IUL calculator

An IUL calculator that starts from your own illustration.

Instead of one assumed rate, we take the premiums, charges, cap and floor your carrier printed, and run the same policy through strong markets, crashes, flat decades and lower crediting terms.

Upload your IUL illustration

Free to upload. No payment required to see what we found.

Drop your illustration here

or click to choose a PDF, up to 25MB

Make sure to include the .
Rather not send the whole document? You can

Hiding the personal details first

Your name, address, policy number and your agent’s details change nothing in the analysis. Remove them and we never see them.

Preview, on a Mac

  1. 1.Open the PDF and choose Tools → Redact.
  2. 2.Drag across each thing you want gone.
  3. 3.Choose File → Save. The text under the bars is removed at that point, not before.

Adobe Acrobat

  1. 1.All tools → Redact a PDF → Select text & images.
  2. 2.Drag across each thing you want gone.
  3. 3.Click Apply, then save. Nothing is removed until you click Apply.

Use the Redact tool, not a drawn rectangle. A filled shape drawn over text keeps the words underneath it, where they can still be selected and copied. It looks hidden and is not.

Two to keep: your date of birth or issue age, and your risk class. Without them the analysis is built on the wrong insured — if you would rather remove those too, type just those two in on the next screen.

 first, or type the figures in yourself.

The problem

An illustration shows one future. Your policy has many.

WHAT THE ILLUSTRATION SHOWSWHAT WE TESTWHAT YOU LEARNSTAYED IN FORCELAPSEDCHARGES, OUT OF WHAT IT EARNEDAGAINST INVESTING YOURSELF
We test many futures—crashes, volatility, flat markets and historical market sequences—to see how often the policy stays in force, what it costs in each, and how it compares with investing the same money yourself.

The markets

Every market your policy is run through.

Each chart is 50 years of one market in our library, one bar per year: green for a year the index rose, red for a year it fell, all on one scale. These are tests, not forecasts: they show how much the outcome depends on the market, not how likely each market is.

  • Real S&P 500 history

    9.0% a year
    Worst year −38%Best year +34%

    The index's own annual price returns for the most recent years, in the order they happened.

  • Real history, run backwards

    9.0% a year
    Worst year −38%Best year +34%

    The same years in the opposite order.

  • Strong growth, small swings

    10.0% a year
    Worst year −5%Best year +31%

    10% a year, with small moves from one year to the next.

  • Strong growth, large swings

    10.0% a year
    Worst year −38%Best year +83%

    10% a year, with large moves up and down.

  • Weak growth, small swings

    2.0% a year
    Worst year −15%Best year +24%

    2% a year, with small moves from one year to the next.

  • Weak growth, large swings

    2.0% a year
    Worst year −43%Best year +65%

    2% a year, with large moves up and down.

  • No growth, small swings

    -0.0% a year
    Worst year −17%Best year +16%

    0% a year, with small moves.

  • A lost decade

    4.8% a year
    Worst year −30%Best year +54%

    The same 6% market the crashes are built on, except that the first 10 years end where they began, with moderate swings along the way.

  • A crash in years 4 and 5

    4.7% a year
    Worst year −25%Best year +54%

    A market growing about 6% a year that falls about 40% over two years, then recovers.

  • A crash in years 24 and 25

    4.7% a year
    Worst year −25%Best year +54%

    The same market and the same fall, twenty years later.

  • A crash in years 44 and 45

    4.7% a year
    Worst year −25%Best year +54%

    The same market and the same fall, forty years later.

  • Two crashes

    3.4% a year
    Worst year −25%Best year +54%

    The same market with the same fall in years 4 and 5 and again in years 24 and 25.

The tests

And what else we change, one thing at a time.

  1. 01

    Your illustration, rebuilt

    We read the premiums, charges and crediting terms your illustration prints and reproduce its cash values to within 5% before testing anything.

  2. 02

    Real S&P 500 history

    Your policy credited from the actual S&P 500 years, each year put through your own cap, floor and spread.

  3. 03

    Lower crediting terms

    Your cap and spread moved halfway to their guaranteed limits for 10 years, early in the policy and then late.

  4. 04

    A higher cost of insurance

    The cost of insurance doubled for 10 years, or raised to the contract's maximum if that is lower.

  5. 05

    The guarantees alone

    Where the policy allows it, what remains when only the contractual guarantees are honored.

  6. 06

    Any rate you choose

    The spreadsheet that comes with the report types the credited rate into every year. Set it to 4% or 3% and the cash value recalculates.

  7. 07

    Your real growth rate

    The IRR of your premiums, read off the illustration's own figures, next to the crediting rate it assumes.

On a real policy

What one policy earned against what its illustration assumed.

What if my policy earns less than the rate on my illustration?

The rate printed on an illustration is an assumption. Here is how far it can be from what the money actually earns.

6.59%

The crediting rate the illustration assumes

5.9%

The IRR of the premiums against the year-40 cash value, both as the illustration prints them

One real illustration, a 30-year-old who does not smoke.

The printed rate is not your growth rate

On one real illustration, the rate on the front page is 6.59%. Put the premiums and the year-40 cash value printed on that illustration into an IRR, and the money grows at about 5.9% a year. The difference is mostly what the charges take out.

How fast is your IUL money really growing?
Two lines across 51 thirty-year stretches, the first ending in 1975 and the last in 2025. The uncapped account's IRR runs from 5.6% to 8.6%, the capped account's from 4.7% to 5.9%, and the uncapped line is above the capped line in every stretch. A dashed line marks 5.6%, the IRR of the illustration's own printed cash value at year 30.

Real market history, with today's cap

We applied the current cap and spread of the policy we analyzed to every 30-year stretch of the S&P 500 since 1946. The capped account earned between 4.7% and 5.9% a year, and the uncapped account between 5.6% and 8.6%.

What an IUL would have earned over the last 30 years

10 years

Crediting terms held halfway to their guaranteed minimums

Early and late

Two placements, because when it happens changes the result

A stress test, not a forecast of what the carrier will do.

Lower crediting terms, tested on your own policy

A carrier can lower the cap or raise the spread, within limits the contract sets. We move your policy's crediting terms halfway to their guaranteed minimums for 10 years, early and then late, and run it through every market we test, slow-growing and flat ones included. You see how much cash value the lower terms cost.

How the calculator tests a policy
T8fx=M8*O8
YearAgeCredited rateInterest creditedAccount value, end
61316.59%=M6*O6=O6+…+T6
72326.59%=M7*O7=O7+…+T7
83334.00%=M8*O8=O8+…+T8
94344.00%=M9*O9=O9+…+T9
105354.00%=M10*O10=O10+…+T10
Typed in from your illustration, yours to changeFormulas

Try 4% or 3% yourself, in the spreadsheet

The report comes with a spreadsheet that rebuilds your illustration with formulas. The credited rate is typed into every year, so you can set it to 4% or 3%, for every year or for one, and watch the cash value and the death benefit recalculate.

How to check an IUL's real growth rate in a spreadsheet
1 of 4

The report

Every result, written up chapter by chapter.

The report answers each question with your illustration's own figures and the markets above, and comes with the spreadsheet behind it.

IULCheck.comReport

Your IUL, chapter by chapter

Contents

  1. 1Your policy
  2. 2What this policy costs
  3. 3How the policy may grow
  4. 4Whether the policy stays in force
  5. 5How you can access your money: surrender vs. loan
  6. 6How the tax treatment works
  7. 7What's actually guaranteed
  8. 8How it compares with investing yourself
  9. 9What protection you're actually buying (with a term quote)
  10. 10What you asked (when you ask a question)
T8fx=M8*O8
YearAgeCredited rateInterest creditedAccount value, end
61316.59%=M6*O6=O6+…+T6
72326.59%=M7*O7=O7+…+T7
83334.00%=M8*O8=O8+…+T8
94344.00%=M9*O9=O9+…+T9
105354.00%=M10*O10=O10+…+T10
Typed in from your illustration, yours to changeFormulas

And a spreadsheet with the formulas

Every year’s credited rate is typed in at the rate your illustration assumes. Change it to 4% or 3%, in every year or in one, and the interest, the cash value and the death benefit recalculate.

How it works

See what we found before you decide.

  1. 1

    Upload your illustration

    The PDF you were given. Take out your name and policy number first if you like.

  2. 2

    Check what we read

    We take the figures from your illustration and rerun its calculations to within 5%. You can correct anything we got wrong.

  3. 3

    See what we found

    A preview of the findings is free. You decide afterward whether you want the full report.

From the blog

More on what an IUL earns and costs.

Every article →

What does an IUL cost, and what does it earn?

How does an IUL compare with the alternatives?

Run your own policy through every market.

Upload your illustration — freeOr type the figures in

An analysis of one document. Not investment, tax or insurance advice.