It's natural to ask an agent what they own and want the same thing. People do the same thing when they sign up for a 401(k) at a new job. They don't know which funds to pick, so they ask the person from HR what they chose and copy it. The HR person's picks might be fine, but they were made for the HR person's age, savings, and comfort with risk, not yours. The 401(k) comparison is one I made when Carlo Viqueira and I took up this question on a LIFE Pod episode about copying your agent's design.
With life insurance, there are specific reasons an agent's own design might not fit you. The first is commission. When an agent buys a policy for themselves, the commission comes back to them, which offsets part of the cost. An all-base whole life policy or an all-base IUL, meaning one where nearly all of the premium goes to the base policy, carries a big commission and high early costs. A cash value design sends most of the money to paid-up additions instead and blends in term insurance. Paid-up additions are extra premium that buys small pieces of paid-up insurance and shows up as cash value quickly. For the agent, the commission softens those costs. For you, they're just costs.
The second is how some agents get into the business. In multi-level marketing insurance companies, a new recruit's first policy is often an all-base design bought from the person who recruited them. Then they sell that same design to family and friends, which pays them well, and the people they recruit do the same. Plenty of these agents don't know a lower-cost design exists, because nobody ever taught them one.
The third is that some carriers don't charge agents the premium loads on their own policies, while clients pay them. A premium load is a percentage taken off each payment before it reaches your cash value. A policy from a carrier like that can look great for the agent and much worse for the client.
A design that doesn't fit shows up in predictable ways. The cash value you can reach might be close to zero for the first year or two. The minimum premium is high, so there's no room to cut back in a tough year. People stop wanting to fund a policy that isn't growing, so they fund it less, it grows even less, and a lot of those policies end up lapsing. A well-designed policy, depending on the carrier, your age, and your health, can have around 80% to 90% of the first-year premium available as cash value, and a minimum premium that's a fraction of the full funding level.
I design my own policies the same way I design my clients' policies, and my commission doesn't factor into what I buy. But the right design for me isn't always right for you either. For older clients, blending in term insurance can cost too much, because term gets expensive with age, and an all-base whole life policy can actually be the better fit. Base premium vs. paid-up additions explains the tradeoff.
Commissions themselves aren't the problem. Agents need to get paid for good work, and I do. What matters is whether the design fits your goals and whether the commission is fair for the work. Questions to ask whoever designs your policy gives you a list to start with.
If an agent shows you their own policy as the model, ask to see yours designed two ways: built the way theirs is built, and with the smallest base the carrier allows. Compare the cash value at the end of year one and year five, and let those numbers decide.