance and it's evil cousins.  I was sold such a policy, regret it, and curse the person who sold me it.  However, there should be no such ban on agents promoting these products posting to the forum.  If they follow the guidelines and disclose their conflicts of interest they are well within their right to advocate for a certain product, however loathsome.  We all know that this product is not good for the vast majority of doctors, but do you honestly believe the response to their post wouldn't dissuade any prospective buyer or provide valid counterarguments?  Do you not think WCI has outlined these counterargument fairly clearly already?  We should have an open and honest discussion and debate - not shut down voices because we don't like them.  Too much of that going on already out there.

If you think whole life salespeople should be banned you could make a valid argument that anyone promoting stock purchasing should be banned, because the evidence shows that's a bad practice.  Similar to whole life, there is a benefit to the person buying that stock.  But the question is whether that is the best of the choices given the risks involved.  No good argument can be made for stock purchasing over index fund investing for the common doc/professional on this board.  But their opinion should be heard, and we should respond in kind.  Echo chambers are dangerous, and we need dissenting opinions to keep us honest.

[Lithium]

The difference is that salesmen are not engaging in an "open and honest debate."  Open and honest debates require speaking in good faith, acknowledging and responding to counterarguments rather than dancing around them, willingness to update priors, and willingness to admit when you're wrong.  None of that describes cash value insurance salesmen who post here.  The appear to mainly be engaging in recruitment and product promotion.  I have no problem with individual posters who have a difference in opinion, but the salesmen with blatant conflicts of interest add zero value to the community.

[ENT Doc]

Lithium wrote:

The difference is that salesmen are not engaging in an “open and honest debate.”  Open and honest debates require speaking in good faith, acknowledging and responding to counterarguments rather than dancing around them, willingness to update priors, and willingness to admit when you’re wrong.  None of that describes cash value insurance salesmen who post here.  The appear to mainly be engaging in recruitment and product promotion.  I have no problem with individual posters who have a difference in opinion, but the salesmen with blatant conflicts of interest add zero value to the community.

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If that is your definition of an open and honest debate I'm not sure that much of that actually occurs on ANY social media platform/forum.

[Hank]

There are insurance salesmen and then there are insurance salesmen. The long time forum contributors who post genuinely useful content about shopping around for disability and med-mal insurance declare their status as insurance agents.

The guys trying to sell you a bad cash value product tend to list themselves as financial advisors, small business owners, or “other professionals”. They also don’t tend to make an accurate, apples-to-apples mathematical argument, in large part because the numbers don’t support the purchase of their high fee, low yield product.

[AlexxT]

ENT Doc wrote:

If that is your definition of an open and honest debate I’m not sure that much of that actually occurs on ANY social media platform/forum

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It doesn't occur anywhere else, but there's no reason why it can't start here.  

I think they should be banned, because there's an ongoing thread entitled: " Inappropriate whole life policy of the week".  There are new additions to that thread almost every week.  I'm sure WCI can add more examples to that thread than he already does.  So why should there be recruitment by whole life salesmen in one thread, only to have them show up as victims in another thread?   The education and the inoculation can happen by reading the other thread, along with all the other blog posts on whole life insurance.

That's my opinion, but  it's not my website.

[jacoavlu]

AlexxT wrote:

I think they should be banned

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who?

[ENT Doc]

AlexxT wrote:

ENT Doc wrote:

If that is your definition of an open and honest debate I’m not sure that much of that actually occurs on ANY social media platform/forum 

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It doesn’t occur anywhere else, but there’s no reason why it can’t start here.  

I think they should be banned, because there’s an ongoing thread entitled: ” Inappropriate whole life policy of the week”.  There are new additions to that thread almost every week.  I’m sure WCI can add more examples to that thread than he already does.  So why should there be recruitment by whole life salesmen in one thread, only to have them show up as victims in another thread?   The education and the inoculation can happen by reading the other thread, along with all the other blog posts on whole life insurance.

That’s my opinion, but  it’s not my website.

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Maybe it's just my philosophy not to want to ban voices, however silly they may be.  Again, if your logic is to ban people promoting a bad product/idea then ban people who advocate for stock purchases as well.

[AlexxT]

jacoavlu wrote:

AlexxT wrote:

I think they should be banned 

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who?

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Whole life insurance salesmen.

[jacoavlu]

AlexxT wrote:

jacoavlu wrote:

AlexxT wrote:

I think they should be banned 

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who?

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Whole life insurance salesmen.

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All of them? Do you think the "good guy" insurance agents don't also sell whole life insurance products?