Northwestern Mutual - Should I?

I had a friend start with them so we let him do the sales spill. Ended up taking out a Term policy on the wife through them as the rate was comparable to the other quates I had recieved. The guy with him that did the financial spill was very agressive. I remember very high fees on the things he was trying to push.

I use an independant broker through LPL Finacial that was recommended by a friend for everything you have listed.

Thanks for the input, fellas. I appreciate it. Thing is, he's got this little understudy guy that I do like, but I don't think he's a CFP yet, so I can't give him the business directly.


Basically, what I don't like about the other guy is that he is giving the impression that he wishes our chunk of business were bigger than it is. THems the breaks, jabroni. That's what I told him. j/k.

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Also - if he gave you proposed solid ideas at the first meeting, run away. Any good advisor will spend the first meeeting asking questions and listening, and will present ideas at the second meeting that are backed up with facts.

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Bingo. This has almost seemingly been forgotten in the industry.

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But I didn't know if only fools get the financial stuff from this company when what they are all about is insurance.

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This is where perception isn't really reality.

Yes, they have plenty of people that work for them that only do insurance, and push it almost to no end. They do however have plenty that almost solely do investments.

Obviously you want to invest with somebody that has an extensive track record.

Regardless of who you do your investments with and insurance with, make sure they are fully aware of each plan (if it is different people). Insurance planning and investment planning are not mutually exclusive, and you want your full plan to work together.

I had a friend who was a NW Mutual salesperson....he helped me roll over some retirement funds way back in the day, and it was a terrible move. It was a very small amount of money, and the contract fees ate up my returns. After a little bit, I wised up and moved the money, but it's left me with no respect for the company. Get some books and educate yourself before buying anything.

Re life insurance, I don't get the need. But I don't have children and live in a dual income household. If your spouse has retirement funds and you're the beneficiary, consider if that amount is sufficient before you spend money on term life.

Was this money placed in an IRA annuity product? I know for years they were selling those. It was absolute garbage. The fees were brutal. This was back before they had a true investment arm.

I know now a days, they are selling more traditional rollovers - similar to what you would get at Fidelity, etc.

Contract fees were NWs not the funds. It sucked. At the time, it was more than 6 percent of the amount I invested.....just dumb. I learned from it....learned that a commission earning sales person is NOT my kind of financial advisor.

Re: when is the amount sufficient....this depends on personal circumstances. Does your spouse work/have a profession? How big is your mortgage? Can your spouse float it on one income? Other debts? Does he/she have his/her own separately funded retirement? If I kicked off tomorrow, my better half could pay off the mortgage with my retirement funds if necessary. I just see no sense in gambling on term life when we are both productive wage earners. If, God forbid, either of us dropped dead, the financial picture wouldn't be dramatically different. Those retirement accounts have beneficiaries, so they are settled outside of probate (ie, beneficiary gets a check without he rest of the estate being settled. So go double check your beneficiaries are correctly recorded.)

Again, if you have young children, you will feel differently. But I wouldn't quit working if my spouse died, or vice versa.

To me, term life is sort of a 1950s product. Big wage earning Dad and jobless/no degreed/nonprofessional Mom...so if Dad strokes out at 50, Mom needs the life proceeds so she doesn't have to become a carhop at Sonic to buy little Jimmy's football cleats. But lots of households do not look like Leave It To Beaver these days...you need to plan for your circumstances, not for the people in the glossy brochures from the life insurance company.

A decent financial planner would be asking you questions about your lifestyle, retirement plans, work history, future plans, spending rates, etc before attempting to sell out anything.

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Did they? Yea, I could see how that would be less than desirable.

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One of the places I worked at while in school was a small firm that had SIMPLE IRAs for the employes, that were deferred annuity IRAs from NW Mutual. There was a 5 or 6 percent upfront load, plus an annual fee on the account, plus withdrawal fees that lasted EIGHT years.

You do know thos "retirement" funds you're referring to are taxable correct? So if you kick it over tomorrow and your wife decides to cash out your retirement plan becaus you thought that was the better idea then that $100k or whatever it is will be added to her income. Not to mention the process of getting that "check" as you call it is not as quick as you might think. But to each his own, if I died tomorrow I don't want my wife to have to worry about paperwork and taxes.

Sorry for the hijack.