I’m in the process of increasing my life insurance. I’m taking advantage of my firm’s group life benefit to shore up my total face value to a number that will make my wife even happier should I head to the happy hunting ground sooner than expected. #-ad_banner-#As I’ve been navigating the underwriting odyssey, I’ve realized that I haven’t looked at some of the bigger life insurance stocks in a while. So I set out to correct that — and I was intrigued by what I found. Many investors have fallen out of love with large insurance company stocks over the… Read More
I’m in the process of increasing my life insurance. I’m taking advantage of my firm’s group life benefit to shore up my total face value to a number that will make my wife even happier should I head to the happy hunting ground sooner than expected. #-ad_banner-#As I’ve been navigating the underwriting odyssey, I’ve realized that I haven’t looked at some of the bigger life insurance stocks in a while. So I set out to correct that — and I was intrigued by what I found. Many investors have fallen out of love with large insurance company stocks over the past five years (if they were ever in love to begin with). The two main reasons are the two motivations that drive almost all behavior in financial markets: fear and greed. From 2008 to 2011, fear drove the bus mainly due to the fallout from the global financial crises in U.S and European markets. Investors worried that the investment portfolios of the big insurers contained huge quantities of securities that were in danger of deep devaluation or even default due to the turmoil and depressive economic environment. The natural reaction was to sell and then avoid. This chart of MetLife… Read More