
Frequently asked questions
Infinite Banking is a process, not a product, and there is nothing to buy. The products used in this process offer more than just permanent life insurance and protection; they provide a range of additional benefits that can be utilized throughout one's lifetime. These advantages, which I refer to as "The Living Benefits" of permanent life insurance, make the concept unique and valuable.
While the following information may contradict traditional financial advice, I encourage you to read it, multiple times, if necessary, to fully understand its implications.
What stands out to me is that many individuals lack financial balance in their lives. The majority of people I encounter have most of their assets exposed to market risks (401k’s) and tax implications through W2 income. To build long-term wealth and minimize losses, it is crucial to recapture lost opportunity on our money.
The concept of using specially designed whole life contracts to achieve financial efficiency is not just about the product itself, but also about the process. We must ask ourselves if there are alternative ways to accomplish our financial goals and produce better outcomes. The answer is yes. By employing a strategy that aims to enhance our financial position, we can avoid unnecessary wealth transfers, accumulate a growing pool of capital, and benefit from accessibility, control, and uninterrupted compounding.
Essentially, everything we purchase is financed in one way or another. We either pay interest or forfeit the opportunity to earn interest. It is essential to consider not only the cost of an item but also the opportunity cost associated with how we pay for it. In essence, there are three types of individuals: debtors, savers, and wealth creators. Although debtors and savers engage in transactions that seem opposite, they ultimately involve the same fundamental principles when examined closely.
In his book "Becoming Your Own Banker," Nelson Nash doesn't explicitly list "human conditions" to overcome for financial success. However, he dedicates five chapters to what he calls the "human problem," emphasizing its crucial role in achieving financial success. These chapters, often overlooked, offer valuable insights into the behavioral and psychological challenges individuals must address. Let's evaluate them below:
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Parkinson's Law
Problem: This law, often phrased as "work expands to fill the time available for its completion," applies to finances as well. People tend to spend all the money they have access to, regardless of how much they earn. Overcoming It: Developing budgeting skills and financial discipline is crucial. Tracking spending, setting financial goals, and creating a system for saving and investing can counteract the tendency to spend impulsively.
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Willie Sutton's Law
Problem: This law, based on the bank robber's famous quote "because that's where the money is," highlights the human tendency to seek easy solutions and quick rewards. In finance, this can manifest as chasing get-rich-quick schemes, falling for financial scams, or making impulsive investment decisions without proper due diligence. Overcoming It: Cultivating patience, long-term thinking, and a rational approach to financial decisions is essential. Thoroughly researching investment opportunities, seeking advice from trusted financial professionals, and focusing on steady, sustainable growth strategies can help avoid costly mistakes driven by the desire for instant gratification.
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The Golden Rule Problem: While the Golden Rule emphasizes treating others as you want to be treated, in the context of finance, Nash applies it to highlight the importance of financial self-reliance. Relying excessively on others for financial support, whether family, friends, or the government, can lead to dependence and hinder personal financial growth. Overcoming It: Embracing personal responsibility for financial well-being is key. Developing the skills and knowledge to manage money effectively, seeking financial education, and working towards financial independence can empower individuals to take control of their financial lives.
​ The Arrival Syndrome Problem: This syndrome describes the tendency to overspend or make unwise financial decisions after achieving a financial goal or milestone, such as a promotion or inheritance. The sense of "arrival" can lead to a false sense of security and trigger impulsive spending habits. Overcoming It: Maintaining financial discipline and a long-term perspective is critical, even after reaching significant milestones. Sticking to a budget, seeking guidance from financial advisors, and continuing to save and invest wisely can help prevent setbacks caused by overspending triggered by a sense of achievement.
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Use It or Lose It Problem: This concept refers to the importance of actively managing and utilizing one's capital. Money that sits idle loses its potential to generate returns or support financial goals. Overcoming It: Developing a proactive approach to financial management is key. Regularly reviewing investments, exploring opportunities to leverage capital, and seeking out ways to make money work actively, such as through the Infinite Banking Concept, can help maximize financial potential.
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these concepts and the emphasis on financial behavior, personal responsibility, and disciplined money management are central to achieving financial success with the Infinite Banking Concept. Understanding these challenges and implementing strategies to overcome them is as crucial as understanding the mechanics of the strategy itself.
The insurance product used and its design plays a crucial role in its effectiveness. Unlike qualified plans, an insurance contract offers valuable guarantees, providing you with continuously growing cash values, a good level of predictability, access, control, protection, and liquidity.
There is no one size fits all. The IBC concept is completely scalable, it can accommodate individuals just starting their wealth building journey to high net worth individuals looking to add optionality to their financial plan or estate planning.
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By paying annual, semi-annual, quarterly, or monthly premiums into a specially tailored insurance product, a portion of your payment is allocated to immediate cash value through the "Paid Up Addition Rider." This cash value earns a return, typically around 3.5%-4% minus a mortality cost specific to your peer group, along with a non-guaranteed dividend. After the policy has had some time to mature – approximately 6-8 years – and absorb the early costs of startup, the approximate yield on your cash value is close to 4.0% on a tax-deferred basis. The cash account remains liquid at all times and can be used as collateral, similar to a bank savings account, except for the 4.0% component.
When you need to make a capital purchase, or an investment of any kind, you have the option to take a loan from the insurance company using your cash value balance as collateral. Importantly, you never actually touch your cash value, which allows it to continue compounding. The insurance company charges you either a variable or a guaranteed contractual fixed interest rate for the loan. However, while the loan is outstanding, your cash value remains untouched and continues to earn compounded returns, currently at around 4.0%. The insurance companies I work with have a "crediting rate" mechanism, whereby they increase the dividend on borrowed funds, resulting in a net loan cost of approximately 1% underneath the surface.
An easy analogy to understand is to think of a cash-back credit card purchase - you buy a property for 100K, the credit card company charges you 5% interest on the purchase and gives you 4% cash back. In the insurance loan you are charged 5%, and your cash value collateralized for the loan grows by 4% - leaving you a net cost of 1% for the loan.
This unique structure provides you with the opportunity to access funds when needed, while your cash value continues to grow and earn interest, effectively minimizing the overall cost of the loan. You also enjoy total use and control and liquidity, all under contract law protections and safe harbor
The cash value of whole life insurance consistently grows over time, assuming you are consistently paying your premiums as modeled. Once a dividend is paid, it becomes a permanent addition to your cash value and cannot be taken back. Each year, your cash value increases regardless of current market conditions and returns. This is a valuable benefit that should not be overlooked.
Accessing your cash value within a policy for wealth creation allows your money to work twice, effectively maximizing its potential. This unique characteristic is not found in any other financial instrument that I am aware of. Furthermore, whole life insurance offers significant tax advantages and far more consistent returns when compared to trading accounts. The gains accumulated within a whole life policy grow on a tax-deferred basis. When accessed through policy loans in the future, these gains can be utilized tax-free, providing a considerable tax advantage.
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​​​Let's also consider the aspect of protection. Rest easy knowing that your financial responsibilities are safeguarded through a guaranteed death benefit. Even if you take out policy loans to invest in real estate, syndications, the stock market, or business ventures, your investments will remain covered by a death benefit for your beneficiaries.
For those short on time or seeking a quick overview, this summary highlights the key benefits of the IBC concept.
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Living Benefits: Permanent life insurance offers more than protection; it provides valuable guarantees, predictability, protection, safe harbor, liquidity, and use and control of your capital unlike qualified plans.
Warehouse Your Wealth: Store your wealth and capital where it can grow continuously through guaranteed compounded returns, maximizing your wealth-building potential, and have complete access.
Remove Market Risk: Whole life insurance's cash value is a non-correlated asset, unaffected by market conditions.
Financial Balance: Achieve balance in your financial portfolio by exploring alternative strategies to build wealth and minimize losses.
Efficiency and Wealth Growth: Employ a strategy that enhances your financial position, avoiding wealth transfers and benefiting from accessibility, control, and compounding.
Cash Value Growth and Access: Premium payments consistently grow cash value over time, offering immediate liquidity and access.
Loan Benefits: Utilize policy loans with low interest rates while your cash value continues to grow, providing tax-free access to funds.
Retirement Income Strategy: Strategically access cash value during retirement without triggering taxes.
Death Benefit Protection: Ensure financial security for your beneficiaries with a guaranteed death benefit, even if you take out policy loans for investments.
Tax Advantages: Enjoy significant tax advantages, including tax-deferred growth and tax-free access to gains through policy loans.
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These takeaways summarize the key advantages of the IBC concept and whole life insurance, emphasizing wealth growth, access to funds, tax benefits, and financial protection.
Cash value can be accumulated during your working years and strategically utilized during retirement. One advantageous feature is the ability to take loans against your cash value, using it as collateral, with no obligation to repay the loans. This approach offers tax-free access to the cash since loans are not considered taxable events. Importantly, as you are not actually withdrawing your cash value, your entire cash value continues to earn compounded returns.
By implementing this strategy, you can potentially make your money last longer, and accumulate a significantly larger sum of money compared to a traditional draw-down approach on a 401K or IRA account. It provides a means to access funds without triggering taxes while allowing your cash value to continue growing with a compounded rate of return.
It is important to note that when you have an outstanding loan, the payable death benefit of the policy is reduced by the loan amount plus accrued interest. This demonstrates how you can leverage the benefits of the insurance contract while you are alive, maximizing the value it offers throughout your lifetime.
Lost opportunity on money refers to the potential growth and earnings that are relinquished when a dollar is spent rather than being strategically invested. Essentially, it's the concept that every dollar has the potential to work for you and generate returns, but when it's spent outright, it loses the opportunity to accumulate compounded interest over time.
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Consider this: when a dollar is spent, it's gone, and you lose the ability to harness the power of compounding. However, if you place that dollar into an environment where it can earn a compounded rate of return indefinitely, such as in a participating dividend paying Whole Life Insurance contract, and then use that dollar as collateral to access borrowed funds (from the insurance company) for purchases, you're effectively leveraging your money to maximize its potential. Some might even say your money is working twice for you, especially if you borrowed that money to make an investment in an asset like real estate, or a business.
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Paying cash for items, while seemingly prudent on the surface, can undermine your long-term wealth-building prospects.
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Imagine starting with an initial $10,000 and letting it grow at a compounded rate of 4.5% for 30 years, which would result in its value reaching $24,117. Now, envision adding an extra $10,000 to that amount every year. Over the same 30-year period, this consistent addition would lead to an impressive total of $644,497. What kind of cash flows through your personal financial landscape? Once you've grasped the genuine cost of using cash for purchases, it becomes nearly impossible to overlook the unmatched potential that lies in utilizing these financial strategies.
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In essence, the idea is to make your money work for you at all times. By preserving your capital and using it strategically within a financial instrument, like the PUA Rider of an insurance contract, you're not only retaining the potential for compounding interest but also positioning yourself to access funds for purchases without disrupting the growth trajectory. This approach seeks to strike a balance between utilizing your funds wisely and making sure they continue to work for you over the long haul.
Everything we purchase is financed in one way or another. We either pay interest or forfeit the opportunity to earn interest. It is essential to consider not only the cost of an item but also the opportunity cost associated with how we pay for it. In essence, there are three types of individuals: debtors, savers, and wealth creators. Although debtors and savers engage in transactions that seem opposite, they ultimately involve the same fundamental principles when looked at more closely.
In the context of wealth creation, it is essential to understand how different individuals approach their purchases. Let's explore three scenarios: The Debtor, The Saver, and The Wealth Creator
​The Debtor: This individual makes a purchase using a financial institution and pays it off over a specified timeframe - 5 years in this example.
​The Saver: The saver chooses to save first, 5 years in this example, before making the purchase. Once the purchase is made they forfeit the opportunity to earn interest on their money from that day forward.
​The Wealth Creator: The wealth creator takes a different approach by borrowing from a selected lender, such as a Mutual Insurance Company, using their cash value as collateral.
By doing this, the wealth creator continues to earn uninterrupted compound interest for the remainder of their life. As a wealth creator, all lost opportunities on their money are recaptured indefinitely, as they leverage other people's money rather than their own.
