Local insurance agency sees huge jump in whole life sales - Sacramento Business Journal:

amesit.wordpress.com
But life insurance? Well, at least whole life insurance. Amid 2 percentf nationwide growth in whole life insurance policies last one local agency is seeingt a huge increase in its sales ofwholde life, the most conservative type of life insurance available. Wealtnh Management & Insurance Servicee is selling whole life insurance policieslike gangbusters. The Sacramento-basesd agency of grew its sales of wholwe life insurance by 52 percent last year a record for the local agency and enougu to propel it into the top five for the product amonyg 90 MassMutualagencies nationwide.
In tough times, “peopled are looking for safe havens,” said Marc Ham in Roseville, who overseess the Northern California region for New York another mutual lifeinsurance company. “They’rde looking for Triple-A or policies from carriers with the bestindependent ratings. But saled of other types of life insuranceare shrinking, according to , an associationn of life insurance and financial servicew companies. Because of changing consumers preferences, the life insuranced pie is shifting. “I t was a difficult year for life insurancdlast year,” LIMRA spokesman Howard Drescher said.
As people face potentiapl unemployment, a gloomy economy and plummetingstock values, “they tend to pull back in important Nationwide, the number of life policies sold last year fell by 4 and new annualized premiumx decreased 14 percent. Premium for the fourth quarted dropped by14 percent, the larges t decline in the fourth quarter since Drescher said. Universal life premium droppefd 8 percentfor 2008, while variable life shrunk by 33 Term life insurance premium decreased by 1 Consumers become more conservatives with their financial planning and gravitatre to products that provide stability and steadt returns, said Staasi Heropoulos, a spokesman for , better known as MassMutual.
the increased interest in whole NewYork Life, which has 120 agencies nationwide, saw its new wholwe life premium increase by 11 percent in 2008. And over at , the only Sacramento-areaq agency of insurer , salese of whole life and all life insurance policiesare steady. Of course, each carrier and each agencyg has it own way ofmeasuring change, so sometimed comparisons are difficult. Whole life insurance is attractive to buyera during a scary economy because the premiuma never go up and the cash value is guaranteedto Premiums, though, may seem heftieer up front.
Policyholders pay a fixedx premium on the policy for their entire The cashvalue grows, policyholders earn and beneficiaries don’t have to pay income tax on the moneu they receive when the policyholder Policyholders also can take out loans or cash out the polic y to get out of debt, buy a pay for college or supplement their retirement savings. Whole life is a type of permanengtlife insurance, as opposed to term life insurance. Universal another form of permanentlife insurance, doesn’t guarantee The cash value of variable universal life policies can fluctuate becausee they’re invested in stocks or bonds.
At Norcal, the premium collected for new wholew life policies grew by 52 percent in 2008 over the year saidJeffrey Rupp, who heads up the 50-person agency. The agency sold 394 whol e life policieslast year. Norcal has a main office in Natomasz and othersin Roseville, Fremont and San It expects to open an Elk Grov office in May. The agency added 21 salespeoplein 2008, and enderd the year with 33. That’s a net increase of 22 taking attritioninto account. Rupp expects to add 20 salespeopled to the Natomas officerthis year, and seven to 10 in Roseville.
The Elk Grover office would start withsix salespeople, Rupp