INDIVIDUAL LIFE INSURANCE Consider Hartford Universal Life CV As Part of Your Policy Review
Review Your Li Keep Long-Term
fe Insurance to Help Objectives on Track You recognized your need for life insurance and purchased a policy with the coverage and features that best suited your needs. However, are you sure that policy is still accomplishing your goals? Life is full of changes, and your needs may evolve. A regular review of your coverage with your financial professional can help ensure that all of your objectives are still being met. And if they are not being met, you can take action before it is too late. While regular reviews are important, certain events are likely to have a more immediate impact on the effectiveness of your coverage. These include, but are not limited to: Change in job status, including new job or promotion Marriage, divorce, or death of spouse Birth or adoption of a child Purchase of new home Significant change in assets, such as high losses, gains or an inheritance Increase/decrease of debt load Your financial professional is specially trained to recognize events that may slip under your own radar and may also be affecting your coverage. In addition, your goals themselves may change. A proper policy review involves more than a simple death benefit analysis. Other important aspects of your coverage that require a check-up include: premium level, ownership structure and beneficiary designations. Additionally, a policy review is not always a precursor to purchasing additional coverage. Many times, a policy review will simply provide you with the confidence that you and your family have adequate protection and your life insurance still meets its financial objectives. - 3 -
Your Original Life Insurance Decision When you purchased your existing coverage, you had to make certain choices about the type of insurance that would best meet your specific needs. Was your need for temporary income protection, for example to take care of your mortgage should you unexpectedly pass away before it was paid off? Was your primary consideration protecting your income on a more permanent basis with the death benefit that life insurance provides? Was it also important to have a cash accumulation feature in addition to the death benefit protection? Some life insurance products are tailored to better serve one aim or the other. If you needed permanent insurance protection you had a choice of variable universal life insurance, universal life insurance, or whole life insurance. Universal life insurance policies, both variable and nonvariable, have charges such as premium based loads, cost of insurance, administrative and issue charges and surrender charges. These charges are different for each product and some may vary by age, gender, face amount, underwriting class, premiums and policy durations. These charges will have a significant impact on Policy Account Values. In addition to these charges, variable universal life policies also have a mortality and expense risk charge and fund operating expenses, which include fund management fees and 12b-1 fees, if applicable. These expenses also have a significant impact upon Policy Account Values. Together with the additional charges, these expenses are reflected in each product s prospectus and should be reviewed with your registered representative. Policy Account values for variable universal life policies vary with actual underlying fund performance. The investment return and principal value of an investment will fluctuate so that an investor s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. If you were not averse to market risk at the time of your purchase, you may have chosen variable universal life insurance (VUL) for meeting your life insurance needs. VUL offers an attractive and unique combination of features that cannot be found together in any other single financial product. Along with permanent death protection, VUL offers: Premium flexibility. Access to policy values through loans and withdrawals.* Accumulation potential through variable investment options carrying varying degrees of market risk. *Loans and withdrawals from a permanent life insurance policy will reduce the policy s Account Value and Death Benefit. There may be penalties and fees associated with the use of loans and withdrawals. Depending upon the performance of a VUL policy s investment choices, the Account Value available for loans and withdrawals may be worth more or less than the original amount invested in the policy. If your situation at the time you purchased your policy made the risks of VUL inadvisable, you may have chosen a universal life (UL) policy. UL offers: Premium flexibility. Access to policy values through loans and withdrawals.** - 4 -
**Assuming a policy is not a Modified Endowment Contract (MEC), access to policy Account Value through loans is free from current Federal taxation and withdrawals are taxed only to the extent that they exceed the policyowner s basis in the policy. Distributions from MECs are subject to Federal income tax to the extent of gain in the policy. Taxable distributions are subject to a 10% additional tax, with certain exceptions. Additionally, some more recent UL policies offer secondary guarantees. A secondary guarantee provides an additional layer of death benefit guarantee beyond that provided by the primary guarantees in the policy. (Primary guarantees include mortality rates, contractual interest, and contractually guaranteed charges.) When the policy Account Value is sufficient to pay monthly deductions, the policy will not lapse. If the policy Account Value is insufficient and the secondary guarantee is available, the policy will not lapse. When a Policy Review Indicates It s Time for a Change Since changing circumstances have a way of causing your needs to evolve and change, it is possible that a review of your current life insurance indicates that the policy you purchased several years ago might not be as good a fit as it was then. Coverage Inefficiently Meets Goals In this situation, you still have enough life insurance coverage to meet your stated objectives. However, given current pricing and product availability, you could possibly purchase more coverage for the same amount of premium or receive the same coverage at a lower premium. Coverage Exceeds Current Needs In some instances, you may find that your life insurance coverage is exceeding your needs. Your options may include maintaining the coverage as a cushion for future needs, decreasing a face amount, or surrendering a policy (which could incur a surrender charge). Coverage Does Not Meet Current Objectives In this case, your coverage no longer meets your current needs. Your options may include purchasing a new policy to supplement the original(s), purchasing a new policy with enough coverage to replace the original(s) and meet your current needs, or adequately increasing your coverage under a currently owned permanent life insurance policy. In each of these scenarios, your financial professional can formulate a detailed analysis, taking surrender charges, any outstanding loans, death benefits and cash values into account to help determine what course of action, if any, is in your best interest. You may want to consider the purchase of additional, or different, life insurance. Just be sure that you revisit the same considerations you explored when making your original purchase decision. - 5 -
What Choices are Available? If your policy review indicates that some changes in your coverage are necessary, your financial professional can provide guidance as to next steps. Your careful consideration of both your needs and the options available to you may show that the type of life insurance product you currently own is still the right one for you or it may show that you would be better served with a different type of product. If the analysis shows that a universal life insurance policy will best meet your current needs, The Hartford offers something very valuable choice with the opportunity to choose between two single universal life insurance policies that can best help you accomplish your goals. The Hartford is The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including the issuing companies of Hartford Life Insurance Company and Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Company. If converting to a different type of product is more suitable, your Hartford representative can give you more specific information about The Hartford s variable universal life, whole life and term insurance products. If guarantees are important to you, you may want to consider Hartford Advanced Universal Life SM with the Policy Protection Rider: Competitive Premiums for guaranteed coverage. Flexible Guarantee (which lets you choose how, when and for how long you pay premiums). The guarantee is designed for customization: Duration: You can fund the guarantee to any age (maximum age 120). Funding: You have maximum flexibility in deciding when and how much to pay in premiums. Catch-up: The policy can be brought positive at any time. The Hartford s secondary guarantee, which never lapses, is called the Policy Protection Rider. Guaranteed Death Benefit Options Choose the level death benefit, return of account value or return of premium. Optional riders, including Accelerated Death Benefit, Cost of Living Adjustment Rider, *Primary Insured Term Rider *Waiver of Monthly Deductions, *Waiver of Specified Amount, *Accidental Death Benefit and *Child Rider. All are covered by the guarantee. (*Additional charges apply.) If maintaining current values upon exchange is more important to you than guarantees, you may want to consider Hartford Universal Life CV. This UL product offers: Affordable death benefit protection. Flexible premiums. Surrender charges waived in the first 4 policy years in the event of a total surrender unless the surrender is for the purpose of exchanging it with a new life insurance policy or annuity contract. Credited interest rate that is automatically increased by 0.50% beginning in the fifth policy year. This feature is designed to provide additional Account Value accumulations. - 6 -
Working with Your Financial Professional Is it time for you to consider whether some tailoring of your life insurance coverage can help it to fit both your short- and longer-term needs better? The best way to determine that is to discuss your unique situation with your financial professional. He or she will be happy to thoroughly review your needs and suggest the plan that is right for you. The Hartford can help. We pride ourselves on helping you meet your planning needs, whatever they may be and offer a complete portfolio of products including variable universal life insurance (both single life and last survivor), whole life insurance and term life insurance, as well as universal life insurance (both single life and last survivor). Regardless of your situation, if you have not had your life insurance reviewed recently you should make an appointment with your financial professional to do so. It is important for you to keep this significant part of your overall financial plan from becoming obsolete and ineffective. By setting aside some time for a policy review appointment, you may save your beneficiaries a lot of time, aggravation and money. About The Hartford Founded in 1810, The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: HIG) is one of the nation s largest insurance and financial services organizations, according to 2004 year-end admitted asset data from A.M. Best. To millions of customers businesses, groups and individuals The Hartford s stag logo is a trusted symbol of dependability. The Hartford meets a wide range of life insurance needs with a complete line of cost-effective, innovative life insurance products, including the nation s top selling variable life portfolio (Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, 2004). Life insurance policies are issued by either Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Company or Hartford Life Insurance Company. Both companies maintain high ratings from independent rating agencies. Ratings apply to the issuing company and its general contractual obligations. They do not apply to any product. In addition, financial professionals and policyowners can count on The Hartford s award-winning customer service team to patiently address questions and accurately process policy changes and claims. The DALBAR Life Insurance Customer Service Award and Financial Intermediary Award recognize the highest tier of service in the industry. [DALBAR Life Insurance Customer Service Award recipient 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and Financial Intermediary Award, 2002, 2003, 2004.] - 7 -
Issuers: Hartford Life Insurance Company (New York) Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Company (Outside New York) 200 Hopmeadow Street, Simsbury, CT 06070 Mailing address for both issuers: P.O. Box 2999, Hartford, CT 06104-2999 Principal Underwriter and Distributor for Variable Universal Life Insurance: Hartford Equity Sales Company, Inc. (HESCO) P.O. Box 2999, Hartford, CT 06104-2999 www.hartfordinvestor.com Hartford Universal Life CV is a flexible premium adjustable life insurance policy. When issued outside of New York by Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Company, the policy form number is LA-1203(02).When issued in New York by Hartford Life Insurance Company, the policy form number is HL-15859(02). In certain states, the policy form number may be followed by a state abbreviation. Not all product features are available in all states. Hartford Advanced UL SM is a flexible premium universal life insurance policy. When issued outside of New York by Hartford Life and Annuity Company, the policy form number is LA-1252(04). When issued in New York by Hartford Life Insurance Company, the policy form number is HL-15908(04). In certain states, the policy form number may be followed by a state abbreviation. Not all product features are available in all states. If you are considering the purchase of variable universal life insurance, this presentation must be preceded or accompanied by the appropriate variable universal life insurance product prospectus, underlying funds prospectus and appropriate product information. These materials can be obtained from your financial professional or by logging on to www.hartfordinvestor.com. The prospectuses contain detailed information, including charges and fees, so please read them carefully before you invest or send money. The prospectus and policy will reflect the appropriate issuing company. This material is intended to provide general tax information for your consideration and discussion with a qualified advisor. Neither The Hartford, nor its agents or employees, provide tax or legal advice. As with all matters of a tax or legal nature, you should consult your own tax or legal counsel for advice. The Hartford is The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including the issuing companies of Hartford Life Insurance Company and Hartford Life and Annuity Insurance Company. Life insurance products: are not insured by the FDIC; are not insured by any federal agency; FDIC BANK are not guaranteed by, or obligations or deposits of, any bank or any affiliate, or credit union; and variable universal life is subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principal amount invested. LCM-05-296-6-05 Printed in U.S.A 2005 The Hartford, Hartford, CT 06115