Life Insurance is Unique... and Complicated

Life insurance* is a unique financial instrument with features that are unavailable in any other financial products. For example, only an annuity—and no other financial product—can provide you with guaranteed income for as long as you live. Similarly, insurance can also assume the risk of losing your income from disability or paying for costs of long-term care in exchange for a relatively small price (premium). On top of that, Uncle Sam has given his full blessing to grieving family members (or a devastated business) to receive life insurance proceeds free of income tax.
These unique features are certainly nice. But, life insurance is also complicated—far more so than most people might realize. It's misunderstood even by many otherwise fabulously competent financial advisors. To make matters worse, there is a lot of misinformation being disseminated through articles, blogs and other media channels—even from credible sources—with little intellectual honesty or thoughtful analysis.
With such confusion and misinformation surrounding life insurance, we cannot overstate the importance of sensible insurance planning and a solid understanding of the "science" behind it—carrier due diligence, product selection, policy design, underwriting, income and estate tax implications, legal aspects, and so on—that requires considerable expertise and experience.
Additionally, it should be remembered that life insurance should be an integral part of a sound financial, estate and/or business plan. Whatever your objective is—protecting your family, providing estate liquidity, safeguarding your business, or building a lifetime income stream—insurance should always make sense in the context of an overall financial, estate, and/or business plan.
These unique features are certainly nice. But, life insurance is also complicated—far more so than most people might realize. It's misunderstood even by many otherwise fabulously competent financial advisors. To make matters worse, there is a lot of misinformation being disseminated through articles, blogs and other media channels—even from credible sources—with little intellectual honesty or thoughtful analysis.
With such confusion and misinformation surrounding life insurance, we cannot overstate the importance of sensible insurance planning and a solid understanding of the "science" behind it—carrier due diligence, product selection, policy design, underwriting, income and estate tax implications, legal aspects, and so on—that requires considerable expertise and experience.
Additionally, it should be remembered that life insurance should be an integral part of a sound financial, estate and/or business plan. Whatever your objective is—protecting your family, providing estate liquidity, safeguarding your business, or building a lifetime income stream—insurance should always make sense in the context of an overall financial, estate, and/or business plan.
*By life insurance, we mean LIFE INSURANCE, DISABILITY INSURANCE, LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE and ANNUITIES.
What Properly Designed Life Insurance Can Do For You
Wealth Transfer// Provide liquidity to meet estate tax obligations in cost- and tax-efficient ways // Equalize inheritance among children // Maximize generational wealth // Provide financial security for a child with special needs // Minimize erosion of assets that would otherwise pass to heirs due to costs of long-term care // Enhance retirement security with guaranteed lifetime income // Protect family from financial ruin due to death or disability |
Business Protection// Safeguard business value from the unexpected // Enable a business to "buy time" if an owner or a key employee dies or is disabled // Provide cash for surviving owners to buy deceased/disabled owner's business interest // Provide retirement plans above qualified plan limits to executives to help attract and retain them // Carve out life and disability benefits for executives above group plan limits // Provide life insurance for non-U.S. executives |
Tax Minimization
// Add a low-volatility, non-correlated, tax efficient asset class without market risk // Accumulate money without being taxed on growth // Withdraw money without triggering income tax // Save money without contribution limits or required minimum distributions // Coordinate retirement income spending to keep tax bracket down // Provide an alternative to the "stretch IRA" strategy without being bound by IRA tax rules |