First of all, we design policies with a min-max premium range, where the minimum premium due is only around 20%-30% of the maximum allowable amount. 

However, since most people start with at least one maximum-funded premium this gives you some flexibility to pay less in the future or even borrow against your cash value to pay your next premium in case of emergency. It is optimal to max fund when you can, and doing so only gives you more and more room to either borrow or flexibly fund in the future.

Not necessarily, but in some cases yes, when clients are too old (>66) or have very serious unresolved health issues. 

That said, we’ve found that people tend disqualify themselves prematurely, when in fact we have often been able to work magic by shopping to multiple carriers and properly framing the facts.

We’re all about shrink-wrapping the least amount of death benefit allowed around whatever maximum premium you plan on pumping in. Remember that the bulk of Whole Life’s costs are mainly based on how much death benefit you buy. However, the older you are the less death benefit you need to squeeze in large premiums. We’ve found that this shrink-wrapping effect for older/unhealthier people leads to much smaller growth differentials than these clients originally expected to the point where it is often still actionable.

Where appropriate, older insureds can sometimes still be the owner of policies on younger/healthier family members or key employees if the differential turns out to be too vast.

Most people erroneously think of life insurance as an either/or-proposition (“either I use my money to do life insurance or use it to I do X”). But rather than thinking of whether or not a properly-funded banking policy is the best investment choice you can make, think about it as your holding tank or future launchpad in between all other investment choices.

Another reason why many of my clients consider using permanent life insurance as the foundational savings location is so they don’t have to be in a hurry to rush into lackluster investment opportunities simply just to get money deployed.

I strongly suggest learning more about the liquidity mechanisms available so you can fully understand how a properly-structured policy doesn’t preclude you from investing your liquidity elsewhere simultaneously.

We do NOT charge an up-front fee for our initial meeting to help you with your understanding of this strategy and related products. Throughout this initial call, we are both mutually exploring if it would be a good fit for us to proceed further together.

Assuming we both decide to explore a professional relationship further, we will also NOT charge for a follow-up meeting.

We only get paid if you have us write some sort of life insurance policy on yourself, a family member, or key employee. As independent agents, we are unattached as to which company or policy type you ultimately choose and are happy to educate you about your options and model them out for your particular situation.

Well it depends on a couple factors. 

The first is which company you choose. Since we’re dealing with the oldest and stodgiest of insurance companies (which is a good thing for keeping your money safe), most haven’t fully embraced technological advances in their underwriting processes.

Some have fully embraced AI (artificial intelligence) in the pre-screening phase, which may substantially shorten the underwriting process for you to as little as 1-week with no exam necessary. They’ve done studies showing this AI underwriting technology has been within 97% accuracy. Due to this extreme cost saving measure, they have rewarded policy holders with more robust dividends. 

(Disclosure: Keep in mind that even these most technologically progressive companies reserve the right to do full underwriting, in which case a full exam would be required and it could take 8-10 weeks.)

So the other factor is simply how complex your fact-pattern is. If you are healthy, make a decent living, and are not asking for crazy amounts of insurance, you will be more likely to get fast-tracked through the AI underwriting system after filling out a single Docusign form through a secure web portal. Conversely, if you have complications in your history you will get kicked back to traditional underwriting anyway, and it may be worth having us “anonymously shop” your fact-pattern to various carriers to see who plans to play nice with you.

Several things actually. 

Most of our competitors have some kind of longer-term “sweetheart contract” with certain insurance companies, which incentivizes them to concentrate their business with said carrier to increase their short or long-term payout in some way, shape, or form.

Upon going fully independent in 2012 after having worked directly under 2 major insurance companies, we made the commitment to only maintain base broker contracts with any and all carriers. Having no minimum quotas gives us the flexibility to stay nimble, move with the market, and always offer the best of breed companies & products to our clients. That way we can listen to your situation and match you with the most appropriate offering.

What else?

Some of our competitors run bigger organizations, but we’ve had clients come over reporting how they felt like they were part of a large mill. On the other end of the spectrum is the myriad of lone-wolf agents offering loads of personal attention while selling insurance out of the back of their car. 

We like to think of ourselves as right down the middle with a lean & mean organization that’s more fulfilling to manage, while still having every specialty covered to be able to offer expanded advice when appropriate (broader education in terms financial, retirement, investment, taxation, estate, etc.). For that reason, we don’t take on every client so we can retain the capacity to best serve those we do choose to take on.

We’d be happy to have an initial conversation to see if on paper there’s a mutually beneficial fit, and quite frankly if it feels right for both of us.

Well, there is no catch. But of course I’m going to say that, right? Let me elaborate…

If you work with an agent or group that designs your policy properly, then you’re really just repositioning your liquidity. That’s it. You’re taking liquid assets from an inefficient holding tank (a bank or mattress paying little to nothing) and shifting that liquidity over time to one of the oldest, strongest, and/or biggest mutual life insurance companies in existence. Why? So you can get better growth, shelter from taxation, and pick up some additional protection benefits as result.

Is there a cost? Short term: yes – there are upfront costs and the first couple of years are the worst years. Long term: not as much – since a properly designed policy would end up with considerably more net spendable dollars than if you had not done the policy at all. It’s really as simple as that, and that is what we at BankingTruths.com intend to model for you in an educational non-salesy manner. Then you can decide if and how much you want to direct towards this type of private banking strategy.

There’s no catch. We offer to do this modeling for free because we’ve done this enough times to know that most of you will follow through with some sort of policy initially only to get more policies in the future on family members. It’s a no-brainer business model from our standpoint if you think about it.

We’re ready when you are. Just remember you’re not getting any younger. So when’s the best time to plant an oak tree? 20 years ago. When’s the next best time?