When working with a client, there are times you’ll want to get specific, and times when it’s okay to be more general. For example, if you’re simply conveying a concept to a client, being “general” with numbers is okay. In fact, it’s usually preferred, because then they can focus on the concept rather than what the demonstration says about their personal economy.
In cases like this, the interpolate function can be helpful, especially if you aren’t ready to run an illustration on a client yet. In Life Insurance Values, the interpolate function allows you to take existing data and interpolate it based on either the desired cash value, death benefit, or premium payment. This makes it possible to estimate what a policy might look like.
Another reason interpolation can be useful is if you run an illustration for a client, and they want to see what would happen if they increased their premium or their death benefit. This allows you to get a fairly accurate read, before going through the process of getting another illustration.
Life Insurance Values
In Life Insurance Values, you can load up to 6 permanent life insurance illustrations and 4 term life insurance illustrations. Once you save the file, these data points are permanently stored in that file, unless otherwise updated. Once you have data in this tool, you can pull it into any of the life insurance compatible calculators. That way, you can do this work behind the scenes, which takes time.
Additionally, you can pull in data from other Save files. If you have a file with life insurance data that’s similar to what you want to illustrate, you can click “Import Values from Existing Case Files.” If you want to interpolate life insurance data, pulling in existing data can give you a baseline.
Note that you can also use the copy-and-paste method with an existing illustration for your baseline.
Interpolating the Data
Interpolation is something that happens within individual calculators. When you’re ready to “Load Stored Life Insurance Data” (this button is found on all Life-Values-compatible calculators) this is the screen where you’ll interpolate.
For example, let’s open a Funding calculator. When you click “Load Stored Life Insurance Data” it will show you every illustration you have stored in your current Save file, whether you loaded it in from an existing case or copied and pasted it in fresh.
First, you want to click the “Interpolate” button next to the policy you’re interested in. This will give you 3 options: CV, DB, and Premium. Click the option you want to interpolate for, and you’ll have the option to write in your own number. In this instance, we’ve chosen to interpolate the Premium for $20,000.
Then, to load the illustration, you want to click on the NAME of the illustration under the column on the left labelled “Illustration to Load.” This will populate your interpolation. A window should pop up asking if you want to overwrite the existing data in Funding, and you should hit “Yes.” Then you can close out the Life Insurance window.
If you haven’t yet, you’ll want to change the “Years to Illustrate, “Current Age,” and “Policy Start Year” to reflect the policy data you have. As you can see below, we’ve successfully interpolated the Premium to represent $20,000.
Now, you should be an interpolation expert!
To learn more tips and tricks, attend a Truth Training!