Most people who buy life insurance are quoted before they are asked anything meaningful. A price arrives, it is compared against another price, and a decision gets made on the only variable anyone put in front of them.
A structured fact-finder does something different. It asks what you own, who depends on it, what is already in force, what your income has to replace, and what you want to happen to all of it afterwards. It produces a written document, and that document is what the recommendation is built on.
The reason it matters is not paperwork. It is that the gaps only become visible once everything is written down in the same place. A family with a term policy from nine years ago, a small group benefit through work, and a business with no buy-sell agreement is not underinsured in one way. They are underinsured in three, and only one of those is fixed by buying more term.
It also protects you from us. When the recommendation has to be traceable back to something you said, it becomes very difficult for anyone to sell you something that only suits the person selling it.
In most states this is the law.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners revised its Suitability in Annuity Transactions Model Regulation, model number 275, in 2020, replacing a suitability standard with a best interest standard. States began adopting it in January 2021, and most have now written some version of it into their own code.
The regulation puts four obligations on a producer: care, disclosure, conflict of interest and documentation. The care obligation requires the producer to exercise reasonable diligence, care and skill to know the consumer’s financial situation, insurance needs and financial objectives before making a recommendation.
Knowing those things is not left to judgment. Minnesota Statutes section 72A.2031 defines consumer profile information as information reasonably appropriate to determine whether a recommendation addresses the consumer’s financial situation, insurance needs and financial objectives, and then lists fifteen items it must include at a minimum:
- “age”
- “annual income and anticipated material changes in annual income”
- “financial situation and needs, including debts and other obligations”
- “financial experience”
- “insurance needs”
- “financial objectives”
- “intended use of the annuity”
- “financial time horizon”
- “existing assets or financial products, including investment, annuity, and insurance”
- “liquidity needs and anticipated material changes in liquidity needs”
- “liquid net worth and anticipated material changes in liquid net worth”
- “risk tolerance, including but not limited to willingness to accept nonguaranteed elements”
- “financial resources used to fund the annuity”
- “tax status”
- “whether or not the consumer has a reverse mortgage”
That list is written for annuity recommendations. Read it as a description of what a competent producer needs to know before recommending anything, because it is, and because an agent who cannot answer those fifteen questions about you has not done enough work to make a recommendation you should act on.
What the questions are actually for
A fact-finder is not an interrogation and it is not an application. Nothing on it is underwriting. Here is what each part is doing.
What you own, and what you owe
The house and what is left on the mortgage. Retirement accounts and their balances. Savings, taxable investments, a business interest, rental property. Then the other side: car loans, a home equity line, private student loans somebody co-signed, credit balances, and any business debt personally guaranteed.
This produces the number that has to be covered if an income stops. Federal student loans in the borrower’s own name are discharged at death. Most other debt is not, and a co-signed loan lands entirely on the co-signer.
Who depends on it
How many people, how old they are, and how long each of them will need support. A household with a three year old is exposed for a different span than one with a sixteen year old, and the coverage should be sized to the span rather than to a round number.
This is also where a non-earning spouse gets counted properly. Insure.com priced the work a stay-at-home parent performs at $145,235 a year against Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data in its 2025 index. That work has to be paid for by somebody after a death, in money or in hours, and a fact-finder is where it stops being invisible.
What is already in force
Every existing policy, including the group coverage at work that most people forget. Face amount, type, carrier, and the year it was issued.
Three things surface here almost every time. Group coverage usually ends when the job does, so it is not the foundation people assume it is. An old term policy may have a conversion right with a deadline nobody has checked. And a permanent policy carrying a loan may be quietly heading for a lapse, which is a tax event rather than a non-event.
Who is named on it
The beneficiary designations, primary and contingent, on every policy and every retirement account.
This is the highest-value five minutes in the whole meeting and it costs nothing. A form is what pays, not a will. The Supreme Court held in Hillman v. Maretta in 2013 that “Congress has spoken with force and clarity in directing that the proceeds belong to the named beneficiary and no other,” and the named beneficiary in that case was an ex-wife. Stale designations are the most common expensive mistake in this business and the easiest to fix.
What you want to happen
The part that is not arithmetic. Whether a child should receive money outright at eighteen or through a trust at thirty. Whether a business should pass to the one child who works in it and be equalised in cash to the others. Whether a beneficiary receives means-tested benefits that a lump sum would disqualify.
These answers change the structure of the recommendation as well as the face amount. They are also the answers nobody volunteers unless they are asked.
What comes out of a fact-finder?
A written summary of what you hold, what the arithmetic says you need, and the difference between the two. Where existing coverage is already right, it says so.
LIMRA’s 2025 Insurance Barometer Study put the number of Americans without adequate coverage near 100 million, with 40% of adults believing they need more than they have. Bryan Hodgens, senior vice president and head of LIMRA research, described the gap as one of recognition rather than intent: “The good news is that 54 million Gen Z and Millennial adults recognize their need for life insurance.”
Recognizing a gap and sizing it are different tasks. The second one requires the fifteen answers.
What a fact-finder is not
- It is not an application. Nothing on it is submitted to a carrier and nothing on it is underwriting.
- It is not a credit check.
- It does not commit you to anything, and it does not end with a signature.
- It is not a substitute for an attorney or an accountant. Where a trust or a tax question is involved, that belongs to somebody licensed to handle it.
What should you bring to a fact-finder?
Nothing on this list is required, and having it makes the meeting shorter and the answer better.
- Declaration pages for any life insurance you hold, including through work
- Recent statements for retirement accounts
- The mortgage balance and any other loan balances
- A rough figure for household income after tax
- The ages of anybody who depends on you
- Any existing will or trust, or at least whether one exists
The whole thing runs on Zoom and takes under an hour. Apex quotes every case across the more than 20 carriers we hold, and the client is never charged a fee. See the coverage we write, or talk to a member of our team. You may also want to read how a coverage amount is worked out and why the beneficiary form outranks a will.
Regulatory requirements described here vary by state. This is general information rather than legal or tax advice, and no policy is bound until a carrier issues it in writing.
