Epic Life Ledger

Section 1 restored — it lost its income/tax/ages, 401(k), and mortgage inputs when they moved into the Section 3 lock-in wizard last batch; they're back now as live mirrors (edit either copy, both stay in sync), and the wizard's own inputs are untouched. The wizard's step headers now show a collapse arrow next to the title and two buttons at the top right — Edit and Confirm — instead of one button buried at the bottom. The chronic illness rider is now explicitly an optional rider (on by default) with ALIS's own recommendation to include it: real advantage early on, with very little cost carried. Removed every "why one policy replaces two" explanation — the member has only ever known this one AIUL, so that framing served no one. Section 2's sandbox now shows its own chronic-illness preview (monthly draw at trigger, total drawn over the horizon, death benefit at the end) computed from the illustrative design projected forward to the real claim age and plan-through age — death benefit at the end is always face plus cash value minus any outstanding loan, interest included. Caught two real bugs in verification: claim age and plan-through age weren't actually recomputing this new preview (silently stale numbers), and a long fallback string was breaking the mobile layout — both fixed before shipping.

The chronic illness rider is now on by default, locked at its real 1%/mo elected rate (no more 1/2/4% choice — the design elects 1% and can't change it later), and once it triggers it draws every year for the rest of the plan instead of stopping after a fixed "years of need" — the death benefit runs down but never quite to zero, since each draw is a percentage of whatever's left. The Accelerated Death Benefit rider is gone entirely — the chronic illness rider is now the only accelerated-benefit mechanic (most members have never had a policy like this, so there's no reason to model a second rider on top). The increasing-to-level switch is ALIS-only now — no manual age or "never" selector, ALIS always picks it. Removed "The policy's real costs" as its own section. Policy premium now defaults to $0 everywhere (including every age-based preset) — most members are starting from scratch, not funding an existing design. Biggest change: a new "Lock in your plan" wizard at the very start of Section 3 — go step by step (your numbers → 401(k) → property & mortgage → the AIUL itself, now with its own separate total-premium input, stop age, years in force and claim age) and lock each one in before the plan runs on it. Section 2's policy topic is now explicitly just an illustration — play with it all you want, only the tax-reserve-vehicle choice and years-in-force there actually feed the real plan. Mortgage years-paid-in also gained month-level precision.

One policy now does both jobs. The Accumulation IUL carries a built-in chronic illness rider — the separate Protection IUL topic is gone, because this design makes a second policy unnecessary: the same death benefit that clears your debt is also the chronic-illness pool, and because the policy is issued increasing (Option 2), your cash value stacks on top of the face amount — the death benefit and the chronic-illness pool both grow as the cash value grows. New: ALIS picks the year the policy switches from increasing to level (the real trade-off: stay increasing longer and the death benefit keeps growing but the insurance cost keeps riding the full face; switch and the cost shrinks as cash value fills the gap) — shown with the honest dollar difference vs. never switching, and you can override it. Recalibrated everything to six fresh 2026 carrier illustrations of this exact design (both sexes, ages 30/45/60, rider included): bigger death benefit per premium dollar, new target premiums, cost model reproduces all six within 1–7% across every illustrated year (now split by sex — women's charges run genuinely lower). Chronic-illness draws now honestly cap at the IRS per-diem limit ($430/day for 2026, ≈$13,079/mo — the old $30K/mo cap belonged to the retired product) and every draw also reduces cash value proportionately, exactly as the rider actually works. The estate math now uses the real net death benefit (face + stacked cash value − loans − anything the riders drew) instead of just cash value — the "one tool beats all" story, priced honestly. Also fixed from the contract: the overfunding charge stops after policy year 20 (it was being charged forever).

The Accumulation IUL topic reorganized around what actually matters, in this order: death benefit, total annual premium, premium expense charge, current cash value, the year's tax-loan, loan available (capped at 90% of cash value — the same never-lapse limit the retirement engine already enforces, now applied here too, not just later), net gain on the loan's interest rate, net gain in dollars, cash value remaining, tax bill out of pocket. Everything an agent needs but a member doesn't (enhanced target premium, year-1 cost of insurance, face-amount charges, overfunding charge, the $20/mo admin fee, and a new "Total AIUL policy expense" that adds them all up) moved into one collapsed "stats for agents" panel — no commission math spelled out, just labeled as agent stats. New: a premium-stop-age dropdown for the Accumulation IUL (current age → 120), same as the Protection IUL already had. Clarity fixes: the premium line now says "Withholding not selected" outright when the toggle is off instead of a vague example; the loan's net cost/gain no longer uses a "negative means gain" convention — a real cost now reads as a cost, a real gain as a gain. Regression: default numbers unchanged where nothing above actually changed the math; the 90%-cap loan fix only bites when cash value is thin enough that 90% of it is less than the tax bill (a real, disclosed behavior change, not a bug); 0 JS errors.

Section 2 rebuilt around the Protection IUL. Reordered to Protection IUL → Accumulation IUL → rental property → velocity banking (with 0% biz credit and the HELOC folded in right after it) — one clean build order. The Protection IUL is now its own topic: coverage amount and annual premium as direct inputs, plus a new premium-stop-age dropdown (both here and on the Accumulation IUL). New: an Accelerated Death Benefit rider (terminal illness, one-time lump sum of 30–70% of what's left of the death benefit, included by default since real carriers bundle it free) alongside the existing chronic-illness/LTC rider (now a discrete 1/2/4%/mo choice instead of a slider) — only one of the two can be active at a time, since both draw against the same coverage pool; whichever is on now defaults to being claimed, not preserved, matching how this design is actually meant to be used. Renamed the "Honest long-run" crediting preset to "Conservative." Regression: default legacy now genuinely includes the new default-on ADB claim ($23,513,442 vs the pre-ADB $23,913,002 — an intentional new-feature change, not a bug); stress test, journey, and every prior dependency (HELOC↔mortgage, biz credit↔velocity) verified working post-reorder; 0 JS errors.

Section 1 cleanup. Retirement age and the age to pass down the estate moved to live only in Section 3 (right where the retirement plan actually runs) — no more duplicate sliders to keep in sync. The 401(k) explainer is now plain language, no jargon. Removed three lines that were more clutter than insight (years it contributes, average annual withdrawal, total withdrawn) and kept effective tax rate. New: an early-withdrawal-penalty line — and a real gap it uncovered: the plan wasn't charging the actual 10% IRS penalty on money touched before age 59½, even though it's supported retiring as early as 40 since b15. Fixed at the engine level (threaded into the draw-sizing math itself, so an early retirement plan correctly draws more to net the same lifestyle) — a real, not cosmetic, fix. Regression: default (retire at 65) numbers byte-identical; a 50-year-old retirement scenario now correctly shows a real $201,775 penalty and a much lower legacy, exactly as it should; 0 JS errors.

Two things. (1) Clearer explanation on "Or flip tools freely": that row is the exact same switch as each tool's own "In the plan" button — turning one back on resumes your real numbers from Section 1/2 right where they left off (not a reset to zero), unless there genuinely was no balance yet. (2) The HELOC now depends on the mortgage tool being on, the same way 0% biz credit depends on velocity chunking — a HELOC borrows against home equity, so it needs an actual home mortgage in the plan. Turn the mortgage off and the HELOC greys out, relabels "needs the mortgage," and goes fully inert (not just visually disabled); turn the mortgage back on and the HELOC restores exactly to whatever you had it set to. 0% biz credit was already confirmed to have zero effect outside of velocity chunking — no change needed there.

Stress test's "with policy" vs. "no policy" is now one side-by-side table instead of two stacked cards — every metric sits on its own row with both numbers next to each other, colored green for whichever side actually wins that row and red for the other (a near-tie stays neutral, not falsely colored). Nothing about the underlying math changed — same 10 metrics, same numbers, just laid out so the comparison reads at a glance instead of scrolling between two separate blocks.

Playbook cleanup. (1) "Learn it one tool at a time" moved to sit right above the playbook — easier to adjust a tool and immediately read the projection below it, instead of scrolling back up. (2) The playbook tables only show a column when it actually has data this phase — a plan that isn't using the 401(k) or the HELOC no longer carries empty columns just to be thorough. (3) Renamed for clarity: Phase 1 gained "Deployed capital" (the year's total allocation) as its first column, and "Policy premium"→"Fund policy", "401(k)"→"Fund 401(k)", "Refund in pool"→"Tax refunded", "Property cash"→"Rental income", "Mortgage left"→"Mortgage debt". Phase 2: "Need"→"Income", "Property cash"→"Rental income", "Tax"→"Tax bill" (now shown as a negative number, so it reads as money leaving, not just a magnitude).

Three fixes/additions from real use. (1) Fixed a real bug in the stress test: if you'd switched the policy tool off, "with policy" and "without policy" silently collapsed to the identical plan (turning the toggle off made no difference at all) — each side now gets its own honest best plan, policy forced on vs. forced off, regardless of your current toggle. (2) "The full picture" journey step now stays open when you flip a tool off or on — it used to kick you straight back to freeform mode; now you can customize which tools are in the mix and watch the same dashboard update live, without losing the guided view. (3) New: Section 4 now flags it live whenever home or rental debt isn't covered by insurance or equity, with a "buy, borrow, die" explainer and two honest levers — raising the Protection IUL's death benefit (no invented premium cost — ask your agent for a real quote) and, separately, funding the Accumulation IUL further (a real, modeled lever that also raises how much can go in before the overfunding charge).

Fixed a real gap in the estate math: the "death benefit vs. the debt" check only ran when the chronic-illness/LTC rider was switched on — with LTC off, the tool always assumed the death benefit fully covered the home debt, even if you'd set it lower than what's actually owed. Now that check runs every time, whether or not LTC is in the picture, so the legacy number always reflects a real coverage gap if one exists.

Fixed a real point of confusion in the "flip tools freely" row: 0% biz credit was shown as its own independent switch sitting right next to velocity chunking, but it does nothing on its own — it only speeds up chunks velocity chunking is already landing. Now it greys out and reads "needs velocity chunking" whenever velocity is off, instead of looking like two separate tools both attacking the mortgage. Turning velocity back on restores your 0% biz credit setting exactly as you left it.

New: "📄 Generate member report" in the floating ALIS panel — a printable, 7-page report (cover, your starting point, the plan built for you, retirement outcome, stress-test results, playbook highlights, disclosures) built entirely from the numbers already on screen. Auto-runs the stress test first if you haven't clicked it yet, so the report is never incomplete. Print or Save as PDF straight from the browser. The disclosures page pulls its text live from this tool's own existing, already-sourced caveats — nothing new was written — and carries a note that TLA's compliance function should review final wording before this goes to a real member.

The 401(k) now de-risks with age, the way real accounts do. Almost nobody in their 50s runs 90% stocks with retirement on the line — so instead of one flat growth rate forever, the account follows the standard target-date glide path (Vanguard's published anchors): ~90% stocks through age 40, easing to 50/50 at retirement, 30/70 bonds by 72. You set what the stock market earns (default: its real 10.02%/yr full record since 1928, with a one-tap "recent era 2011–2025 — 13.94%" alternative); the bond slice earns the 10-yr Treasury's real record (4.82%/yr). The stress test draws both legs with their real volatility — so a market dip late in life now hits a 30%-stocks account, not a 90% one, which is exactly why the glide exists. Side effect worth knowing: this also fixed an internal inconsistency — the stress test's floor/cap crediting now lands at 6.42%/yr against the 6.40% "honest long-run" default, where before the two quietly disagreed by almost a full point. The story is told in the journey too: the 401(k) must trade growth away for safety as you age — the policy never has to, because its 0% floor IS its safety.

Two additions. (1) The stress test now shows income extracted and total wealth (legacy + income), worst/median/best across all 1,000 market histories — same rigor it already gave legacy, so a "Max income" plan gets the same downside-risk visibility a "Max legacy" plan always had. (2) Real-world rates instead of round marketing numbers: mortgage 6.43% (Freddie Mac's weekly survey), HELOC 7.46% (Bankrate national average), investment-property loan 7.18% (primary + typical premium), home appreciation 4.44% (the same Case-Shiller figure already used elsewhere in this tool). Sliders still move freely — these are just more honest starting points.

Fixed the ALIS output tiles (Outcome/Legacy/Total tax paid, etc.) — longer titles like "401(k)→loan payoff" or "Losses carried to retirement" were overflowing their little boxes instead of wrapping to a second line. Now they wrap cleanly at every screen size.

Three fixes from real use. (1) Added a "+ Add my tax withholding on top" switch on the policy premium — since the policy no longer automatically counted redirected withholding, the tax bill was often showing as paid mostly out of pocket instead of through a policy loan; flip the switch to add your real withholding on top of the premium and see the loan actually cover it (and the effect on the full retirement projection). (2) Made the whole page work on a phone: the playbook now shows as stacked cards instead of a table, both charts stay crisp instead of shrinking to tiny text, and buttons/sliders/spacing are sized for a touch screen. (3) Trimmed the walls of text — shorter, plainer explainer paragraphs throughout, and the long compliance/assumption disclosures now collapse behind a "tap to see" line instead of sitting open on the page (nothing was removed, just tucked away until you want it).

Fixed a real blank-screen bug: a signed-in owner could load this page and see nothing but a dark screen — the sign-in check itself was working fine, but a timing race meant the page occasionally never revealed the actual content. Same bug already found and fixed on the rest of EPIC Suite the same day; now fixed here too. Also added a safety message if the page ever genuinely fails to load (network issue, etc.) instead of leaving an unexplained blank screen.

The 401(k)-into-the-policy move now works the way it's actually done in the field. Real designs run a fixed, level premium every year — you can't just drop extra 401(k) money in as premium without risking the policy's own funding pattern and the 7-pay MEC test. So instead: when the tax math favors pulling 401(k) money out early (same rule as before — today's rate beats the projected RMD-age rate), the withdrawal now pays down the outstanding policy loan that ordinary lifestyle draws already built up, rather than becoming new premium. No MEC exposure, no premium-schedule change — just less debt against the policy going forward. The playbook and the ALIS card now describe it as a loan payoff, not a conversion. Honest note: this is still a greedy, year-by-year rule (an advisor can't see future returns either) — it fires more as the loan's own carrying cost pulls further ahead of the 401(k)'s growth rate, and can occasionally net a small loss in a thin-margin year. Real advisor judgment, not a global optimizer.

Added the enhanced target premium (1.25× target — the payout basis when year-1 client premium exceeds target, which an overfunded design like this one usually does), tucked into a collapsed "Agent — commission basis" panel under Target premium since it's agent-only. Shows the enhanced number, the year-1 client premium, and which basis actually applies for this plan. Honest note: because the face auto-sizes to whatever premium is entered, target premium is always a small share (5–14%) of the funding that sized its own face — so Enhanced applies at essentially any premium above $0, not just occasionally. That's a structural consequence of the auto-sizing design, not a bug; "Standard" is there for completeness if the face-sizing model changes later.

The policy design now knows the insured's age and sex, calibrated from six real AIUL 26 illustrations (Standard non-smoker, both sexes, ages 30/45/60). The auto-sized death benefit uses the real face-per-premium curve — it shrinks with age and runs higher for women — instead of a flat age-30 male ratio (an older member was getting too much face, overstating cost). New Male/Female toggle up top. Added a Target premium line (the commission basis — set by age, sex and base face, scaling with funding) so commission can be figured from the plan; exposed for later commission tooling. Confirmed from the same six: the cost-of-insurance difference between the sexes is under 0.5% of cash value once the correct face is used, so the calibration stays a single table (no separate change needed).

Crediting assumption now comes as three labeled, defensible stories with one-click buttons: 6.40% honest long-run (what the real 0% floor / 11.65% cap produces over the full 1928–2025 market record — the new default), 7.12% carrier illustration (their current illustrated rate, calibrated to the stronger recent era), and 8.56% last-14-years actual (what the carrier's first IUL really credited on average, 2011–2025). The slider still fine-tunes; the buttons make the choice of story explicit instead of hiding it in a default.

The policy is now ONE question: how much goes in each year. Everything else designs itself the way a real accumulation case does — the death benefit auto-sizes from what each candidate plan actually pays in (23× premium, 20/80 base/supplemental, real illustration ratios), the contract's overfunding limit scales with it, and ALIS now tries BOTH loan types and keeps the winner (shown on the plan card). Crediting default raised to the carrier's current illustrated 7.12% (their 14-year actual average was 8.56%). Fixed Index loan corrected to its real current 5.00% charge. The stress test gained a full indexed-account shoot-out: all six real S&P/Nasdaq accounts — caps, multipliers, bonuses and charges exactly as published — through the same 1,000 market histories, ALIS naming the winner, with the honest note that multiplier accounts pay a certain charge for a boost that only sometimes shows up. Agent calibration (cost-of-insurance %, 45% ≈ Standard non-smoker) moved into a collapsed Agent settings block.

The policy now carries its REAL costs, straight from the actual AIUL 26 contract: an age-based cost of insurance on the true net amount at risk (the contract's own rate table), face-amount charges in policy years 1–15, the new overfunding charge on premium above the contract limit, and the Fixed Index loan updated to its real terms (5.5% guaranteed charge + 0.65% guaranteed bonus on the collateral). The cost model was calibrated against a real client illustration and matches its cash values within about 1% across 20 years. Policy-heavy numbers came DOWN as a result — that's honesty arriving, not performance leaving. Set the face amounts from a real illustration in the "policy's real costs" section; face $0 switches the chassis off. Also: the "optimistic upper bound" warning is finally retired — the two pieces it flagged (no cost of insurance, no fee data) are now modeled.

Two big additions, built together. Smart 401(k) conversions: before RMDs start at 73, ALIS now checks every year whether paying tax at today's rate and moving money into the policy beats leaving it to be forced out at a worse rate later — when converting genuinely wins, it happens automatically, shows up in the playbook year by year, and a card tile shows exactly what the conversions added (a real re-run without them, not an estimate). The stress test (Section 4): runs your exact plan through 1,000 different market histories with real S&P 500 volatility — the policy's crediting rides the same market through its real 0% floor and 11.65% cap (the current John Hancock Base Capped account), and the same 1,000 histories also run with no policy at all, so you can see what the floor is actually worth when markets misbehave. All volatility and product numbers are sourced, listed under the test.

Section 3 reordered: "Set the plan" (ages, contribution, goal, lifestyle) now comes first, "Learn it one tool at a time" right below it — so the journey runs the member's real numbers instead of the page defaults.

New chart at the top of the playbook: every vehicle's balance (401(k), policy cash value, HELOC, home mortgage, property value) on one age axis, build phase straight into retirement, with a marker at the retirement age. Also added an "LTC draw" column to the retirement playbook table — it was computed all along but not shown.

Fixed a "$0" that read as a dead end: when the depreciation write-off is suspended by income (not lost — it carries forward), the journey and the Opportunities dashboard now show it as "Potential depreciation" with the real dollar value it would be worth in tax if unlocked, plus a direct pointer to Section 4's three qualifying ways to unlock it.

Big reorder: Section 2 now runs policy → HELOC → 0% business credit → velocity banking → the rental property last (buy-age is its first input), funded from the capacity those tools just built. Chronic-illness/LTC now defaults ON when you set a Protection IUL premium (a real product feature, not an opt-in extra — click it off if you don't want it). The LTC trade-off is now ENFORCED, not just disclosed: a new Section 3 "Preserve vs. draw" choice, and any shortfall between what's left of the death benefit and what's needed to clear the debt now actually reduces legacy. "Plan through age" renamed "Age to pass down estate." The 7-step journey now itemizes the real numbers per step: interest saved + payoff time on Attack the Mortgage, the incremental stacking win on Use the Bank's Money, Protection IUL and Accumulation IUL shown as two separate line items on the tax-free engine step, the depreciation write-off clawed back on Buy a Property, and the Full Picture step compares against day one, not just the step before it.

The cash-value policy now speaks plainly about its age: the slider reads "Policy in force for X years already," the ledger shows "Current cash value" (what the policy holds today), and a new "Policy year at retirement" line shows where the fee clock will stand when you retire — including when the cheap year-11 tier (2% premium charge, true 0%-net wash loans) kicks in. Also: slide your age in Section 1 and the other numbers preset to typical starting points for that life stage (they stop auto-filling the moment you customize anything; a button re-applies on demand). Typical ≠ yours — future versions will auto-fill from real member data as it's collected.

Built for people in their 20s too, not just 40+: current age now goes down to 20, retirement age down to 40 (early-retirement plans work), and property purchase ages down to 20 — with the engine extended to handle up to an 80-year retirement window without cutting it short.

Honest 401(k) handling when you don't have one: marked "Not applicable" now truly excludes it everywhere (fixed a leak where leftover chunk money could still slip into it), and split labels drop it entirely instead of showing "0% qualified." With a $0 balance but the tool on, splits that use it now say "(new — built from $0)" so it's clear ALIS is proposing to open one. Also: when two plans look identical on your goal after rounding, ALIS now picks the one leaving the bigger legacy — a win too small to see shouldn't beat real money left behind.

New chronic-illness/long-term-care topic: model an accelerated draw on the Protection IUL's death benefit (1–4%/mo, capped at $30,000/mo) as a real tax-free income source — off by default, since it's a scenario, not a certainty. The trigger-age default (80) is sourced from real LTC statistics (cited in the caveat), not guessed. Every dollar drawn is shown reducing the death benefit left for the estate.

New "Annual policy fee" section isolates two real costs that were either missing or bundled in: a Protection IUL's own annual premium (sizes the death-benefit coverage, separate from the cash-value policy), and the Accumulation IUL's cost of insurance on top of the already-modeled admin fee. Both default to $0 (no fabricated numbers) — enter a real quote/illustration figure to see the honest impact. The cash-value policy is now a cleaner "pure savings vehicle" once fees are isolated like this.

Velocity banking (and 0% business-credit stacking) now works across EVERY loan you own, not just the home mortgage — it auto-optimizes by always attacking whichever loan (home or any rental) carries the highest rate first, a guaranteed-return waterfall. Also fixed a small gap: chunk dollars left over after a loan got fully paid off used to be lost for that year — they now correctly flow into the policy instead, which nudges default numbers up slightly.

Ages and lifestyle now adjustable from Section 3 and the floating ALIS panel too (not just Section 1) — all copies stay in sync. Plan-through age can go to 120. Fixed a confusing duplicate: "Cash value at retirement start" appeared twice with different numbers — the smaller one is really today's value; relabeled it and pointed to the real (bigger) retirement-start figure.

More room for members with less debt or savings: 401(k) balance and mortgage principal can now go all the way to $0, and property prices can go as low as $50K–$100K instead of a $300K floor.

Whole page reorganized into the advisor flow: Section 1 your numbers, Section 2 the tools, Section 3 the optimized plan, Section 4 opportunities (a live dashboard of tax to claw back, suspended write-offs, unused room, and a real what-if for one more property). Every asset/tool now has an "In the plan / Not applicable" switch, and the ALIS panel gained an Apply button that rebuilds the year-by-year playbook.

Buying a property is now a future move, not day one: pick an age to buy (yours or up to 3 more), funded by a HELOC or policy loan against what the plan has actually built by then — the tool tells you honestly if the room isn't there yet. Every property now carries a real loan payment and a real tax write-off that carries forward, so the numbers reflect true cash flow, not just gross rent. "Total tax paid" is back as an FYI line under Total wealth.

Three goals to choose from in the ALIS panel: Max legacy, Max income (ALIS finds your biggest sustainable lifestyle), or Most of both. Added a "Total wealth created" line (income kept + legacy left).

Income-extracted figure fixed to be net of tax, not gross withdrawn. Tax bracket removed as something you set — ALIS searches the pacing automatically.

First full build: velocity banking, the real-estate tax break, the tax-reserve policy, and the retirement blend, with a guided step-by-step learning journey.