Here is my latest statement, issued at the end of the tenth policy year.
The previous page described the four policy "machines".
Can you discern a relationship between the machines and this statement?

Each statement represents a single instant of time.  One second before midnight on each policy anniversary date, a computer generates a record representing the facts as they were then.  A dividend, if any, is credited, representing my ownership interest in NYLIC.  Guaranteed Cash Value is credited, in exact accordance with the terms of my policy.  Other updates are silently made, increasing cash value, also in accordance with the terms of the policy.  NYLIC seems to consider this money as too hard to explain; the computer credits it to your account without reporting why or where it came from.

Other kinds of updates vary from statement to statement.  Has next year's premium been paid yet?  If so, add this amount to both the Total Death Benefit and Net Cash Value.  (Should I die or cancel the policy two seconds past midnight, the whole premium would be refunded.  As the year progresses, more and more of the premium is devoured by the policy.)  Has PUA been purchased?  If so, update the lines relating to OPP.  If there had been loan or disbursement activity during the year, this would affect the statement in other ways.

Such variances and silences make comparing statements a somewhat complex process.  NYLIC has legal and accounting reasons to report the policy as it was during that one second in time.  Analytically, that instant has too many variances.  For The Visible Policy, I have chosen to eliminate the variances by representing the policy as it will be two seconds before midnight of the next policy year.  Premium payments will always have been made (and completely spent), OPP will have been purchased, and, in general, activity from year to year becomes easy to compare.

My hope is that these "Activity Statements" will help illuminate the policy machines.  Admittedly, they are a bit harder to understand than NYLIC's Policy Summaries.  I cram more information into less area.  Once you try to compare statements from year to year, I think you will find that the Activity Statements are in fact clearer.  The left and right links at the top of the table allow you to easily cycle between activity statements.  Those statements contain calculated values discussed earlier, such as earned dividend rate and black box annual gain.

The top half of the Activity Statement tracks Death Benefit, just as does the first block of NYLIC's Policy Summary.  Similarly, the bottom half of my statement corresponds to the Cash Value block of NYLIC's statement.  I use colors to represent various kinds of values.

The black numbers in the "Payments" column purchase more insurance.  The black numbers in the "Increase in Value" column do not.

The latter numbers represent a special kind of earnings.  Both NYLIC's statement and mine specifically report Guaranteed Cash Value.  However, careful review of a single NYLIC statement would not reveal the other earnings.  To glean the existance of these pennies from heaven, you have to carefully compare two consecutive NYLIC statements.  I describe this gain as "linear increase in value"; see the PUA Cash Value section of the previous page.