A snapshot is a reading of your policy on one date. IBC Tool cannot see your insurance company’s portal, so it keeps showing the available loan amount and cash value from the latest snapshot that has them. When those numbers move, because of a premium, a dividend, a loan, or interest, you record a new snapshot. Until you do, the dashboard is showing the last reading you gave it.
Steps
Open Actions and select Record Snapshot. You can also select Record Snapshot in the Snapshots section of a policy page. Under How would you like to start?, choose how to enter the values.
Upload a policy summary
The policy summary is the PDF you print from the portal. It is the document that has today’s Available Loan Amount. The policy summary shows how to get it from Penn Mutual. The Lafayette Life portal shows its values on screen, not as a summary to print, so type them instead. The Lafayette Life portal shows which lines to copy.
- Select Upload a policy summary.
- Select Choose file, and choose the PDF.
- Select Upload & extract. IBC Tool reads the document and fills in the values. A large document can take a minute.
- Make sure the Policy is correct. IBC Tool chooses it from the policy number on the document. If you have more than one policy, check that it chose the one this PDF belongs to.
- Make sure the Date is correct. IBC Tool sets it from the document. The date should be the day the insurance company calculated the values, not the day you happen to be uploading.
- Check the values against the document. Read the numbers tells you which line goes in each field, and which nearby lines look right but are not.
- Optional: enter Dividends This Year. The upload does not fill this field in, because the policy summary has no single line for it.
- Select Record Snapshot.
If the policy number on the document does not match the policy IBC Tool chose, you see This document’s policy number does not match. Pick one of these. Each one does something different.
- Use the number from this document, when it is the same policy and the number on file was wrong or missing. IBC Tool changes the policy number on the policy.
- Move to this policy, after you choose the correct policy under This is a different policy. Use this when you uploaded the right file for a different policy than the one on screen.
- Wrong file, when this is not a document you meant to upload. IBC Tool clears the upload. No snapshot is saved.
A document with no available loan amount, such as an annual statement, does not fill in the values. Choose the Policy, then select Upload it with Upload document. That page reads the file again and takes it to the right step. Or type the values yourself from a policy summary.
Type the values yourself
- Select Enter manually.
- Choose the Policy.
- Enter the values. The table below says what each field is asking for.
- Select Record Snapshot.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Date | The date of the values. It starts as today. It cannot be a future date. Use the date on the document, not the day you are typing, when those differ |
| Available Loan Amount | The most you can borrow from the policy on that date |
| Cash value — which figure are you copying? | Select the figure you have, then type it. Use Cash Value (pre-loan) when you can. A net cash surrender value can include a premium refund and can already have the loan taken out. See Read the numbers |
| Loan Principal or Loan Balance | Select the figure your portal shows, then type it. Use Loan Principal for the amount you borrowed, without the accrued interest. If the insurance company shows only a combined total, select Loan Balance only and type that total. Enter 0 if the policy has no loan |
| Accrued Loan Interest | Interest the insurance company has charged and has not yet added to the loan principal |
| PUA Paid YTD | Paid-up additions you have paid since the last policy anniversary |
| Dividends This Year | Dividends the insurance company credited this policy year |
| Death Benefit | The total death benefit, before the loan is subtracted |
Date and the loan figure are required. Leave any other field empty when the document does not show it. For the line that goes in each field on a Penn Mutual or Lafayette Life document, see Read the numbers.
Each policy can have one snapshot per date. If a snapshot for that date already exists, delete it, then record the new values. A saved snapshot cannot be edited.
When to record a snapshot
- About once a month. IBC Tool reminds you when your latest snapshot is 29 days old. The values at the insurance company move with each premium, PUA payment, dividend, and interest charge, and IBC Tool does not hear about those on its own.
- After the insurance company applies a change you recorded. A loan payment or a paid-up additions contribution stays pending until a snapshot shows that it posted. The snapshot is what clears it.
- When you add history. Set the Date to an earlier date to store a past reading. An older reading fills in history. It does not replace today’s numbers if you already have a later snapshot.
For an annual statement, use Upload document on the policy page. On Record Snapshot, choose the Policy, then select Upload it instead → below the form. A statement is a year-end record. It is not a substitute for a policy summary.
Why an old reading goes stale
IBC Tool shows the values from your latest snapshot until you record a new one. It tells you when that reading is getting old.
| Age of the latest snapshot | What you see |
|---|---|
| 29 days | The dashboard says the snapshot for that policy is due |
| 35 days | The dashboard says the policy needs a refresh. The policy page says its figures are out of date, with Refresh snapshot |
| 90 days | The same reminders, marked high priority |
| No snapshot | The dashboard and the policy page ask you to record the first snapshot |
A ~ in front of the available loan amount or the cash value means the figure is an estimate. It shows up when you have recorded paid-up additions that no snapshot has confirmed yet. IBC Tool adds those contributions to the last confirmed figure, and it subtracts the PUA load if you recorded one. The tilde is there so you can tell an estimate from a number the insurance company published. A later snapshot that includes the money replaces the estimate with the real value, and the tilde goes away.
What a new snapshot changes
The Snapshot Recorded screen opens. If this snapshot is your latest, IBC Tool now shows its values for the policy. An empty field does not wipe the old number. It keeps the value from an earlier snapshot.
When the snapshot includes an Available Loan Amount, IBC Tool compares the change in that amount with the loan payments and paid-up additions contributions that are still pending. The Snapshot Reconciliation card can show:
- Total change: how much the available loan amount moved since the previous snapshot that had one.
- Recorded activity confirmed: the pending items this change is large enough to include. IBC Tool checks them from oldest to newest. It stops at the first item the change cannot cover, and it leaves that item and everything after it pending.
- Pending payments (not posted yet): the items this change does not include. Your next snapshot tries to confirm them again. They are not lost.
- Newly assignable: growth you can assign to categories. Select Allocate these funds → to do that now, or leave it and assign it later from Categories.
When you leave Available Loan Amount empty, there is no change to compare. IBC Tool confirms every pending item dated on or before the snapshot date, and it shows no reconciliation card. If you want to see which items a snapshot cleared, enter the Available Loan Amount.
A snapshot that has an available loan amount, but is older than your latest snapshot that has one, only adds history. It does not confirm pending items, and it does not change the numbers on the dashboard.
If the loan balance on the snapshot does not match the loans you have recorded, IBC Tool says so.
- The policy has a loan balance and no loan in IBC Tool: select Record loan.
- The balance went up and no advance you recorded explains the increase: select Record the missing loan on the reconciliation card.