Prudential And National Life Update UL Products

By Staff Writer

November 12, 2001 at 07:00 PM

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NU Online News Service, Nov. 12, 2:17 p.m. – Prudential Insurance Company of America, Newark, N.J., and National Life Assurance Company of Canada, Toronto, are updating their universal life insurance products.

A universal life policy offers a combination of adjustable payment schedules and adjustable death benefits, along with a build up of policy cash value.

Prudential is rolling out two new policies, the PruLife Universal Protector, which offers consumers extra protection against policy lapses, and PruLife Universal Life policies, which offers death-benefits options designed for business owners who want to fund buy-sell agreements.

The policies replace the old PruLife Universal Life policy.

In Canada, National Life is selling a new version of its Flex Account Universal Life product. The revised version offers a new policy return option.

National Life continues to offer purchasers the option of tying the growth of policy assets to the performance of the Canadian stock market, but it has added a 1.2% annual "guaranteed bonus" which is not affected by premiums, rate of return, timing, or other conditions.

National Life will also be replacing the stock index it uses to calculate market-linked growth rates. Rather than using the TSE 300 Index, a basket of 300 large and midsize Canadian stocks, it will use the S&P/TSE 60 Index, a basket of 60 large Canadian stocks.

Switching to the smaller index "provides clients with more consistent investment returns through a stronger, more concentrated portfolio of stocks," National Life says.

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