Is Dave Ramsey a Dirty Word (or Two)?

[timmybright]

I'm a newly licensed Life, Accident, and Health insurance agent and also a HUGE Dave Ramsey fan. I've noticed so many of the posters on here bash Dave Ramsey. I'm curious - is it because he says Whole Life is a ripoff? Or are his principles not in line with a lot of insurance agents?

Either way - I'm a big fan and he's turned my financial life around. I'm not religious, but I still think his concepts are fantastic and they work. I am extremely excited to get going selling insurance, I'm just working out my business plan now. I think I'd like to focus on term life and possibly LTC. I am also getting my P&C because the reverse mortgage company I work for is opening up an insurance company and I'll be handling their P&C clients.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[bobson]

I'm a newly licensed Life, Accident, and Health insurance agent and also a HUGE Dave Ramsey fan. I've noticed so many of the posters on here bash Dave Ramsey. I'm curious - is it because he says Whole Life is a ripoff? Or are his principles not in line with a lot of insurance agents?

Either way - I'm a big fan and he's turned my financial life around. I'm not religious, but I still think his concepts are fantastic and they work. I am extremely excited to get going selling insurance, I'm just working out my business plan now. I think I'd like to focus on term life and possibly LTC. I am also getting my P&C because the reverse mortgage company I work for is opening up an insurance company and I'll be handling their P&C clients.

Thanks for the advice!

It's mainly jealousy. Most life insurance agents know that people should be saving money in the stock market, broad stock mutual funds to be exact. Any agent worth their salt lives by the mantra "By Term and Invest the Difference." If you want to be able to retire you have to be in the stock market. Over the last 75 years the S&P500 has gone gang busters. If you have your money sitting in a whole life contract or a fixed annuity you have been getting bent over for the last 75 years. I had one client whose annuity paid him a paltry 4.5% in 2007. This year he will earn 4.5% as well. What a joke!

In fact I think term life is a ripoff. I mean, come on what are the chances I'm going to die before I have enough money saved up so my wife can live comfortably?

If I invest the $600 a year in the Investment Company of America I'll be loaded when I retire (instead of term life insurance). I invested about $3000 of IRA money in ICA about ten years ago. You should see how much that is worth now! Boy oh boy! If I'd have parked it in some sickly annuity, I'd probably only have about $5000 today.

If I could only pass my series 6 & 63, I'd be a hero!

 

[Guest]

Timely post; great!

 

[LGilmore]

My problem with Dave and some of the other gurus is they have to have a bad guy to "sell" themselves to the public...

Whole life? Is it really bad or just another choice?

I tend to stop listening to these one note gurus when they start in on how bad something is.... because when they do so they tend to promote something else in it's place without ever mentioning the down side of that product.

Hmmm I wonder if dave is still offering a "guarantee" of 12% return if you follow his advice?

Ever wonder why it's 12% and not 13% or 14%? couldn't be sec rules could it? naw, that couldn't be....

Anyway I'm glad it works for you.

Me? I'd rather take the time to know and understand each product out there so I can provide professional service to my clients. I sell alot of everything to different people with different needs. If you want to sell a size 9 black shoe to everybody you meet... good luck. You'll miss alot of sales and lose alot of credibility, especially from those folks that want a size 11 or 6... understand?

 

[JRoot]

I just don't get why he sponsers Zander Insurance for life insurance. I didn't know this until I had a fish on the line and he wanted to compare my quote with Zander before we did an application because Dave Ramsey said it's the only place you should buy life insurance.

 

[HomeService]

Dave Ramsey speaks in broad generalizations. Yes, if you are dealing with somebody who is at least half- way employed and working and making some money, yes, whole life may not be good. I deal with lower income folks, so whole life is where it's at, there. He does not speak to lower income folks on his radio show.

 

[Marker77]

This past summer my wife and I took Dave's "Financial Peace University" at our church. It was good to re-visit some things we forgot about. We ended up making a new budget, eliminating expenses that we really didn't need, paying off some credit cards, and working on paying our mortgage off in a third of the time.

I also wrote some nice term cases from referrals in our class.

Now the things that bugged me. He constantly mentions 12% as the projections when showing someone what they would have at retirement. His thinking is that the Stock Market has averaged that since the Great Depression. What ever happened to "Past Performance Does Not Determine Future Results". I guess her can get away with that since he is not a registered rep.

He also is convinced that term insurance is always the solution. For the record, I now sell term insurance almost 100% of the time and I believe in it especially with conversion guarantees. With that said, I used to do high end estate planning with large amounts of coverage and we always used guaranteed UL to solve the problem. Term wouldn't work since it expired at age 75.

I am not sure why he recommends Zander unless he has a vested interest in that agency.

 

[Newby]

I'm a huge Dave Ramsey fan too but with the knowledge that about 1/3 of the stuff he says is BS to earn maximum Dave bucks.

Dave promotes Zander because Dave gets paid huge dollars to do it. Same with his "endorsed" local providers.

Listening to Dave makes you think that Mutual Funds are risk-free and fixed annuities are risky.

Lots of wrong info along with the common sense of make more and spend less.

 

[HomeService]

How in the heck did annuities get such a bad name? I spent about two hours in a conference with a company where they were telling us to not mention the word "annuity". I should think we would be shouting it from the mountain- tops. Way more stable than the stock market, right now. Dave Ramsey and Clark Howard, by hammering variable annuities, they have managed to also hammer annuities in general. Sort of like how they hammered whole life. Those losers!! ha ha

 

[LGilmore]

"I guess her can get away with that since he is not a registered rep."

Dave, as them all walk a fine line with their advice. They can always fall back on the fact that they are "entertainers".

I have a problem with anyone who uses religion to make a sale. It's not that far removed from those who use religion to molest children... yes, I feel that strongly about it. I know of far too many "fish" people in our business whom have screwed over innocent people who did business because of the fish on the card.