[Rick Lee]

Universal policies should be illegal. You need a Series 6 license to sell them, and, IMHO, you should need a Series 6 license to buy them. ULs are super complicated and I've never met anyone who had one and understood it at all. Think of them like an interest-only, adjustable rate mortgage during the subprime boom. You can make the minimum or maximum payment.

Which do you think the agent tells you you have to make in order for him to make the sale?

And what do you think happens when you only make the minimum payment?

Worst one of those I ever saw was an 84 yr old woman with a b-day coming up, swore she had $50k in coverage and her disabled son absolutely had to get that payout in order to keep the house. Called the company and she had $20k left in coverage (she had only ever made the min. payment) and the face amount was declining fast. She cashed out for $4k, then had nothing and was too old to get anything else. I've rescued a few of these, but most folks are too in denial to believe what I tell them they have. So they (or their beneficiaries) find out the very hard way.

I haven't been doing this long enough for this phone call to come, but I know it's coming. "Hey, I found your card in my mom's pile of insurance papers. She passed away on Saturday. I called the other company and they said her policy had lapsed. Did she get a policy from you?"