For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow
feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull. Ralph Nader
(In testimony before the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly)
NOTE: The Appendix to the book FINANCIAL RECOVERY, that was advertised in 1980 and sold through a FULL-PAGE ADVERTISEMENT in Life Insurance Selling Magazine listed fifteen references exposing corporate behavior, the responsibility of which ought to be to provide a necessary product to the American public. In this 2024 online edition, we have expanded the list to nearly one-hundred books and publications, including several published after 1980, that attempt to alert the public to the industry's financial abuse.
The reason that FINANCIAL RECOVERY was effective in 1980 is that it was marketed to responsible licensed agents for their enlightenment.
The companies responded in 1981 by promoting a new variety of "investment insurance" that it calls Universal Life Insurance, containing confusingly inseparable insurance costs, other charges, and the industry's usual funny banking rules. See #92, #93, #94, #95, #96, and #97, below.
The following books primarily explore and expose THE FALLACY OF USING LIFE-INSURANCE AS AN INVESTMENT. Note that this is far from new. The author of the first book on this list, Traps Baited With Orphan, Elizur Wright, was the first insurance commissioner of the State of Massachusetts.
- 1877 "Traps Baited With Orphan" Elizur Wright
- 1901 "The Economic Theory of Risk and Insurance" AIlan H. Willett
- 1905 "Business of Life Insurance" O.P.
- 1906 "How To Buy Life Insurance" O.P.
- 1907 "The Story of Life Insurance" Burton J. Hendrick
- 1916 "Life Insurance for Professors" Univ. of Calif. Publications in Economics, Vol.4, No.2
- 1917 "A License To Steal" Philander Banister Armstrong
- 1925 "Life Insurance Digest" Robert NI. Messick
- 1929 "Life Insurance Simplified" Lewis R. Tebbetts
- 1930 "The Money Value of a Man" L.I. Dublin and A.J. Lotka
- 1933 "How Safe Is Life Insurance?" L. Seth Schnitman
- 1934 "Your Insurance" S.B. Cyzio
- 1936 "Life Insurance, A Critical Examination" Edward Berman
- "Your Life Insurance and What to Do About It" David Gilbert and Jim Sullivan
- "Life Insurance, A Legalized Racket" Mort Gilbert & E. Albert Gilbert
- 1938 "Life Insurance, Americas Greatest Confidence Game" J.D. Kidder
- "Life Insurance Investing in Disaster" Mort & E.A. Gilbert
- "Life Insurance Exposed" Daniel D. White
- "Gouge" John Franklin Gaskill
- 1944 "You Pay and You Pay"
- 1946 "A Century of American Life Insurance" S.D. Clough
- 1947 "How to Buy Life Insurance" Phillip Gordis
- 1948 "Insurance and Your Security" E. Albert Gilbert
- 1948 "Personal Estate Planning in A Changing World" Rene Wormser
- "Personal Finance and Investment" Wilford J. Eitman
- 1955 "Insurance without Exploitation" Edwin C. Guillet
- "Your Insurance and How to Profit By It" Michael H. Levy
- "Life Insurance from the Buyers Point of View" 1955-68 Bureau of Economic Research
- 1958 "The Grim Truth About Life Insurance" Ralph Hendershot
- "Your Pocketbook Is Leaking" K.P. Chartier
- 1960 "Common Cents in Investments and Insurance" Gerald Fitzgerald
- "Vice President in Charge of Revolution" Murray Lincoln
- "Behind the Fine Print" Gayle E. Richardson
- "Money You Can Keep" David Gilbert
- 1962 "Life Insurance, A Study in Delusion" Dermis L. Anderson
- "Use and Abuse of Statistics" W.J. Reichmann
- 1963 "A View of Life Insurance" Wayne C. Knigge
- "Whats Wrong with Your Life Insurance" Norman F. Dacey
- 1964 "Life Insurance Benefit or Fraud?" J.J. Brown
- 1965 "Life Insurance" Graduate School of Business, Indiana University
- 1966 "The Great Misconceptions" Analytical Service, Inc.
- "The Retail Price Structure in American Life Insurance" Joseph M. Beth
- "This Is Where Your Money Goes" Robert F. Kahroff
- "Pay Now, Die Later" James Gollen
- 1967 "Why Waste Your Money on Life Insurance" J.E. Stowers
- "The Consumer Union Report on Life Insurance"
- "A Study of Mutual Life Insurance Dividends" Frank Mcintosh
- 1968 "How to Avoid Being Overcharged by Your Life Insurance Salesman" Pawlick
- "The Mortality Merchants" G. Scott Reynolds
- 1969 Houston Law Review Vol. 6 Pg. 878 "A Legal Analysis of the Sale of Life Insurance", Randal A. Hendricks
- "The Life Book of Family Finance" Time-Life Books
- "Stop Wasting Your Insurance Dollars" Dave Goodwin
- 1970 "Consumers Guide to Insurance Buying" Vladamir P. Chernik Changing Times
- 1971 "Getting All the Life Insurance You are Paying For?" Thomas McSwain, M.D.
- "How to Pay Lots Less for Life lnsurance" Max Fogiel Moneysworth
- 1973 Senate Subcommittee on AntiTrust and Monopoly 93rd Congress 1st Session, Feb. 20th 1973
- 1974 "Consumer Report" Jan., Feb., March
- "Term or Straight Which Is Best for You?" Everybodys Money, Spring
- "Lets Understand Life Insurance" Consumers Digest July/Aug.
- "The Bottom Line A Little Straight Talk About Life Insurance" Dirks/Grass Playboy, May 1974
- 1975 Congressional Record July 8, 1975, Senator Philip Hart
- 1975 "Money Dynamics", Venita VanCaspel Containing the famous Chapter #13, Life Insurance The Great National Consumer Fraud (obliged to change last word to "Dilemma" in subsequent editions of "Money Dynamics")
- "The Consumers Guide to Life Insurance" J. Tracy Oehlbeck
- "How to Save Money on Your Life Insurance" Assn. for Truth In Life Insurance
- 1976 "The Search For the Hidden Treasure" Mitchell Educational Services, Inc.
- 1976 "The Life Insurance Conspiracy", Peter Spielmann & Aaron Zelman
- 1977 "Where Women Should Invest Money" Venita Van Caspel
- "What is Happening to Life Insurance Dividends?" Consumer Report. March
- 1977 "The Consumers Union Report on Life Insurance"
- "Dreams of Immortality" Max Apple Mother Jones Magazine
- 1978 "Life Insurance: Myths and Facts" Consumer Digest Nov/Dec.
- "False Advertising" Howard J. Ruff, The Ruff Times, Oct. 15
- "Must Replacement Be A Dirty Dirty Word?" The National Underwriter, Oct. 7
- "Dollars & Sense" C. & Associates
- "The New Money Dynamics" Venita Van Caspel
- "The 250 Billion Dollar Consumer Problem?" (Cash Value Life Ins.) J.V. Pruitt
- "If You Need Help in Planning Your Finances" U.S. News and World Report
- 1979 "Insurance Industry Feels the Federal Lash". U.S. News & World Report
- 1979 Federal Trade Commission July 10th
- "Consumers are Losing Billions Yearly by Ill-informed & Inappropriate Life Insurance Choices", FTC Staff Says
- 1980 "Financial Recovery" Stewart Ogilby The Replacement of Cash-Value Insurance Policies
- 1986 "Consumer Reports" Aug. 1986 "Universal Life, The Chameleon Can Bite"
- 1987 "Thats Life, The 3rd Annual Dumber Than Dirt Award" Springville Herald, April 22nd 1987
- 1988 "Buyers Guide to Life Insurance" State of New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Kean
- "The Games & Scams of Cash Value Life Insurance" John J. Pepin PHD
- 1990 "How Your LIfe Insurance Policies Rob You" Arthur Milton
- 1991 Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Aug. 12th, 1991 "Many People Waste Money Buying Wrong Insurance"
- 1992 United States Senate, June 23rd, 1992 "Life Insurance A Shell Game of Premium Padding and Savings Schemes", Senator Howard Metzenbaum Chairman
- Newsweek, July 13th, 1992 "Buyers Beware"
- 1994 "Worth", April 1994, "Don"t be Sold the Wrong Life Insurance"
- Business Week, January 17th, 1994, "Policies of Deception"
- 1995 "Money", August 1995, "The 8 Biggest Rip Offs in America" "Never Buy a Whole Life Policy"
- 2016 Financial Services Consumer Alliance Universal Life Class Action
- 2018 The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 19th, Universal Life Insurance, A 1980's Sensation, has backfired
- 2019 The New York State Department of Financial Services Universal Life Insurance
- 2022 Forbes, Sounding the Alarm on Indexed Universal Life Insurance
- 2022 Forbes, Universal Life Insurance Has A Trap For Unwary Retirees
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