Generated May 25, 2026 | Same out of pocket: $70,000 a year for 15 years. Both protect Alyssa's family with $10,000,000.
Diamond's policy is Indexed Universal Life, not whole life. The simple alternative: buy a $10,000,000 term policy and invest the rest of your $70,000 yourself. Instead of pretending the market returns a smooth 7% or 10% every year, the investment side here runs through every real S&P 500 stretch since 1970. The middle number is the typical (median) result, and the small range under it is the worst-to-best you would have gotten depending on which years you lived through.
Plan A: The financed IUL (Diamond's pitch)
You pay $70,000/year. A bank adds $331,875/year, so $401,875/year of premium goes to work (prop-alyssa.pdf).
About 6 times more money working, but borrowed. The policy repays the loan out of itself.
Death benefit is permanent. Gains are capped. The figures are the illustration's smooth 6.84%, not run on real history.
Plan B: Buy term, invest the rest
$6,765/year buys $10,000,000 of 30-year term (term4sale.com).
$63,234.90/year goes into an S&P 500 index fund, uncapped, fully yours.
Death benefit is the account plus $10,000,000 through age 64, then the account alone once term ends.
Age by age, on real market history
Age
Plan A: the IUL (illustrated)
Plan B: term + invest (real S&P history)
Cash
Death benefit
Account: median (worst to best)
Death benefit (median)
40
$2,566,232
$12,566,232
$602,899$0.31M to $0.91M
$10,602,899
45
$5,251,945
$15,251,945
$1,534,372$0.59M to $2.56M
$11,534,372
50
$1,707,927
$11,707,927
$3,066,481$1.26M to $5.94M
$13,066,481
55
$2,904,087
$12,904,087
$4,814,696$2.36M to $12.55M
$14,814,696
60
$4,759,349
$14,759,349
$6,271,566$4.32M to $23.37M
$16,271,566
65
$7,596,558
$17,596,558
$10,883,727$7.93M to $28.49M
$10,883,727
70
$11,913,713
$21,913,713
$20,029,194$15.18M to $31.56M
$20,029,194
75
$18,404,768
$28,404,768
$38,606,873$31.17M to $45.90M
$38,606,873
80
$28,002,610
$38,002,610
$73,807,758$59.23M to $90.33M
$73,807,758
85
$41,976,843
$51,976,843
$135,877,357$109.0M to $160.6M, 6 windows
$135,877,357
90
$62,109,992
$72,109,992
$235,926,2161 window (1970 to 2025)
$235,926,216
Plan A: surrender value (cash) and death benefit from Diamond's illustration (prop-alyssa.pdf), the smooth 6.84% projection, not guaranteed and not run on real history. Plan B account = $63,234.90/year for 15 years then compounded, run through every actual S&P 500 total-return window since 1970 (Wikipedia); the bold number is the median across windows, the small line is worst-to-best. Plan B death benefit = the median account plus the $10,000,000 term through age 64; at age 65 the 30-year term ends, which is the dip you see, then the account alone carries it. Green marks where Plan B leads its column; gold marks where the policy's death benefit leads, early on and again from age 65 to about 73, the window after the term expires and before the account grows past the policy's permanent death benefit. Window counts shrink with age (51 windows at 40, 26 at 65, 6 at 85, 1 at 90), so the oldest ages rest on very little history and are speculative.
What real history says. In the typical (median) outcome, the index account passes the policy's cash at age 50 and never looks back, reaching about $39M by 75 versus the policy's $18M. The reason the flat 7% earlier made the policy look competitive: real S&P history has averaged closer to 11% than 7%, so a flat 7% quietly understated the index. Run on actual returns, the index usually wins, and wins big.
But look at the worst-to-best range, that is the honest part. Markets are not smooth. At age 65 the index account ranged from $7.9M in the worst historical sequence to $28.5M in the best. In the worst stretches the policy's bank leverage stays roughly competitive. The wider point: where you land depends heavily on the sequence of years you get, which no illustration, the policy's or mine, can promise.
Two things neither column fully shows. The policy assumes its financing survives for decades: caps hold, loan rates stay low, no collateral calls, for 40 to 50 years. And the policy's own 6.84% is itself a smooth assumption, so in the same rough markets that drag the low end of the index range, the policy would credit less than illustrated too. Both sides have a downside. Only one of them has a bank loan attached.
Why the policy's gains are capped
The IUL credits the market's gain each year only up to a cap, with a 0% floor in down years. The floor helps in a crash, but the cap clips every big up year, and the market makes most of its money in those. Here is how that played out on the last 20 real years.
Year
What the S&P did (price)
What a capped policy keeps
Difference
"Capped policy keeps" = the S&P price change, limited to a 10% cap (assumption, the real cap is not printed on the illustration) and floored at 0%. Yearly returns: Wikipedia "S&P 500" annual returns table. The Average row is the simple yearly average; compounded, the S&P price return was 8.22% per year versus 6.71% capped, and the index fund earns dividends on top of price, not shown in this table.
The honest caveats
The accumulation value looks bigger than the cash. Diamond's illustration shows an "accumulation value" (for example $9,793,188 at age 54), but that is gross. The policy borrows against itself, so the cash you can take out is the surrender value shown above ($2,619,810 at age 54). The death benefit is built as $10,000,000 plus that net surrender value.
Term ends at age 65. It covers the years an early death would hurt most. By then the invested account is the self-insurance. Keeping the term to 65 costs about $6,765/year for 30 years.
The index uses real history, the policy does not. The index column is built from actual S&P 500 returns since 1970 (median and range). The policy column is its own smooth 6.84% illustration, which could not be re-run on the same real sequences. If markets are rough, the policy credits less than illustrated too.
The oldest ages rest on very few windows. Age 85 uses 6 historical sequences, age 90 just one. Treat those rows as directional, not precise.
Sources
$70,000/year out of pocket for 15 years, $401,875 funded premium, $331,875 bank loan portion, and all surrender values and death benefits by age: Diamond Patni illustration, prop-alyssa.pdf, 5/4/2026 (Gmail msg 19e5178bbc33061e, hemani.ali@gmail.com). Indexed Universal Life, illustrated at 6.84% ("AG49"), not guaranteed.
Term premium $6,765.10/year, $10M, 30-year level, female age 35, Preferred, non-tobacco: term4sale.com (Compulife), pulled May 25, 2026.
Plan B account = $63,234.90/year (= $70,000 minus $6,765.10) for 15 years, then compounded, run through every actual S&P 500 total-return sequence from 1970 to 2025 (Wikipedia "S&P 500" annual returns table). Median, minimum, and maximum across windows. Death benefit = account plus $10,000,000 through age 64.