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This truth is supported by the generic disclaimer required by regulators on every policy illustration: "Illustration results are neither a projection nor a guarantee of future results." A third (this from a commercial ad for oil filters) says, "Pay me now or pay me later." A second cliche says, "Promise 'em anything as long as you have the right to change it later." There's a cliche that says, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is." Similarly, illustrations calculating Variable Universal Life premiums in 1997 with the regulated maximum illustration rate of 12 percent - no matter how realistic that might have been then - created an unrealizable expectation as investment returns plunged in early 2000 and left those policies with ballooning net amounts at risk and the very real possibility of policy lapse years before life expectancy. Illustrations calculating Universal Life premiums in 1982 with 14 percent crediting rates - no matter how realistic that might have been then - created an unrealizable expectation as interest rates plunged to such a low level that most of the policies issued in the early 1980s are today paying only the rate guaranteed in the policy, itself a rate generally higher than otherwise warranted by current experience.

Today's and tomorrow's economic realities are simply too different from yesterday's to encourage any significant reliance. Historic policy performance data is of little or no practical use in determining "which policy will perform better?" Every sufficient level premium for each type of policy has its own theoretical cash value curve that must at least be matched by actual policy value for the policy to sustain for all years. Every sufficient level premium for every type of policy has its own theoretical cash value curve that must at least be matched by actual policy values for the policy to sustain for all years.