If you have clients or prospects who purchased variable life contracts several years ago, it is important for you to get "in-force" ledgers on their contracts to determine the premium payments necessary to keep the contracts in force to age 90, 95 and 100. Even if you illustrated a conservative earnings rate on the contract's projected performance, you probably illustrated a rate higher than the actual performance of the contract.Remember, the S&P 500 index for the last 10-years was NEGATIVE 1.46%. Many of these contracts are in serious danger of lapsing without an increase in annual premium.

If your client remains in good health, it is likely possible to replace the VL contract with a new Guaranteed UL contract for less annual premium than it will take to maintain the VL contract. Additionally, the new guaranteed UL products are based on 2001 CSO Vs. 1980 CSO and have better and more credible guarantees than the older VL's.

We recently performed this exercise on a contract we placed in 2003 in Phoenix Life. It is a $20,000,000 Variable Survivorship contract that was illustrated with a 4% earnings projection. We can replace the contract today with guaranteed survivorship UL for $22,000 LESS annual premium than would be required to keep the variable contract in place to age 95; and the UL is guaranteed to age 110!