Principal Financial Group is planning to cease their sales of both retail life-insurance and fixed annuity products to individual U.S. consumers. However, Principal Financial will continue to market their life insurance and variable annuity products solely to businesses that are looking to provide benefits to its employees.

Principal Financial came to this decision after a months-long strategic review, according to company executives. "We identified opportunities to reduce complexity and risk, improve our return profile, and increase our cash flow conversion to better enable us to execute on our strategy, reinvest in growth, and support our financial strength," Principal Chief Executive Dan Houston said in a recent statement.

What does this mean?

Those who currently have a policy with Principal Financial may be wondering: “What’s going to happen with my life insurance? Should I be concerned?” The answer is simply: No. Principal has an excellent rating from both A.M. Best and the Better Business Bureau and will undoubtedly continue to service all existing policies.

Those who were interested in Principal Financial’s products may be thinking they’re out-of-luck. However, that might not necessarily be the case. Although individual consumers will no longer have access to Principal’s products, business owners may have access to certain policies that they can use to attract and retain key-employees, such as a split dollar or executive bonus plan. If you work with business owners, there still may be planning opportunities available to them.

At Advisor’s Resource we are familiar with this area of planning. Our on-staff CFP® works directly with business owners to put together tax-advantaged strategies that utilize cash value life insurance products. Furthermore, Advisor’s Resource was founded by a former chief actuary who understands the intricacies of cash-value products and how they may be properly implemented into any business owner’s portfolio. Follow the link below to chat with our team about strategies for business owners: