North American Designs Smart Builder IUL

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa, Feb. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WEST DES MOINES, IA, Feb. 21, 2020 – North American Company for Life and Health Insurance^®, a member of Sammons Financial℠ and one of America’s preeminent life insurance and annuities companies, is introducing a new Indexed Universal Life (IUL) insurance product. Smart Builder IUL is innovative in that it tackles a challenging consumer concern: how to quickly build cash value for liquidity while making sure money is in place for beneficiaries.

By design, Smart Builder IUL quickly builds the policy’s cash value as it does not have either a premium load charge or a surrender charge (if the Waiver of Surrender Charge Option Rider is selected¹) -  both common in traditional insurance policies. Without these charges, the premium a client pays goes immediately to building the policy’s cash value. This can be important to a policyowner’s overall strategic financial plan if in addition to the death benefit protection they seek liquidity coupled with an ability to grow cash value in the long-term. The surrender charge can be waived only if elected at time of application.

“The new Smart Builder IUL is designed to fill a void that could potentially exist in many clients’ financial strategy,” said Jerry Blair, chief distribution officer of North American Company. “Smart Builder combines the death protection that everyone who purchases life insurance needs with the flexibility they want.”

One of the key benefits of any IUL policy is tax-deferred cash accumulation – the cash value – that can be an extra source of emergency funds during retirement.

“Today’s high cost of medical care requires you to be prepared. Smart Builder includes accelerated death benefit endorsements² for critical, chronic and terminal illness for no additional premium,” said Blair. “This can provide access to cash from the policy’s death benefit while the insured is living and if diagnosed with a qualifying illness.”

The ability to make funds available for an immediate need is a key distinction in the Smart Builder IUL.

“If you look at your overall financial plan as a puzzle – with each piece fitting securely into other parts of your plan – then Smart Builder may be an option,” said Blair. “Building cash value quickly meets a very real consumer need – liquidity for those ‘just-in-case’ scenarios in retirement.”