SHARON MBAKILE
LICENSED INSURANCE AGENT
NPN #21099201
LICENSED IN 25 STATES
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About

I show clients the illustration and the one the industry doesn't print.

I'm Sharon Mbakile, a licensed insurance agent specializing in indexed universal life. My practice is built on a single conviction: an IUL sold on its best-case column is a policy waiting to disappoint someone — so every design I present is stress-tested at 5% before you ever see the target rate.

Everything published on this site — the carrier reviews, the comparisons, the guides — is written by me, from the same standard I use with paying clients. Including the parts that tell some readers an IUL isn't right for them.

I'm based in Atlanta, Georgia, licensed in 25 states, and I came to insurance three years ago after a career as a project manager in the IT industry — work that teaches you exactly one unshakeable lesson: a plan that only works in the best-case scenario is not a plan.

The standard behind every recommendation

These aren't marketing lines — they're the checklist applied to every illustration that leaves my desk. If an agent you're already working with won't do these three things, that tells you something.

§1 — THE STRESS TEST

Every policy shown at 5% flat

Regulation caps what carriers may illustrate; I go further and show you the conservative case first. If the design fails at 5%, we redesign or walk away.

§2 — THE DESIGN RULE

Minimum death benefit for accumulation

Accumulation policies are built at the smallest death benefit the IRS allows for your premium — the structure that maximizes your cash value, not my commission.

§3 — THE HONEST NO

"Don't buy this" is a real answer

If you haven't captured your 401(k) match, can't sustain the funding, or only need a death benefit — your report will say so, with what I'd do instead.

Why I work this way

When I got licensed and started reviewing policies people already owned, I kept seeing the same thing: designs built for the agent's commission instead of the client's outcome. Death benefits sized to maximize the payday. Premiums the client was never going to sustain. Illustrations run at maximum rates that were never going to happen — with nobody ever showing the conservative column.

The ones that stay with me are the young people. Somewhere along the way, social media convinced a generation that an IUL "becomes your own bank" — that you can casually fund a policy and borrow your way to wealth. I've reviewed too many policies sold on that promise to people who deserved the truth: an underfunded IUL doesn't become your bank. It becomes an expensive policy quietly collapsing under its own fees, and the person holding it usually finds out years too late.

None of that is a product problem — indexed universal life is a genuinely good tool for the right buyer. It's an honesty problem. The same illustration software that can design a policy that works can design a fantasy, and too many people only find out which one they bought in year twelve.

So I run my practice the way I ran projects: stress-test everything, show the conservative case first, and never present a plan I wouldn't stand behind when the best case doesn't happen. This site exists so you can find out what you're really buying — before you sign.

What working with me looks like

STEP 1

You request an illustration

One minute of basics — age, state, goal, comfortable funding. No health exam, no commitment.

STEP 2

I run it twice, across carriers

Target rate and 5% stress test, on 2–3 carriers matched to your goal — delivered within one business day with my written read.

STEP 3

You decide — informed

We walk through it on a short call if you want one. Proceed, redesign, or walk away. All three are fine outcomes.