Top 5 Whole Life Companies for Infinite Banking

I’ve designed thousands of Infinite Banking Whole Life policies for clients over the last 18 years, and I also proudly own 14 policies for 6 family members with more than 7 figures of cash value inside. I have seen clearly what works, what doesn’t, and how to properly optimize ordinary Whole Life insurance so it shines for Infinite Banking. – John “Hutch” Hutchinson, 12/6/2025.

Bottom Line Up Front:
For the vast majority of client situations, the best Infinite Banking policy will come from one of the top 3 performing Whole Life companies: Mass Mutual, Penn Mutual or Guardian, since all key features can be found within these three without sacrificing performance or True Mutuality.

Key Takeaways on the Best Infinite Banking Companies:

- - Simply choosing the right company is not enough. The policy must be optimally designed and custom-fitted with the proper combination of riders and funding ratios.
  - Typically, clients overweight insurance companies with the highest early cash value or those that allow the smallest Base policy. Ironically, both lead to substantial mid-to-long-term underperformance.
  - Several prevalent myths must be dispelled to ensure proper policy selection, such as dividend rate myths, the distinction between Direct and Non-Direct recognition, and understanding the difference between a True Mutual Company and a Mutual Holding Company.
  - Unique ancillary riders offered by certain carriers shouldn’t be the main reason to choose a Whole Life Company, but they may provide a tipping point in a tie-breaker situation.

Here is our most recent video update, going over the illustrated performance of the best Whole Life insurance companies of 2025

Thankfully, Infinite Banking research is so much more transparent than when I first discovered the concept. Eighteen years ago, there were only cryptic mentions on the web, forcing me to learn by trial and error, which thankfully led to my innovation in this space.

That said, even today, there’s still a lot of conflicting information and posturing by gatekeeping agents trying to corral you towards Whole Life companies they have incentivized selling contracts with.

Below, you can find the companies with the top Whole Life policies, as well as the specific criteria to determine the best fit for your situation.

At Banking Truths we believe in providing education & modeling so you can decide if this strategy is a good fit for you:

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The Best Whole Life Companies For Infinite Banking

Below is the shortlist of Whole Life companies you would even want to consider for Infinite Banking. Keep scrolling to learn more about the specific criteria.

In our professional opinion, either Mass Mutual, Penn Mutual, or Guardian will be the best Whole Life company for the vast majority of people pursuing an Infinite Banking policy. Their top-tier performance, their True Mutuality, and their access to some of Whole Life’s desirable ancillary features put them in the top tier. That said, sometimes the impeccable credit rating and immense size of New York Life is appealing and worth sacrificing a bit of illustrated performance.

We have yet to find a compelling reason to direct our clients towards any of the Mutual Holding Companies, such as Ameritas, Mutual Trust Life, National Life Group, One America, or even Lafayette Life (with the highest early cash value). We find that all of their ongoing performance substantially lags that of the top 3 performers, so why stray from the tried, tested, and True Mutual Companies.

If you have illustrations and would like an apples-to-apples comparison with the top True Mutual insurance companies, you can book a custom competitive analysis at BankingTruths.com/Schedule.

Lafayette Life did, however, earn its way onto our shortlist, despite being a Mutual Holding Company, because they do have the highest cash value in the very early years. Even though this can initially be appealing to fledgling Infinite Banker researchers, we would encourage you to quantify the significant trade-off in mid-to-long-term performance before prioritizing this metric.

We believe that understanding our criteria and methodology behind our ratings will help you make a more informed decision when choosing the Best Infinite Banking Company for your family.

Our Criteria For Choosing The Best Whole Life Companies

You can click any of the criteria below to jump down and learn more about each one:

A True Mutual Company vs. A Mutual Holding Company

Choosing companies that have been and will likely remain 100% committed to their mutuality should be your very first filter when considering the best Infinite Banking companies. Remember that you’re setting up a relationship with an insurance company that should ideally last your “Whole Life,” just like they call their product. The continuance of robust dividends and the ongoing performance from your Infinite Banking policy will depend heavily on whether they maintain their mutuality for multiple generations.

As independent brokers, we may consider selling a Mutual Holding Company (MHC) if one of them were outperforming its True Mutual peers. But they’re not, and it’s not even close. In fact, over my 18 years in the business, I have NEVER seen any of the Mutual Holding Companies outperform one of the top 3 True Mutuals when appropriately designed. I did, however, see firsthand what happens to policyholders after the biggest and most popular MHC demutualized.

In 2022, when Ohio National demutualized into a stock company, it left its former policyholder-owners in the lurch with:

- - no further ownership
  - a paltry cash buyout
  - and watered-down policies paying no further dividends.

Ohio National had previously transitioned from a True Mutual Company into a Mutual Holding Company structure, which made its demutualization easier to do.

You see, when adopting this structure, a Mutual Holding Company immediately spins off its operating insurance business into a stock company, even though it remains 100% owned by policyholders in the newly formed holding company. That way, if a Mutual Holding Company needs to raise capital by issuing stock, selling stock, or creating new stock subsidiaries, it won’t be restricted in doing so because of its prior True Mutual Structure.

I honestly don’t understand the rationale of how any well-researched consumer can justify adding this additional risk to their multi-generational plan, especially when they can already get a much better-performing policy from one of the True Mutual companies.

Which Infinite Banking Companies are Mutual Holding Companies?

Here are all the Mutual Holding Companies that sell Whole Life for Infinite Banking in 2025:

- - Lafayette Life (2005) merged into Western & Southern Financial Group
  - One America (2000) became the stock subsidiary of American United Mutual Insurance Holding Company
  - Ameritas (2000) merged with Acacia Mutual Holding Company
  - National Life Group (1999) merged into National Life Holding Company
  - Mutual Trust Life (2015) was absorbed by Pan-American Life Insurance Group

Which Infinite Banking Companies are True Mutual Companies?

Below are the remaining True Mutual Companies whose Whole Life policies ranked in order of overall performance for Infinite Banking:

- - Penn Mutual (Founded 1847)
  - Mass Mutual (Founded 1851)
  - Guardian Life (Founded 1860)
  - New York Life (Founded 1845)
  - Northwestern Mutual (Founded 1857)

There hasn’t been a major mutual company demutualization since the late 1990s and early 2000s, when a trend of mutual insurance companies going public was rampant in the industry. At least, the Whole Life policyholders for Prudential, Met, and John Hancock retained their equity stake in the insurance company after demutualization by being issued shares of stock once the newly formed stock company was listed on the NYSE.

Instead of demutualization, the unique “Mutual-to-Mutual Merger” option is available to True Mutual Companies looking to consolidate. In 1996, Mass Mutual substantially expanded its reach by absorbing Connecticut Mutual. Neither company was distressed, but both understood the economies of scale that could be achieved by the merger.

The prior Whole Life policy guarantee schedules of Connecticut Mutual remained completely intact. In fact, each new policyholder got their pro rata ownership share of this newer, bigger/stronger Mass Mutual. Their policies were the same as before, only they were now printed on Mass paper, and they would receive Mass Mutual dividends going forward.

This Mutual-to-Mutual Merger option would not be impossible for a Mutual Holding Company, since they already spun off the operating insurance company into a stock company, which legally can’t be merged with a True Mutual.

Dividend Performance

This is important, but not as important as some people think. As you can read in my comprehensive Whole Life Dividends Explained blog article, dividends are just one component of any Whole Life company’s overall performance.

One of the biggest dividend myths is that “you CAN compare one company’s dividend rate to another,” when in fact, you CAN’T!

As a part owner in your underlying policy’s insurance company, there are 3 components to every Whole Life company’s annual dividend distribution.

- - Interest (credit)
  - Mortality (credit)
  - And Expense (debit)

You see, each company’s dividend rate is just an internal factor. How and when each Whole Life company applies its dividends towards policyholders’ cash value accounts will vary by company. You usually only hear about the dividend interest rate, which is a top-line figure. However, some companies are now raising their dividend interest rate while internally lowering the amount of dividend credits received from the mortality component in an effort to impress unsuspecting policyholders.

So when you look at the Whole Life company dividend history table below, you can’t make valid comparisons horizontally since each dividend rate means something different to each company. But when looking down vertically, you can see how aggressively certain companies raise and lower their dividends relative to their peers.

That said, you want to see for the most part that the company you’re considering has been trending in the same direction as their peers and not lagging in the dividend department.

Dividend Rate History Chart For Whole Life Insurance Companies

The table above shows GREEN years (rate increases), GRAY years (maintained), and RED years (decreased) for major mutual companies over the past 15-20 years.

Since dividends only tell part of the story, we have to look at total return when comparing the best Whole Life companies apples-to-apples with each other.

Cash Value Performance - Not Just Early, But Overall.

Many fledgling Infinite Bankers come seeking the Whole Life company with the highest early cash value performance. Remember, though, the product is called “Whole Life” for a reason. I could understand deprioritizing long-term performance if it meant waiting until your deathbed or even retirement.

However, we find that the highest early cash value Whole Life policies will lose their lead even before reaching the 10th policy year, and then start lagging substantially!

Not only that, but their early cash value lead may only be just a few thousand dollars ahead to begin with, which later results in being hundreds of thousands of dollars behind. Be sure your agent is helping you measure that tradeoff before you commit to underperformance for your “Whole Life.”

The fascination with High Early Cash Value often stems from deceptive sales practices. Oftentimes, Infinite Banking agents will misrepresent Nelson Nash’s original teachings by creating manufactured urgency to “get their money working for them inside a policy.”

It’s true that funneling your cash flows through an Infinite Banking policy can create excess compounding over time. However, with any Whole Life policy, there’s always going to be some hit to early liquidity, even the ones with the absolute highest early cash value.

In fact, you know what financial product has the highest early cash value?

CASH has more early cash value than any Infinite Banking policy…ALWAYS!

If you really need that extra few thousand dollars that badly in year one, shouldn’t you maybe just start with a smaller, but better-performing policy in the first place?

Since the only reason to sacrifice any early liquidity is to get better performance over time, shouldn’t you look closer at that performance across all timeframes (near, mid, and long term)?

When we look across different time spans, here is the consistent pattern we have found across our age-based case study for ages 37, 47, 57:

- - Lafayette Life has the highest early cash value in years 1-5, and Mass Mutual is 2nd.
  - By year 10, Penn Mutual has pulled ahead of both, with Mass Mutual not far behind.
  - From years 20-40, Lafayette Life lags both Penn and Mass Mutual substantially.

Once clients see the tradeoff laid out for them, they often realize that having access to a few extra thousand dollars of cash value early isn’t worth abandoning True Mutuality, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars of long-term performance that could result in more cash value for banking or retirement income.

Below is the 47-year-old example showing every carrier’s optimized 7-pay policy, designed with each Whole Life company’s least amount of Base Policy and maximum allowable amount of Paid-Up Additions:

The patterns in this 47-year-old example are very similar to the results seen in both the 37-year-old and the 57- year-old. You can see all age-based case studies in our annual Whole Life update video at the top of the page.

With the top 2 True Mutuals, Penn and Mass, running fairly close across all timeframes in this case study and Guardian coming in 3rd, you then have to consider some of the qualitative or soft benefits that the best Whole Life companies offer.

Paid-Up Addition Flexibility & Stacking Capability

Even though it’s ideal to pay the maximum amount of Paid-Up Additions every single year into your Infinite Banking policy, life sometimes gets in the way. This is where a flexible PUA rider comes into play.

Some years, you may have to pay just the Base premium and skip overfunding with PUAs, even if it means not getting as much money “working for you” early on. Despite the urgency so many Infinite Banking agents try and manufacture to make a sale, as long as you can pay maximum PUA premiums in 4 out of the first 7 years, then you don’t lose much in the way of financial efficiency at all.

You’ll obviously have less cash value compounding on your behalf, but the performance of the premiums you did pay will be nearly identical to if you had been max-funding for the entire period. We find that clients like to know they have the flexibility to skip years and later catch-up if they need to, which is important to knowing you can keep your policy efficiently funded even through life’s hiccups.

However, keep in mind that taking advantage of excessive flexibility can lead to an underperforming policy. For example, if you can’t even do maximum overfunding once every 3-5 years, then either you bought too big a policy, or something really bad is happening with your cash flow. If that’s the case, and you can’t overfund, then your Base policy’s core performance will be even more important than if you were adding PUAs regularly.

Regardless, your Base Policy’s underlying performance should be important anyway because any PUA payments you do make or dividends you roll back into your policy will ride on your Base Whole Life policy’s hard-coded guaranteed cash value curve that grows daily closer to its guaranteed death benefit.

Whole Life Base Policy Efficiency

This is probably one of the most overlooked aspects that makes or breaks the best Whole Life policies for Infinite Banking. Many agents discuss the Base policy like it’s some kind of necessary evil, when in reality it’s the main growth engine, the workhorse if you will, that all future PUAs will ride upon.

Clients get enchanted by agents offering 10/90 policies where only 10% of their premiums will go to Base premiums, and the other 90% goes towards PUAs. But you must remember that Paid-Up Additions are simply just mini scale models of the Base policy itself. So, minimizing an underperforming Base Policy so you can buy more underperforming PUAs won’t beat the best-performing Base policies as long as you maximize PUAs, even at a lower allowable ratio.

You know that Quality > Quantity with most things in life. That same principle also applies to the best Whole Life policies for Infinite Banking.

Many clients say that they don’t care about the death benefit, but even if you don’t, you must remember that with any Whole Life insurance policy, your cash value has to grow towards the death benefit daily, no matter what, like reverse gravity. That’s why Penn Mutual, the best long-term performing policy for Infinite Banking, has not only the most cash value, but also the highest death benefit.

Loan Considerations (including Direct vs. Non-Direct Recognition)

All too often, you hear die-hard Infinite Banking agents say that you MUST use companies with Non-Direct Recognition loans, which is odd because Nelson Nash only showed Direct Recognition policies throughout Becoming Your Own Banker: Unlock The Infinite Banking Concept.

I can personally attest that all 14 of my family’s Whole Life policies are Direct Recognition from 3 separate True Mutual Companies. That’s right, I’m in the business and can get whatever I want, and I chose Direct Recognition even with my 3 Mass Mutual policies, where Mass will let you irrevocably choose either Direct or Non-Direct recognition at the onset of the policy.

Perhaps there’s more to this “Direct vs. Non-Direct” dynamic than so many Infinite Banking agents would have you believe. Here’s the surface-level thinking:

- - Non-Direct Recognition sounds better because there’s “no effect” to dividends paid on the portion of your cash value with an outstanding loan against it.
  - Direct Recognition sounds worse because there’s always a “direct effect” on the dividends you receive from borrowed cash value.

I’ll admit that on the surface, Non-Direct Recognition indeed sounds better. Therefore, most agents just begin and end the discussion right there, since the Mutual Holding Companies they’re married to are Non-Direct recognition companies. However, even if Non-Direct Recognition was categorically better, then the biggest True Mutual Companies, Mass & NYL, both offer Non-Direct Recognition loans.

But the Direct vs. Non-Direct Recognition argument is NOT that simple. You also have to also consider these 3 arguments against Non-Direct Recognition:

1. 1. In a rising interest rate environment, when loan rates are above dividend rates, Non-Direct Recognition companies must raise their loan rates. As stated before, there is “no effect” on your dividend payments, meaning you may find yourself in a negative arbitrage situation on loaned money, like with Lafayette Life’s current 6.75% loan rate.
  2. However, in that same environment where the loan rate is above the dividend rate, Direct Recognition does have a “direct effect” by raising your dividend rate on the borrowed money, to compensate you for paying any above-market loan rate.
  3. Conversely, in the low-interest-rate environment that we had in the prior 15 years, the Non-Direct Recognition companies never lowered their loan rates down even close to what you could get by using Cash Value Line of Credit products or Insurance Backed Lines of Credit. This completely nullified the alleged benefit of Non-Direct Recognition.

In the last decade, policy loan rates hovered around 5% across the board, while you could have easily borrowed at 3%-3.5% using turnkey line of credit products, assuming your insurance company was considered acceptable collateral by the lender. The problem is that most of the Mutual Holding Companies were not eligible, whereas these lenders readily accepted their True Mutual peers.

So, to me, the ideal Whole Life policy for Infinite Banking is one where I have:

- - Maximum optionality with a True Mutual of using the most competitive line of credit programs.
  - Maximum protection in unfavorable borrowing environments with Direct Recognition.

For that reason, I see Direct Recognition from a True Mutual Company as the ideal best of both worlds. That’s why my 14 family policies are all Direct Recognition with Penn Mutual, Guardian, and Mass Mutual (where I could’ve chosen Non-Direct Recognition at the onset, but I didn’t).

There are other qualitative soft-benefits such as unique riders that must be considered when making a final determination on your Best Whole Life Company for Infinite Banking.

Let’s discuss…

Ancillary Riders From Whole Life Companies (chronic illness & overloan protection riders)

We’ve found that when the decision between the best companies for Infinite Banking is really close, having access to certain unique riders may be the tipping point.

Although most of our clients are concerned mainly with Whole Life’s cash value growth, many of them overlook or underestimate the value of:

- - An Overloan Protection rider
  - A Chronic Illness rider.

Overloan Protection Riders and How They Work

An Overloan Protection Rider keeps your policy from blowing up and lapsing near life expectancy after taking excessive retirement loans you have no intention of repaying. For some reason, Overloan Protection Riders come standard in most modern-day IUL policies, but unfortunately, only 2 Whole Life companies offer an Overloan Protection Rider:

- - Penn Mutual (True Mutual Company)
  - One America (Mutual Holding Company)

Since One America’s short & long-term performance lagged the top Whole Life companies on this list, we’ll focus on how Penn Mutual’s rider works. Penn Mutual’s Overloan Protection Rider kicks in automatically when all 3 of these factors exist:

1. 1. You are at least 75 years old when the policy is about to lapse due to excessive loans
  2. Your Penn Mutual Whole Life policy has been in force for at least 15 years
  3. Your total policy loan is eclipsing your total whole life cash value by 99%

When all 3 of these things happen, Penn Mutual will automatically freeze that remaining 1% of non-loaned cash value to preserve a minimal amount of whole life death benefit for your heirs, almost like a burial policy. Doing so preserves just enough death benefit to uphold the tax-exempt status of all prior lifetime distributions (policy loans or withdrawals).

Let’s say that during retirement, you take recurring policy loans as a tax-exempt income stream that you have no intention of repaying. Without an Overloan Protection Rider, you’ll have to constantly manage your loan-to-cash-value situation and possibly even make premium or loan payments deep into old age to keep your policy from lapsing.

Otherwise, if your policy lapses after you took out more money than you put in, you may get stuck with a huge tax bill when you can afford it the least!

An Overloan Protection Rider solves this impending problem when using Whole Life for retirement income.

Chronic Illness Riders on Whole Life Insurance

A Chronic Illness rider allows the policyowner to have tax-free access to the death benefit (over and above the cash value), even though the insured isn’t dead yet. There’s a catch, though. The insured has to be deemed (by a doctor) to be too sick or hurt to ever work again or fully care for themselves on their own.

Although you may not ever need this rider, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. If you do need it, having this kind of financial injection when you can no longer work or not having to worry about money during your final days may be precisely what the doctor ordered.

Some of the best whole life insurance companies for Infinite Banking offer these types of riders for an additional charge, while others offer them as a free rider at the onset of the policy.

Insurance Company	Overloan Protection Rider	Free Chronic Illness Rider
Penn Mutual	Yes	Yes
Mass Mutual	No	No
Guardian Life	No	Yes
New York Life	No	No
Lafayette Life	No	Yes

(Note: The ability, limits, and conditions to receiving of a portion of the death benefit tax-free prior to death are described in more detail in Internal Revenue Section 101(g). Qualifying distributions are not deemed to be taxable since they are an acceleration of a tax-free death benefit. The current year IRS per diem amount for long-term care is $420/day or $153,300/year as of 2025.)

The Best Dividend-Paying Whole Life Companies for Infinite Banking

The rankings presented below are not empirical and are solely the opinion of John “Hutch” Hutchinson, BankingTruths.com, based on the criteria described above and their experience encountering these competing insurance companies over the last 18 years. Your individual situation and preferences may tilt the rankings for your unique situation, and you should consult a licensed broker before objective testing before making a final decision.

#1 Mass Mutual

At over $200 billion of assets, Mass Mutual is the true 800-lb gorilla in terms of the best dividend-paying Whole Life insurance companies. Their long-term performance is second only to Penn Mutual, and their ranking for the highest early cash value is second only to Lafayette Life.

Mass Mutual’s sheer size, solvency rating, strong performance, and the fact that you can choose between direct or non-direct recognition at the onset of the policy makes it one of the top Whole Life companies across the board.

If you have steady cash flow, then both the early and long-term performance make Mass Mutual one of the top 2 contenders. However, they are much less flexible than the other top Whole Life companies. Here’s why:

- - Mass Mutual’s flagship product is a 10-pay, meaning higher base premiums.
  - You must max-fund your PUA rider in year 1 to set the precedent (no limping in).
  - You must max-fund your PUA rider once every 3 years, or you’ll lose the right to continue it.
  - You can’t do a catch-up payment of the prior year’s skipped payment.

Also, Mass Mutual has no Overloan Protection Rider nor a free Chronic Illness Rider, and the beginning death benefit of their 10-pay policy is much smaller for the same premium, since the front-loading is technically built into the 10-pay premiums. To clarify, you can still add term riders that allow you to add in additional PUAs even after you finish paying the 10-pay base premiums.

If the more rigid structure of Mass Mutual doesn’t bother you, then Mass Mutual has been and likely will continue to be one of the most competitive Whole Life companies for cash value growth. Many clients like the fact that it’s Non-Direct Recognition, but you can elect either Direct or Non-Direct at the onset of the policy.

Reasons to pick Mass Mutual over other Whole Life companies:

You want both solid early cash value and long-term performance.
You want a massive $200 billion True Mutual Company (pun intended).
You want to be able to choose Direct or Non-Direct Recognition Company when you start your policy.

Reasons to choose other Whole Life companies over Mass Mutual:

You need a lower minimum base premium payment.
You want the ability to catch up on your PUAs after skipping multiple years.
You want a free Overloan Protection rider and/or Chronic Illness rider.

Book a call with an expert to help you shop and model the best Whole Life companies for a comprehensive family insurance portfolio.

#2 Penn Mutual

In terms of “what have you done for me lately,” Penn Mutual has consistently been one of the top two dividend-paying Whole Life insurance companies for over the last decade and a half.

Penn Mutual is also the 2nd-oldest life insurance company in America. Along with New York Life, they are the only mutual insurance companies that can boast that they’ve paid their Whole Life policyholders a dividend every single year since 1847 (during the Civil War, even).

In addition to its solid history, Penn Mutual has recently revamped its product to have all the necessary attributes of the best Whole Life policy for Infinite Banking, such as:

- - Increased Term Rider for greater PUA’s and early cash value
  - A flexible PUA Rider requiring overfunding only once every 5 years
  - The ability to catch up the prior year’s PUA when paying the current year
  - A built-in Chronic Illness Rider that can be added for no additional cost
  - Highest death-benefit-to-cash-value ratio with both their Base Policy & PUAs
  - Built-in Overloan Protection Rider allowing 99% access to cash value for retirement loans (Penn is the only true mutual company to offer this crucial rider if you plan to use Whole Life for retirement.)

Any Whole Life policy for Infinite Banking will always have certain tradeoffs, and it’s up to you to decide what those tradeoffs are most important to you.

But here are the most commonly discussed downsides of Penn Mutual:

- - At $34 billion in assets, Penn Mutual isn’t as large as other big mutual companies. To put it in perspective, though, Penn’s market cap is about that of Hershey or eBay and about 1.5x that of Southwest Airlines.
  - Penn is a Direct Recognition company, meaning that loaned money will receive a different dividend payout than non-loaned money. This, however, can benefit borrowers during periods of rising rates.
  - Penn Mutual’s Whole Life policy focuses more on having the best long-term cash value & death benefit performance than the highest early cash value. However, their recently enhanced term rider does create more early cash value, but not as much as some of the other Whole Life companies.

Reasons to pick Penn Mutual over other Whole Life companies:

- - You want a steady, long-term performer with sufficient early cash value
  - You want a flexible PUA rider where you can skip PUAs one year, and catch them up the following year
  - You want the most stable policies for retirement loans with Overloan Protection and Direct Recognition

Reasons to choose other Whole Life companies over Penn Mutual:

- - You absolutely know you want Non-Direct Recognition
  - You only want one of the biggest Whole Life companies

It’s best to have an independent agent run an apples-to-apples cost/benefit analysis with your numbers so you can see the tradeoffs and choose the company that makes the most sense for you.

#3 Guardian Life

Although not the gold medalist for early cash value or long-term performance, Guardian Life earned its spot on the podium for its ultimate flexibility and noteworthy performance. With over $80 Billion in assets, Guardian isn’t as big as Mass Mutual or New York Life, but it is bigger than Penn Mutual.

Guardian allows for a large term rider and PUA payments that can be as high as 9x the base premium. In fact, it was their policy design that started the 10/90 buzz, where you can pay as little as 10% base premium and the other 90% in PUA premiums. However, a 10/90 policy limits how many future premiums you can pay and often doesn’t outperform Penn or Mass Mutual, both with higher base and lower PUA premiums.

That said, one of Guardian’s key strong suits is their flexible PUA rider, where as long as you pay at least $250 per year into the PUA rider, you maintain your right to max-fund in any given year (unlike Mass & NYL, where you must max-fund once every 3 years or Penn once every 5 years). However, if you do skip a year of max-funding, the amount of catch-up you can pay from the prior year is limited to however big your base premium is. Also, the one-time premium load you pay for PUAs with Guardian is a bit on the expensive side at 10% (vs. 7.5% for the Mass 10-pay or 6% for Penn’s PUAs from year 2 onward).

Guardian not only offers a free chronic illness rider, but also has a very inexpensive true “Long-Term Care” rider, which can be used for temporary conditions, unlike the chronic illness rider where the debilitating condition needs to be diagnosed as permanent.

Historically, Guardian has always been a Direct Recognition company, but implemented a feature that allows the policyholder to irrevocably flip to Non-Direct recognition loans in the 11th policy year. Again, we believe you’re better off always controlling your cost to borrow by maintaining the native Direct Recognition status after the 11th year.

Reasons to pick Guardian over other Whole Life companies:

- - You want to pay the lowest amount of base premium possible (10% base & 90% PUAs)
  - You want the ultimate flexibility each year for paying PUAs or skipping (as long as you pay the $250 minimum)
  - You want a free Chronic Illness rider or a very inexpensive true Long-Term-Care rider

Reasons to choose other Whole Life companies over Guardian:

- - You want one of the top 2 performing Whole Life companies
  - You want a free Overloan Protection rider for retirement loans

Get your own custom numbers with Guardian run to see how big the tradeoff is.

#4 New York Life

New York Life is unquestionably the oldest mutual company on the list and still one of the biggest, with over $400 Billion in stated assets. Their size and impeccable credit rating make New York Life attractive, especially to those looking to set up a diversified batch of family policies.

Unfortunately, the long-term performance of their standard Whole Life overfunded with a PUA + term rider pales in comparison to the other true mutuals on this list. It’s unfortunate because New York Life still has the lowest one-time PUA load charge of 5% on every PUA you pay. However, their more rigid “Custom Whole Life” product performs better as long as you can do without premium flexibility.

You see, the Custom Whole Life product is like a 10-pay Whole Life policy, except you get to pick the number of years up-front, whether it’s a 5-pay or a 19-pay. Then your base premium will be higher than a standard Whole Life policy, since you’re essentially scheduling your overfunding into the base premium.

When families are doing large dump-ins (such as reallocating large savings account balances into a family portfolio of Infinite Banking policies), New York Life offers competitive premium deposit accounts, where you can make big deposits without turning your policy into a MEC.

Even with the rigid premium structure of their Custom Whole Life policy, New York Life will allow some additional term rider with PUA payments. However, similar to Mass Mutual, you must pay the maximum PUA premium every 3 years or lose your ability to overfund.

Reasons to pick New York Life over other Whole Life companies:

- - You want the absolute oldest, biggest, and highest-rated True Mutual company
  - You want to customize your own contractual short pay policy (like a 5-pay, 7-pay, 12-pay, or whatever)

Reasons to choose other Whole Life companies over New York Life:

- - You want one of the top 2 performing Whole Life companies
  - You want a free Overloan Protection rider for retirement loans

We find that New York is often appealing to families who are doing multiple family policies and want the diversification and safety of New York Life, especially when paying very large premiums.

Book a call with an expert to help you shop and model the best Whole Life companies for a comprehensive family insurance portfolio.

#5 Lafayette Life Insurance Company

Lafayette Life comes in 5th on our list, despite it being a Mutual Holding Company vs. what we consider a “True Mutual Company.”

The main reason they even made our list is that they have the highest early cash value in the first 5 years of our studies. Because of the appeal of high early cash value, Lafayette is still one of the most popular Whole Life companies for Infinite Banking. They also have a free Chronic Illness rider and a flexible PUA rider similar to Guardian.

All that said, Lafayette Life’s long-term performance lags all the True Mutuals on our list across any medium-to long-term time frame. And to us, that negates the value of those benefits. Think about these 2 things:

1. 1. If the performance is already lagging when max-funded, then what happens when you start skipping years of PUA payments?
  2. If your high early cash value policy left you with less immediate liquidity, and it underperforms in the long run, what was the point?

Lafayette Life’s high early cash value often attracts clients new to Infinite Banking, as they’re told to get their money working for them. However, it’s difficult to justify the costly trade-off in long-term performance compared to the other Mutuals on this list.

Also, the fact that you’re dealing with a Mutual Holding Company has us shaking our heads as to why anyone would stray from the True Mutuals.

Another glaring concern is that Lafayette Life currently has the highest loan rate at 6.75%. An Overloan Protection rider in retirement would be especially helpful, as would Direct Recognition. Remember, when the loan rate is above the dividend rate for a Non-Direct Recognition company like Lafayette, you’re not getting any subsidy for your dividend.

Reason to pick Lafayette Life over other Whole Life companies:

- - We can’t think of one, given its poor performance and the fact that it’s a Mutual Holding Company

Reasons to choose any of the True Mutual companies over Lafayette Life:

- - If you want the next highest early cash value, choose New York Life
  - If you want sufficient early cash value and the best mid-to-long term performance, then choose Penn Mutual or Mass Mutual
  - If you demand Non-Direct Recognition, then choose New York Life or Mass Mutual.
  - If you want a free Chronic Illness and a Flexible PUA Rider, then choose Guardian or Penn
  - If you want Overloan Protection and Direct Recognition to protect your retirement loans, then choose Penn Mutual.

Mutual Holding Company vs. what we consider a “True Mutual Company.”

Mutual Holding Companies That Didn’t Make the Cut

In general, you should lean towards the True Mutual Companies over Mutual Holding Companies for the reasons we mentioned above.

Again, Lafayette earned a mention on this list of the Best Whole Life Companies for having the highest early cash value.

However, there were a number of substantially underperforming companies that didn’t make our list, such as:

- - Ameritas
  - Foresters
  - Mutual Trust Life
  - National Life Group
  - One America

Given the wide performance gap across all timeframes against the other 5 companies on this list, we saw no reason to stray from their tried-and-true mutual peers. All of the companies on the list above are part of a Mutual Holding Company structure with the exception of Foresters, which is a Canadian Fraternal Order licensed to do business in America.

Can Infinite Banking work with IUL?

The short answer is that yes, a properly structured Indexed Universal Life policy can work for Infinite Banking, despite what die-hard Infinite Banking agents say.

However, most people exploring Infinite Banking are drawn towards Whole Life’s guarantees and stable nature. That said, like Whole Life, you can definitely borrow against 95% of your IUL’s cash value while it continues to compound on your behalf.

If the market continues to rise approximately 3 out of 4 years, as it has for the past 7 decades, then it should, in theory, outperform Whole Life by a fairly wide margin. If, on the other hand, we have a prolonged period of stock market losses or low single-digit gains, then it will underperform Whole Life. Ironically, even a choppy market going up and down erratically favors Indexed Universal Life, since it has the protective 0% floor.

Like other money decisions in life, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing conversation. On a portion of your banking budget, you would be trading some of Whole Life’s guaranteed stability for the chance of more upside. Unlike raw investing, a properly-designed IUL does provide some unique safeguards, but nothing like the iron-clad guarantees of Whole Life.

You can learn more about Indexed Universal Life vs. Whole Life here or to better understand how IUL works with Infinite Banking, click here.

Below are the full pros & cons of using Lafayette Life’s Whole Life policies for Infinite Banking.

Spoiler alert: the cons far outweigh the pros, especially when compounded over multiple decades.

The Pros of Lafayette Life:

- - Highest early cash value of the list
  - Single-Premium dump-in rider
  - Non-Direct Recognition loans

The Cons of Lafayette Life:

- - The Worst long-term performance (by far)
  - Not even a “true mutual” insurance company
  - Highest loan rate at 7% (with no dividend subsidy)

Lafayette's Has The Best Early Cash Value (But By How Much)

- - Lafayette’s early cash value is highest!
  - But how much higher are they?
  - And how long do they hold the top spot?

You can see below that around the 7th year the other True Mutuals are not only keeping pace, but about to lap LL.

When you look even closer, none of them were never really that far behind in the first 7 years!

What I can tell you is that over my last 17 years as an insurance agent, Lafayette Life has NEVER been in the top 3 finalists with any mid to long term scenario!

You’ve probably heard me say so many times in my videos, “There are no deals in insurance!”

I guess the “high early cash value” blinders fit so nicely with most clients think they want with Infinite Banking, that it’s just such an easy sale for the agent. Meanwhile the client never realizes that by sacrificing a nominal amount of early access could’ve meant a mountain of extra cash value in the future.

Lafayette's Single Premium PUA Rider for Lump Sum Dump-Ins

Another early-cash-value boosting feature Lafayette Life offers is their Lump-Sum-Dump rider which allows for big 1st year lump sum premiums without turning your policy into a MEC.

However, a massive term rider (that erodes cash value) is required in order to fit that much year 1 premium into the policy.

It sounded almost too good to be true, so we fully analyzed the math against staggering the dump-in over 2-4 years into a more streamline and better performing policy at BankingTruths.com/Dump.

This GIF below compares one scenario where all premiums are equalized by year 9. LL is already losing on the left once premiums are equalized, and never even holds a candle after that.

Anyone who got one of these policies with a dump-in rider over the last 2 years now has TRAPPED liquidity.

In order to access their cash value, they must either:

- - Surrender PUAs killing their lifelong compounding
  - Borrow @ 7% without a boost to LL’s current 5.3% dividend rate

It’s a damned if you do/damned if you don’t situation. Delaying the inevitable just makes the problem get worse, the longer you let it compound against you.

We recently reviewed a new client’s 11-year-old policies with very heavy loans. He thought his money was “working for him.”

His cash value wasn’t working nearly hard enough, and even the older policy with the lower loan rate was on a crash course to IMPLODE on him even if he took out no more loans for retirement or anything.

All that Infinite Banking effort & energy goes POOF!

Are Non-Direct Recognition Loans a Pro or a Con For LL?

This is a tricky one because most Infinite Banking agent tout Non-Direct Recognition Loans as a must-have.

Non-Direct recognition loans can be a good thing when the loan rate stays well below the dividend rate.

But what about when a Non-Direct Recognition company raises their loan from 5% to 7% like Lafayette did in 2024?

Did they give away too many below-market loans to policyholders for too long, and now have to balance their books?

Could this be a sign of a deeper issue at the company like we saw cracks in the foundation at Ohio National 9 years ago?

Regardless, with Non-Direct Recognition Loans, the insurance company doesn’t boost your dividend with any kind of subsidy (unlike how Direct Recognition companies true up your dividend when higher than the loan rate). Most unsuspecting Infinite Banking clients don’t understand the effect of Direct vs. Non-Direct Recognition in a rising interest rate environment.

You can see it in black in white right off LL’s illustration report:

Another thing that sounds much better than it is the loan cap of 8%.

It’s actually really scary. Here’s why:

Lafayette’s current loan rate is 7%, just 1% away from their 8% cap in this middle-of-the-road interest rate environment.

What happens if the FED someday goes ballistic raising rates to combat hyperinflation like in the 1980’s?

If prevailing interest jump from 5% to 8% or worse yet 11% or 13%, then Lafayette Life MUST squash everyone’s dividend (whether they’re borrowing or not) to compensate for all the money leaving their balance sheet at 8%.

If you think cash value trapped at Lafayette earning a 5.3% dividend rate while borrowing at 7% is bad, what happens during those cycles.

Not very promising for those who plan to keep your whole life through different cycles!

Lafayette Life vs. Other Non-Direct Recognition Companies

If you’re dead set on Non-Direct recognition, consider the much bigger and older TRUE MUTUAL companies like Mass Mutual or New York Life on the list above.

But really, you should first research the true effect of Direct vs. Non-Direct Recognition in a rising interest rate environment before just taking these blanket recommendations.

Mass Mutual or New York Life early cash value may lag Lafayette’s by a few thousand in the first handful of years, but they exceed by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars later on when it really counts.

Penn Mutual is a Direct Recognition company, which can actually boost your dividends in a rising rate environment. Regardless, with vastly better long-term cash value performance to Lafayette Life, they have a lot of room to be wrong and still win.

Regardless, with Mass and NYL both with Non-Direct Recognition loans in the 5% range rather than LL’s 7%, it’s hard for me to understand why a prospective Infinite Banking client would ever choose them… unless that’s all they’ve been offered or shown!

Better understand how to read company illustrations by learning the key milestone stages every single Whole Life policy experiences when designed for Infinite Banking.

You can request your own customized comparison of the top true mutual companies for your unique Infinite Banking strategy today.

Is Lafayette Life a “True Mutual Company”?

Lafayette Life reorganized its entity structure from being a true mutual insurance company to a “mutual holding company.”

Is a mutual holding company a mutual or stock company?

A “mutual holding company,” is technically a stock company that’s has an element of mutuality only because the stock is owned 100% by its policyholders (for the moment).

Mutual Insurance companies reorganize themselves as a Mutual Holding Company, often claiming that it’s easier to raise capital, even though the True Mutuals have no problem raising capital when they need it through surplus notes.

Most people don’t realize that restructuring as a Mutual Holding Company is the first organizational step towards demutualization. Even if these Whole Life companies delay demutualizing for decades, it’s common for policyholders of a Mutual Holding Company to experience dilution per Chat-GPT:

We can already see a dilution effect happening on LL’s projected cash value & death benefit performance compared to the True Mutuals when taking income, where it’s not even close!

We sounded the alarm early on with Ohio National and actually helped a lot of people rescue their policies. A Canadian Pension Fund bought out Ohio National at fire sale prices, and policyholders got thrown a small bone for the buyout and were left holding crap watered down Whole Life policies.

It’s no surprise that so many of the Infinite Banking agents who used to sell Ohio National policies exclusively, now are allegiant to Lafayette Life. They both have the same business model with progressive commission rates for concentrating business there.

We’re proud to say we sold ZERO Ohio National Whole Life policies and ZERO Lafayette Life policies.

This screenshot below shows why comparing all the companies and their steady income (or not so steady income) from age 67-89.

The red numbers are when retirees instead have to pay premiums back just to save the policy (instead of getting the income they counted on).

We were open to trying to fit LL into our practice since they do have some snazzy features some clients like. But these LARGE PRINT features do have very scary SMALL PRINT implications, that we just couldn’t get comfortable with.

How could we, when we know most Lafayette policies won’t last through retirement? Your focus may be Infinite Banking today, but Whole Life for retirement can be one of the most powerful cornerstone assets to hold, assuming your policy stays solvent.

Lafayette's Top Feature Helps the Exit Strategy

There’s no long-term solution to solving these problems except to take advantage of LL’s main redeeming feature; the high early cash value. By year 11, Lafayette’s cash value performance hasn’t YET taken a leap off the cliff.

That means you can jump off the pain train before it derails.

The high early cash value gives you the ability to 1035 into a better- performing policy while you can still qualify for one.

Here are the 3 things we’ve been modeling for other dissatisfied Lafayette policyholders, so they can fully understand the dilemma they’re in, and how best to solve it.

Scenario 1) Keep doing everything with Lafayette
Scenario 2) Do a full 1035 exchange (rollover) over to a True Mutual company of your choosing
Scenario 3) Or pay the absolute minimum toward Lafayette while sending your overfunding premiums into a new optimized policy after seeing the True Mutuals modeled out for you (with and without a rollover).

Seeing your numbers play out long-term and getting fully educated on your options can really helps you make the best lifelong choice.

We can help you make sense of all your options and transform this “damned if you don’t” situation into something actionable & sustainable.

At the very least, I hope this makes you a more informed consumer before being railroaded into a lackluster policy that’s supposed to last your Whole Life, but engineered to fall miserably short if you use it as intended (with banking and retirement loans).

Picking the Best Whole Life Policy for Your Personal Infinite Banking Strategy

This should be pretty clear cut decision dealing mostly with the math. Sure sometimes non-mathematical features like a Whole Life company’s flexibility may override making a decision based on pure performance.

But all too often, Infinite Banking agents are shaming their clients into thinking that the company selection and policy design isn’t as important as “the philosophy”, which is nonsense!

Don’t fall for this ploy to sell you a lackluster Whole Life policy so they can simplify their business model and enjoy higher commissions.

Work with a team of independent brokers shop and model your intended premiums and loans into policies by all the top Whole Life companies so you can learn through the numbers and decide which will work best for you.

Better yet, learn to combine other assets and loan options into a comprehensive 4-D Banking strategy so you can maximize compounding, minimize loan drag, minimize taxes, and maximize optionality with Infinite Banking.

Final Thoughts on the Best Infinite Banking Companies

Obviously, the best Whole Life company and policy for your situation will depend on your unique fact pattern. As much as consumers would like a quick and easy answer or some simple metric to latch onto like a congruent dividend rate between companies, the decision will always be much more complex.

We hope you found the detailed information on how we rate the top policies after 18 years of experience designing thousands of policies helps you narrow things down. When you’re ready to have an expert help you model your own custom numbers, you can book yourself a free consult on our team’s calendar here.