Important Holiday & End of Year Dates and Deadlines

To make payments for Life and Annuity policies:

• Customer Web Portal – visit https://www.nationallife.com
  • This is by far the easiest way for your client to make payments, update your account information, or request disbursements!
  • In the upper right corner, click Login/Register and select customers.
• Automatic phone payment – Call 1-800-732-8939
  • You will need to have a copy of your premium or loan notice in front of you.
  • To make a payment via Automatic phone system, select prompt 2 and then listen to the remaining prompts.
• Automatic payments via EFT/ACH
  • There is an updated 1707/EFT Authorization form available on our website – this version is easier for the customer to understand and enables payment on multiple policies. (Older versions will still be honored.)
  • Customers who wish to sign up for automatic payments for recurring premium and/or loan payments on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis may enroll in our Automatic EFT payment option.
  • Click here to access the new form.
• Wires
  • JPMorgan Chase
  • ABA No: 021000021
    • For Life Business:
      • Account Name: NL EFT Premium Account
      • Account Number: 323115888
      • For Annuity Business:
        • Account Name: Life Insurance Company of the Southwest
        • Account Number: 8805011770
  • Be sure to include the policy number and proposed insured’s name
• Checks — Of course, checks are welcome as well.

Annuities:

• For all business except California group business, please submit the initial premium check along with the premium notice to:
  • National Life PO Box 121109, Dept 1109 Dallas, TX 75312-1109
• For California group business, please submit the initial premium check along with the premium notice to:
  • National Life Dept LA 21527 Pasadena, CA 91185

Life:

• For initial payments, please mail to:
  • National Life 1 National Life Drive Montpelier, VT 05604

After initial payment, please submit checks to the address on your bill.

To make time-sensitive disbursement requests before year-end:

Any Life or Annuity policy disbursement request (including required minimum distributions) received by the home office after Friday, December 7 may not be processed prior to year-end. In order to ensure processing within the 2018 tax year, please submit disbursement requests in advance of this date.

We want to ensure your National Life Group Life and Annuity new business is processed as quickly as possible, allowing you to meet your production goals.

Annuity New Business Tips

• Utilize e-App – this ensures all of the proper paperwork is completed.  With recent enhancements this year for eApp, this process has become even easier!

• Missing Suitability information. Section I, Question 1– Liquid Net Worth – provide a total and its corresponding breakdown among the various products listed.  If liquid assets are in other products not listed, list that information under #17.
  • Section IV, Questions 18a & 18b– Ensure to check all the sources and lines of business the money is coming from.
  • Please ensure these fields are fully completed as they are often incomplete.  It will help with getting the case through suitability in a timely fashion.
• Lead time.  Submit your cases with enough lead time to allow for completion by year-end, please see below for specific cut off dates. To reduce not-in-good-order (NIGO) submissions, please use eApp.  To help prevent delays in processing your replacement or transfer business, be sure to submit the SIGNED transfer paperwork to National Life Group when using eApp.  Most carriers do not accept an electronic signature for transfers.

Wires received after 4:00 p.m. will be processed the next business day, to help track wires sent if you can obtain the federal reference number and time the wire was sent this would be very helpful.

Life New Business Tips

• Utilize e-App & web based illustrations – this ensures all of the proper paperwork is completed.  With recent enhancements this year for our life and annuity eApp, this process has become even easier!
• Draft the initial premium – If the client wants to utilize our monthly EFT process for payments, authorizing us to draft the initial premium on the application will ensure that the case is bound immediately upon policy issuance.
• Complete transfer paperwork fully – all forms are signed by the policy owner; the Insured’s signature is not required on any current versions of NLG replacement/1035 forms.  It is very helpful to receive the 9685 Exchange form at submission of the application.
• Expedite transfers – providing federal express account information so we can forward with the transfer will speed up the 1035 $ coming to us.  Conservation letters that indicates the client wishes to waive all conservation attempts and move forward with the 1035 exchange.  Not all carriers will honor this request but it can help to expedite processing time.
• Provide proper owner and beneficiary information – especially if the case is business owned or a trust is involved.  This ensures we are able to keep our promises!
• Complete all aspects of the application – if submitting paper.  The more information you provide, the less we have to go back and ask for clarification on which can delay the process.

Prepare your client for the underwriting process:

• Use our Field Underwriting Guide – to ensure you know how best to prepare your client.
• Provide good field underwriting – knowing what medical histories will require a full blood & urine/exam (diabetes/morbid obesity) will help to expedite the process.
• Schedule exam/labs as early as possible – remember once scheduled, exams can take approximately 11 days to complete and labs 24 hours (unless reflexive tests are required).
• Third party financials and financial questionnaires are required for cases $5 million and above. Other amounts are at the Underwriter’s discretion.
• Remember the 4 W’s when a question is answered “yes”:
  • What, When, Where & Why – the more details an underwriter has about situations the sooner they can turn the case around for you.
• Use underwriting questionnaires.
• Use cover letters – they are extremely powerful when needing to provide additional insight about your client or the concept used for the sale.

If you have a case where you are uncertain how to price the client, use our Quick Quote process (responses will be provided within 24 hours) – UnderwritingQuotes@NationalLife.com

Submitting an application ‘in good order’ can help to cut cycle times (the time from application submission through policy mailing) in half.

Use e-App so this is done for you!

Remember, if you have any questions around this process, we are here for you and want to ensure your experience with the National Life Group is the best possible.

Commission Cut-Off Dates

Please keep the following dates in mind as you prepare for commission cut offs.  Due to the holiday season, the regular scheduled cut offs may land on a different day of the week.

Friday, December 21: last commission cut off for NL issued products
Thursday, December 27: last commission cut off for LSW issued products

Life Application Deadlines

Pension /Profit Sharing Plans – 12/14/18 Requirements must be received in good order to be processed for year end.

Term Conversions that require No Underwriting – 12/21/18 Term conversion paperwork must be received in good order to be processed for year end.

Year –End December 28 – 12/21/18 is the deadline that your final case requirements should be received by the home office for business that must be processed by December 28.

Rewrite Submissions – Final day for rewrite submissions will be Monday, December 17th.

In order to get your paid business handled for the year-end commission cut-off, formal applications will be prioritized over trial/inquiry business.  Please note our turnaround time is 10 days.

Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Requests

All 2018 RMD requests must be received by Friday, December 14 in order to guarantee that they will be processed by year-end.

• RMDs from tax-qualified retirement accounts are required by April 1 of the year after the policy owner turns 70 ½. If the RMD is delayed until April 1, then two distributions will be required in that calendar year
• NOTE: 403(b) RMDs may be delayed until April 1 of the calendar year following the calendar year in which the employee retires or age 75
• Subsequent RMDs are required by December 31 of each year

In any year an RMD is not taken, the policy owner may be subject to IRS penalties, up to 50% of the RMD amount.

To assist agents and policy owners, we offer an automatic program that will calculate and send the required distribution each year. This program allows policy owners to select the start date, change the dollar amount, or stop the distribution at any time. Please use Form 20179 (Cat. No. 101913) Automated Withdrawal Programs to set up or change RMD requests.

We look forward to working with you through the end of 2018 and into 2019.

If you have questions please contact our Life and Annuity Service Center at 800-906-3310.