In this article we will cover the pros and cons of the infinite banking concept®. While there are many pros to infinite banking, there are some cons that you may also need to consider. And while we are advocates of this concept, it is not for everyone or every situation.
At Insurance and Estates we love infinite banking. It is an awesome strategy which allows for maximization of your cash and assets. We have written extensively on this subject. You can can click the following category Infinite Banking to find many more articles on this subject.
The Infinite Banking Concept, (AKA “IBC”), has taken on a lot of other names, such as family banking concept, bank on yourself, perpetual wealth strategy, becoming your own bank, circle of wealth and perpetual wealth system. These are the alternative names we are aware of but there are most assuredly more.
Each of these describe the concept of infinite banking which uses permanent cash value life insurance as your own banking system. The details of how this is done will follow in our article below covering the pros and cons of the infinite banking concept.
Pros and Cons of the Infinite Banking Concept
We came up with 10 Pros and 4 Cons you should be aware of. You can scroll down the page or click on a heading below to immediately jump to that section.
Infinite Banking Concept Pros
All too often we see people confuse infinite banking with life insurance, specifically dividend paying whole life insurance.
However, infinite banking is not a product, but as the name entails, it is a concept for which life insurance just happens to be the best vehicle to practice the concept with.
Infinite banking uses life insurance but IT is NOT life insurance.
This is an important distinction and why so many critiques of the infinite banking concept are so off base.
Find a critique of infinite banking and you will find that the person is not truly talking about infinite banking but will actually be critiquing whole life insurance.
What is wrong with that?
The main issue with not distinguishing infinite banking from whole life insurance is that the person writing the article bashing infinite banking is actually bashing whole life insurance.
Typically, this shows up by the person bashing the low guaranteed returns of whole life (currently at 3.5-4%) and how it fails to compete with buy term and invest the difference, AKA BTID.
But what the article attacking infinite banking always fails to address is the actual concept of infinite banking and how, when done correctly, it can create a climate of unparalleled financial wealth building due to the nature of the concept.
Although not exhaustive, our IBC pros and cons list below will cover some of the major benefits of this concept when used in conjunction with whole life insurance and hopefully provide our readers with some juicy food for thought.
So, let’s get on with the pros…
Non Correlated Asset
We cannot stress enough the importance of having your money stored in a safe environment, free from the ups and downs of the stock market or real estate market.
Whole life insurance is an asset that is not correlated to the stock or housing market.
What does “non correlated” mean?
In a world obsessed with the stock market, it is important to have assets that are non correlated, i.e. not tied directly to the stock market, that do not move in lock step with the fluctuations of the market.
One great thing about whole life insurance is it is not tied to the stock market.
Safe Bucket
Rather, whole life offers guaranteed cash value growth year over year, providing policyholders with an excellent “safe bucket” of assets that can help insulate you from the ebbs and flows of the stock market.
And consider this, since January 2022, we have seen a large pullback in the overall markets. Over the last year we have yet to see a large crash, although the S&P 500 finished 2022 down over 19%. To put that in perspective, the past two stock market crashes (2000 and 2008) led to at least 50% losses.
Whole life insurance is a great way to create some stability in an otherwise unstable world by providing a safe bucket, a rock solid financial foundation, against the next inevitable market downturn.
In addition, if you are looking to truly diversify into different asset classes, instead of having your entire nest egg in the stock market, a participating whole life policy is a great option.
Improves cash flow and liquidity
When you engage in the strategic use of whole life insurance applying the infinite banking concept you improve your cash flow and liquidity.
Consider this fantastic infinite banking example.
If you have equity in real estate, how liquid is that equity?
The answer is, not that much. If you want to gain access to the equity in your home or investment real estate you have to sell the property, qualify for a HELOC or Cash Out RE-Fi.
Rather, if your equity is in your life insurance policy, an advantage this offers is that you have unhindered access to your policy’s cash value.
To access your cash value, all you need to do is call your insurance company and ask for a check to be issued. You can usually receive a check within just a few days – no qualification – no evaluation – no hassle.
In addition, consider this.
If you had a $500,000 home with 100% equity (i.e. you owed zero), most people would tell you, “Great job, you are debt free!” However, what if you owed $500,000 on that same property (a liability), but you also had $500,000 in a bank account (an asset), or better yet, a life insurance policy earning tax deferred compound interest?
Would you still be debt free?
In reality, you would have a $500,000 debt, but you would also have $500,000 LIQUID CASH available for you whenever you needed it. Your balance sheet would reflect ZERO overall debt, with a growing asset (your cash value).
However, if all that equity was in your home and trouble hit, how difficult would it be to take all or even some of that equity out? The answer, pretty difficult if not impossible.
So, a huge benefit of infinite banking using whole life insurance is that you can store your wealth in a liquid asset. And that asset provides true compound interest growth, in a tax favored environment. (More on this below)
Personal Family Financing
Another pro of IBC is that you are in control (i.e. the owner and operator) of your own personal or family financing company. You are using life insurance as your own bank as you become your own banker.
Becoming your own banker means you can:
- loan money out to your own company,
- charge your company interest,
- then your company pays you for the use of your money,
- your company can write off the interest,
- you recoup the interest, which
- you use to pay back your policy loan, and
- you then repeat the process ad infinitum.
Each time you loan your money out to either yourself, your family, your business, or whoever, you are charging interest.
As you recoup the money with interest, you are adding more money into your bank (policy) than you started with.
The result is that over your lifetime you have amassed wealth beyond what you ever believed was possible.
Equity storehouse
When you employ an infinite banking strategy you are placing your equity into a tax-advantaged storehouse for later use. The cash in your storehouse (your policy) is growing due to “true” compound interest.
It is true compound interest because you are never touching your actual principle, but instead are borrowing from the carrier’s general fund. That way your money in your policy is continually compounding, even while you are paying simple interest on a policy loan, which currently can be variable or fixed.
You are allowed to continually add to your policy in addition to your normal premium through vehicles known as life insurance supplement riders, additional life insurance riders, or paid up additions.
Paid up additions
Paid up additions, also known as PUAs, allow you to take cash profits from your various assets (real estate, oil, dividend stocks, you name it), re-invest that cash into your “bank” and convert those cash profits into tax free dollars via policy loans, to use for additional cash flow asset purchases, large ticket purchases (vehicles, office equipment), retirement income, etc.
Leverage
And don’t forget about the death benefit
The life insurance death benefit is not the main focus when implementing the concept of infinite banking but it does provide a leveraged death benefit payout in the early years should you die prematurely.
Having a lump sum death benefit provides peace of mind knowing that your loved ones are taken care of if you die young.
401K or IRA
For those that choose to fund a 401k plan or IRA, there is no death benefit. A beneficiary family gets the proceeds from the 401k or IRA as is, minus any income tax owed, which is taxed as ordinary income (the highest taxed type of income).
In contrast, with life insurance, the death benefit is tax free.
As an example, an individual may elect to pay $1,000 a month in premium toward an IBC policy. At the end of year one, they would have nearly $10,000 in cash value available. In addition, that money is growing tax free (as we’ll see next) and the depending on their age, the owner is insured for $100,000 or more.
So the death benefit is there from day one, which is huge financial leverage dollar for dollar, when you consider you only put a fraction of money into the policy. Your IRA or 401k death benefit would be zero, because IRAs and 401ks have no death benefits.
Please note: You can also add a term life insurance rider to your IBC policy in the early years to get additional death benefit protection for your family. Adding a term insurance rider is a great strategy to build cash value quickly, while also having a larger initial death benefit. When employing the infinite banking strategy our goal is to build high cash value ASAP.
Tax advantaged policy growth
Your policy’s cash value accumulates tax free. And you can completely avoid ever paying taxes on your policy gains by choosing to take out life insurance loans.
Taxes are the number one killer of wealth and your number one expense throughout your life.
A properly structured cash value policy designed for infinite banking can help you avoid taxes altogether versus having your money grow tax deferred in an IRA or 401K, only to be at the mercy of the government and whatever the tax rate currently is when it comes time to take your money out.
So, you may be wondering, how does a whole life insurance policy grow?
Dividends
One way your policy grows is through life insurance dividends.
Participating life insurance provides an annual dividend payment, considered a return of premium for tax purposes, to its eligible policyholders.
Although not guaranteed, most top mutual insurance companies have paid a dividend every year for over 100 years.
Life insurance dividends can be used for many different things but ideally you want to use the dividends to purchase additional paid up life insurance.
So what happens is, your dividend goes back into your policy and buys even more death benefit.
As you do this, your policy’s death benefit will continue to grow, in addition to your policy’s cash value.
Tax free loans
Although you may be tempted to withdraw cash from your policy, it is important to understand that life insurance policy loans are not taxable.
You are using money that has grown at around a guaranteed rate of 3.5-4% a year, plus dividends that add another potential 2-3% a year. That is a potential 5-6% yield that compounds year after year that you can use tax free via loans.
(Note: potential returns vary but when interest rates rise, your whole life returns will most likely increase as well. At one time, dividends from whole life companies were double digits.)
And if you are not being taxed on your gains, it is similar to earning another 2-3% interest, depending on the tax bracket you fall into.
On a side note. Consider that normal stock market returns are taxed around 20% or more. That means if you earn $10,000, you will pay around $2,000 in taxes that year (maybe higher). If you earn $10,000 in your policy you will pay ZERO taxes, even though you have access to that money via collaterally assigned policy loans.
Think about what the long term implications of not being taxed on your entire cash value accumulation will be.
It is truly amazing compound interest growth over the long haul, and why whole life insurance is the best vehicle to use when practicing infinite banking.
Guarantees
Now we just mentioned above one reason whole life is the best vehicle for infinite banking.
In addition, a properly structured participating whole life policy provides a few incredible guarantees.
Whole life insurance guarantees:
- Guaranteed cash value accumulation
- Guaranteed death benefit
- Guaranteed fixed premiums
- Guaranteed compounding interest rate growth
Along with the above guarantees, you can also earn dividends. Although dividends are not guaranteed, the companies we recommend have paid dividends for the last 100 years, and in many cases much longer – that includes paying dividends through the years of the Great Depression and the Great Recession!
Private
For many asset classes, the public can simply do a search and find out what you are up to.
For example, running a credit report or title search will tell you a great deal about an individual’s financial holdings.
However, with life insurance your policy’s information is private. Your life insurance holdings does not show up on any reports or searches.
Further, when you take out a policy loan for infinite banking, your loan does not show up on a credit report, which comes in handy when you are applying for financing. And there is another reason why this privacy is beneficial – creditor protection.
Creditor Protection for Cash Value Life Insurance
There are many states that provide creditor protection for life insurance.
So, if you are faced with some financial strife, your cash value may be sheltered from creditors.
Additionally, if you are sued, your money in your policy may be protected from a judgment.
You can click the link above to check with your particular state for more.
Infinite Banking Concept Cons
As you can see above, the advantages of implementing an infinite banking strategy using whole life insurance are many.
However, there are a few disadvantages as well that need to be addressed when considering if this is the right path for you.
Cost prohibitive
For many people on a shoe string budget the infinite banking concept can be cost prohibitive.
Although there is no set minimum monthly payment, in order to truly follow this concept and see its fruit you would need to try and put around 10% of your income into your policy, or at least $300 a month.
For many people who are just getting by this can be prohibitive and it precludes many from ever attempting this awesome wealth building strategy.
The good news is there is often places where you can “find” additional money that is slipping through the cracks. Our team of pros can help you shore up you finances and “discover” money you never knew you had.
Requires discipline
The infinite banking concept is not for the faint of heart. You have to be disciplined and have a strong inner conviction that you want to see this through to the end. As Nelson Nash would say, You have to be an “honest banker.”
An “honest banker?”
The most powerful aspect of infinite banking is the long term growth that is fueled by borrowing against your policy AND PAYING IT BACK!
If you don’t pay back your policy, you will slow the growth, and ultimately miss out on maximizing your policy to pass on as a legacy.
Like many things in life, the best things come at a price (despite what popular wisdom tells you).
With infinite banking the price is a disciplined approach to your finances. The rewards will be amazing but you must be willing to walk the road less traveled.
Must qualify
As with any life insurance policy, you must qualify for an infinite banking policy.This means that if you have existing health problems, it might be harder for you to qualify for a policy.
The good news is that whole life insurance may actually be easier to qualify for than term life.
When applying for life insurance with health issues it pays to have options and choose a company that you are more likely to be approved with.
Not Diversified
Another con you will find associated with infinite banking is that when you practice personal financing using your life insurance you are putting all your “eggs” into one basket.
Since all your money is only in your life insurance asset, you are breaking one of the main tenets proposed by financial “gurus” who tell us to diversify, diversify, diversify!
Well, as advocates of infinite banking, you can safely assume we do not follow the current trends pushed by so called financial experts.
The idea that you have to diversify assumes that the market may move against one of your positions so being diversified acts as a hedge against market volatility.
What really occurs with diversification is the owner of the account entrusts his portfolio to an advisor who takes into account the owner’s risk tolerance and creates a portfolio to match.
With a properly structured dividend paying whole life policy designed for infinite banking you don’t have to worry about market volatility.
As we mentioned above, whole life insurance is a non correlated asset.
Further, it offers guarantees and is backed by some of the most financially sound companies in the world.
So since you don’t have to worry about volatility, you also don’t have to concern yourself with diversification.
There are two reasons I say this.
Reason one: With an infinite banking policy you have certain guarantees, such as guaranteed cash value growth, guaranteed death benefit, and guaranteed fixed premiums. It is this certainty that removes the need for diversity in your portfolio.
Reason two: If you are practicing infinite banking you are using your whole life insurance as an asset to borrow against for the purchase of other assets.
As you are doing this you are engaging in diversification by purchasing cash flowing assets.
So the bottom line is this, by implementing infinite banking into your wealth building strategy you will automatically diversify in order to maximize your policy, your wealth and your legacy.
IBC Pros and Cons Conclusion
Thank you for reading our article covering the infinite banking concept pros and cons. Hopefully we gave you a lot to think over.
This concept is not easy to grasp because it requires a paradigm shift in the way you view money. However, for those who stick with it, the rewards are nothing short of life changing.
The real trick is…
Finding someone who will be willing to look at your financial situation with you and help you determine whether the concept of “being your own banker” makes sense for you.
The good news is that’s pretty much what we do all day here at I&E, so, if your interested in finding out how you can use life insurance as your own banking system, we are here to help.
Next Steps
Interested in taking the next step towards your own infinite banking policy? Please check out our many webinars and e-books on our resources page. You can also drop us a note in the comments section below and let us know how we can help you take the next step on your journey today.
Disclaimer: The Infinite Banking Concept® is a registered trademark of Infinite Banking Concepts, LLC. InsuranceandEstate.com is independent of and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Infinite Banking Concepts, LLC.
This is one of the few really coherent and illuminating articles that I’ve read on the subject of “infinite banking” – whoever scribbled it, great job.
Hello Steve Gibbs,
Great videos!!! New business owner, also about to get my Realtors license (WA), yet still keep my Clark Kent as IT Lead in the Financial business space. I am also married, 21 yrs, w/ home technician (also new business owner) and three kids: 15,12 and 9. So I want to start with 3 UIL and 3 WLP (2 for me; 1 for wife) as my base contributing 12K -15k per year for each WLP and 5-7k per year for UIL. Afterward, would like to broker (seek my WA insurance lic.) – possibly a part of your team as I am with many clients to follow my lead. I want flexible premiums, best life benefits and riders as well as keep my fees minimal with dividends eventually paying ALL overhead. Please call me or send follow-up e-mail to inlikeu@hotmail to get started. Timeline to start: 11/30/18. Thank You in advance, Steve T
Hello Steven!
Thanks for your enthusiastic feedback and interest in starting your planning and potentially working with our I&E Pro Client Guide team. Given your various interests, I’d like to have Jason Herring reach out to you. He is our most experienced Guide for IUL products and he works with new agents who are interested in affiliating. The catch is that he’s on a mission trip to Honduras right now so his response time won’t be as efficient as usual. I’ll pass your information to him and just ask that you give him some time to respond.
Best to you.
Steve Gibbs, Esq.
Hello. I am xx male non smoker looking to set up a ten pay whole life participating life insurance. I intend to drop a term policy I have once this is set up. My timeline is to start drawing down my 401K @ 59.5 pay state and local taxes and invest xxxxx per year. I locked in my 401K balance in a fixed return investment currently xxxxx @2.5% . I’m planning to work till 67yrs I’m married 3 kids 5,7,14 yrs old, Spouse 54 homemaker . We are currently funding a indexed whole life policy for spouse xx per year with similar guaranteed returns and accessible cash value thru loans. I’m looking at your plan to offset xx year old son’s college costs in 4 or 5 years. Included in my 401K balance is about xx Roth funds 100% vested, over 5years old. I’m not ready to buy today but like to get info . Thanks Mike Z
Need the information for estates planning.
thanks team if i lived in the usa i would use your services
Hi.im Terry can i draw all my money out my 401k while I’m still working a 6 to 4 to invest in my bank
Hello Terry, thanks for commenting. Withdrawal from a 401k is a taxable event and may be subject to a penalty if you’re a younger person. Still, there are cases where it makes sense to withdraw and this should be discussed in a confidential setting with an expert.
Best, I&E
Could you explain when it would be beneficial to draw down a 401k and put into an IBC policy?
Hello, thanks for inquiring. Reach out to one of our experts, Jason Herring, at jason@insuranceandestates.com and send a preferred phone contact and best time to call if you haven’t connected with him already.
Best,
I&E
when you pull all of your 401k out, it is taxable and usually penalized for up to 50%.
Joel G
Hello Joel, thanks for commenting. We actually do NOT recommend that people “pull out all of their 401ks”. That said, the actual tax ramifications would be the 10% penalty if you’re younger plus whatever the taxes are based upon your bracket. With this in mind, there are cases where it may be advisable to convert a portion of tax deferred assets now and pay taxes at current rates vs later when taxes may be higher. There is also the ongoing question of whether you want to pay taxes on the seed or the harvest. It’s common knowledge in the estate planning world that qualified accounts are extremely inflexible in older years. RMDs are required and often force retirees into higher tax brackets. I suggest that you ponder these truths because there is a widespread idea not ever touch your 401k. Where does this ardent conviction come from? I’ll let you speculate.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Steven Gibbs is a licensed insurance agent, and the following agent
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What is the difference of using whole life and IUL for this strategy and can you explain why one is better than the other.
Thanks
Hello Philip, thanks for reading and commenting. This would be a small novella to answer in a blog post. I suggest connecting with Barry Brooksby who is our infinite banking expert at barry@insuranceandestates.com and we’ve asked him to reach out to you as well.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
You say that IBC is independent from whole life insurance. OK. What other vehicle(s) could I utilize to implement this? Everything I read in the PROs except non-correlated asset I can achieve without using a whole life policy and non-correlated asset is a non-issue in terms of importance in the long run.
Hello and thanks for commenting. It is our finding that whole life is the best vehicle for IBC due to its numerous attributes discussed in the article. When you’re mentioning another vehicle its unclear what you mean. If you’re aware of another asset that works better than whole life for IBC, we would be very interested to hear about it. As I’ve often said, think about whole life like a piece of real estate, with a minimum guaranteed return, plus likely dividends based upon 100+ years of history, plus tax free accumulation + liquidity + leverage. When you try to swap for other assets you run into unpredictability in terms of growth and costs.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Would a 401 k plan borrowed against and repay loan – it’s also tax free and you are “paying yourself “Interest. The 401k account can be in a non market fund eg stable value bonds or money market to ensure no stick market volatility. There is zero cost with this , but no insurance or DB but there are other ways to cover that
Thanks
Hello Brian, thanks for commenting. You can check out our article on 401k loans and withdrawals: https://www.insuranceandestates.com/401k-withdrawals-and-loans/
for a better idea on this as well as our article on policy loans: https://www.insuranceandestates.com/life-insurance-loans/. Point being, 401k loans come with many repayment conditions and thus are not what they’re cracked up to be. When you answer this, you might not be as concerned about replacing the DB given the “night and day” difference with policy loans which are entirely flexible and totally liquid. Just my opinion.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
I’m guessing the author mistakenly forgot to mention the pro related to paying simple interest on loans like home loans, versus giving a devil what typically can equal 100% interest fee on a 3.5% compound interest loan.
Hi Thomas, excellent point and thanks for reading.
Best, I&E
Life insurance loans can be taxable. There are taxable events so every situation needs to be looked at carefully before doing this.
Hello John, thanks for commenting. While I agree that every situation needs to be looked at, I’m not aware of one where a policy loan was taxable. This is simply a matter of the IRS definition of what constitutes income in my experience and if it is a “loan”…
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
The possibility of being taxed on a life insurance loan is next to none. The IRS cannot charge taxes on debt. It is similar to the way you can perform a cash out refinance on your home and take money out of your home’s equity as debt that cannot be taxed
What if you are in your 60’s. Can you pay one large single premium and be up and running ?
Hi Guy,
Paying one single premium creates a modified endowment contract, which is not ideal. Instead, paying into your policy over a number of years is usually the best route to take full advantage of the various life insurance tax benefits and incentives under the tax code.
Best,
I&E
So, what’s the advantage for someone age 66, retired, with a mixed portfolio of IRAs (traditional and Roth), real estate, and savings totaling roughly $1.8M?
Hello Adolfo and thanks for your question. The advantage would be to create predictable estate growth through WL guarantees for at least a portion of your assets, to an extent not possible with IRAs AND creating tax advantages due to flexibility of policy cash value and option for policy loans AND due to non-taxed death benefit passing to heirs.
If you’re interested in exploring options in more detail and obtaining specific examples (scenarios) connect with Barry Brooksby at barry@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Quick question:
Say I have a policy of $250,000 and a premium of $500 per month. After 12 months of contributions, I’d have contributed $6,000. Say I take loan of $10,000 against that policy,
1. Will it be possible to take a loan more than what I have contributed so far?
2. What will the repayment plan for the $10,000 loan be?
3. Am I at liberty to determine my repayment amount and duration?
4. Say I am paying back $1,050 over 10 months (principal & interest), does that mean I need to be paying $1,550 every month now, being Premium and repayment?
Looking forward to reading your answers.
Hello and thanks for commenting. Your illustration is bit problematic because these policies include a base premium and paid up (cash) additions. The rate at which cash value builds varies between policies and companies, so an actual illustration would be required to meaningfully address how much of a loan you can take after 12 months. Generally though, you would NOT be able to borrow more than contributed in a 12 month period. The repayment plan on a policy loan is whatever you decide to pay back; however, we encourage folks to pay at least what they would be required to pay in a conventional loan. For a more specific look at this, I encourage you to check in with Barry Brooksby at barry@insuranceandestates.com and have an actual illustration prepared.
Best, Steve Gibbs, for I&E
Thanks Steve.
I will reach out to Barry promptly.
“loan money out to your own company,
charge your company interest,
then your company pays you for the use of your money,
your company can write off the interest,
you recoup the interest, which
you use to pay back your policy loan, and
you then repeat the process ad infinitum.”
When I get the interest from my own company, do I need to pay tax? If so, I need to charge much higher interest rate to my own company to pay back my life insurance company to break even.
Hello James and thanks for commenting. The short answer is that you need to be careful when considering writing off interest from a policy loan to your company. Barry Brooksby can talk with you about this in detail and you can e-mail him at barry@insuranceandestates.com to request a call.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
I hear a lot about the ibc concept but this is always from North American sources. Is there any information for those of us in the UK?
What a novelty! An insurance advocate promoting the most expensive insurance policy out there. While some points about IBC are certainly valid, e.g., liquidity compared to other investment options like real estate and certain stock market investments, other concepts are skimmed over without much deliberation. How about where someone puts in $1k a month and you say, “At the end of year one, they would have nearly $10,000 in cash value available.”? Let’s say you’re not stretching and you’ve actually paid only $2k for the policy at that point. I’m a 35 male who pays less $500/year for a $500k (twice the value of your example’s policy) term policy. I take my $11.5k, including my $1.5k savings over whole life and invest where I see fit. If I plug that into an index fund where history tells me I’ll average 8% or better, accounting for boom AND bust years, and I have an account value of ~$12.5k. I’m now $2.5k ahead of your example. Sure, you’ll say, but it could also lose money and IBC using whole life is more secure with flexible loan options. My question is, how are AIG, Berkshire, Humana, Zurich and all the other insurance providers able to offer these plans with the interest gaining account balances? What devices do they use to make money with all those premiums? Seems to me like I saw a lot of them getting into some financial trouble with their investment selections sometime around 2007-08. I think they were called mortgaged-backed securities? If you give your money to those who then go and invest in the stock market (because the returns are much better than IBC), have you really safeguarded your money at all? I’d ask AIG customers how secure they felt before Uncle Sam stepped in and kept the company holding their “infinite bank” funds from going belly up. Also, you stated, “Consider that normal stock market returns are taxed around 20% or more.” This is only true for those investing for less than 1-year. You can’t just compare the least desirable aspects of the stock market with the most desirable of IBC and be considered impartial. Capital gains (gains on investments over 1 year) will limit the average person’s taxes to 15%, and that’s only for non-tax benefited, i.e., NOT 401k’s and IRA’s which both have tax benefits. Also left out that those yields you noted in whole life policies are likely non-guaranteed and the guaranteed yield on your accounts is probably closer to 1-2%, with the POTENTIAL to make 5-6%, which is still less than average annualized return of the stock market (8-10%). To those still reading this comment, I’m sorry for the long post, and please use an investment strategy other than IBC. Buy a term policy to protect your loved ones instead, or at least review other financial resources/forums where they are not trying to directly sell you the product/service being discussed.
Dear Unreasonable Cynic, I am an estate planner first and have been advocating for permanent life insurance solutions for years and really not for the purpose of “selling products”. There is nothing original in your commentary – just typical trashing of insurance products with the end game of promoting Wall Street based investing. Worse part is, this isn’t constructive. Mutual whole life companies didn’t get in trouble in 2007-2008 and by the way, all of Wall Street was in trouble around that time, no? You’re even admitting here there are some valid points about IBC. I encourage you not to fall into the trap of advocating 1 size fits all solutions. Saying things like “buy a term policy to protect your loved ones…” How about for those who follow your advice until their term expires and health issues prohibit getting coverage? I’ve observed folks in this situation when life insurance is needed for liquidity. Your “by the numbers” attack approach lacks reasonableness. There is no one size fits all.
I am interested in opening a whole life insurance policy.
Hello Troy, thanks for connecting. To get started, go ahead and email Barry Brooksby to request a call at barry@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Hello.
My husband and I are interested in opening accounts but need directions. Pls help.
Hello, thanks for connecting. A great first step is to request a call with our IBC expert Barry Brooksby at barry@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Good evening after reading your thorough report I would like to speak with Barry at his earliest convenience to get some verbal information on this matter. Thank you for your time.
Hello Lance, thanks for connecting. If you haven’t yet received an email or call from Barry, go ahead and request a call by emailing him at barry@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs, Esq.
I’m about to sell my home in Phoenix Arizona and move back to property that I own in Texas I was wondering how I would go about taking the proceeds from the sell of my house and investing in whole life insurance to start my own IBC and was wondering if you could reach out to me to get me in touch with someone in this area that I could talk to that would help me with the the money or the proceeds that I’m going to get an investing it into such a program
Hello Jeffrey, if you’re talking about your primary home, you may be able to just take the proceeds and invest them in a policy if your homestead tax exemption applies. This can all be worked out in a zoom consultation. To start that process, go ahead and email our IBC expert Barry Brooksby to request a meeting at barry@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Hi there. I noticed that all your products (and those online) pertaining to the IBC are US based. Are there any practitioners you are aware of or any information available of IBC implementation in the UK? I also noticed that you did not answer the question asked in your comments about this above. I(/we, your UK based readers) would appreciate your experienced view on this please. Thank you, in advance of course.
Hello, we can offer products to overseas folks under certain conditions. To inquire further, go ahead and request a call with Barry Brooksby at barry@insuranceandestates.com if a team member hasn’t already reached out to you.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
I’m interested in knowing more about infinite banking. Could I set up a meeting time to discuss it?
Hello Bryce, if you haven’t yet connected with someone, go ahead and request a call from Barry Brooksby at barry@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
Would it be smart to take a HELOC to pay debt first to have more cash available and then open a Wholelife insurance?
Hello Evelyn, this is a financial question that is tough to answer in a blog post setting without a better understanding of your financial picture. Alot could depend on the interest rate on the HELOC yet other concerns should also be factored in. Best to schedule a call with one of our pro-team members and a good start would be emailing Denise at denise@insuranceandestates.com.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
I don’t see the part about direct and non direct recognition. Wouldn’t non direct work better with policy loans? Especially if there are multiple loans over time? Love some feedback.
Direct vs non-direct recognition is debated amongst IBC professionals. Don’t think the question of multiple loans is a huge concern, though again this could be debatable. In my experience, non-direct carriers pay higher dividends on average so perhaps it evens out. I don’t think this is a major determining factor in selecting top companies.
Best, Steve Gibbs for I&E
If in had 100k and borrowed 80k it seems like non direct recognition would make a significant difference. This is me just talking I do not the the exact answer. I really want to look at the numbers to see. I’m a big fan of guardian life insurance but I would love to see this compared to say a Lafayette life. Thank you for you incredible article. I’m going through the Nelson Nash Institute as we speak. See at the think tank!