Unbundled

  • The "unbundling' of services and other product differences between Universal Life and Ordinary Life cause current literature to be inapplicable, as well as insufficient, for Universal Life. 

1984 - Journal - AAA - American Academy of Actuaries 

  • I would like to ask how many people here have received requests for such unbundling from the public. (No hands were raised.)

-- Walter Miller [Prudential]

1981 - SOA - Equity for Existing Policyowners, Society of Actuaries - 24p

  • 1983 - SOA - Product Unbundling Strategies, Society of Actuaries - 14p
  • 3) Since Universal Life is an "unbundled" product, the cost of each of the elements is disclosed to the buyer.
  • Consumers have demonstrated their unwillingness to commit dollars to heavily loaded products.

1982 - SOA - The Universal Life Update (rsa82v8n22), Society of Actuaries - 16p

  • John Dinius (Aetna) said that he represented a universal life company and said that an illustration that unbundled everything would look more complicated and that would affect sales. 

1995-1, NAIC Proc.

  • Higher interest rates and inflation have reduced the market share for the traditional life insurance products.
  • There appears to be an "unbundling" of the insurance and investment features of the life insurance product. Level premium, whole life, cash value insurance is giving way to a combination of term insurance with an investment element in short-term securities or equities.

1983-2, NAIC Proceedings

  • There are certain constraints which automatically bind a universal life policy when you take this narrow approach.
  • The first one is that if, in fact, the policy is an unbundling of the reserve structure, the gross premium after removing policy loads (the premium actually deposited into the fund) must equal the valuation net premium.

--  Shane Chalke

1984 - SOA - NAIC Update, Society of Actuaries - 24p 

  • Unbundling
  • Because the policyholder must generally pay premiums in advance, virtually all insurance contracts have an implicit or explicit deposit component that would, if it were a separate instrument, be within the scope of IAS 39.
  • Some examples of deposit components are:
    • (b) components for which a policyholder assumes all or most of the investment risks (as with some types of unit-linked (variable) contract).
    • (c) an interest-bearing account value, as in some universal life contracts.

No. 1540-100 ⏐ AUGUST 2, 2007 - Financial Accounting Series - INVITATION TO COMMENT