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One of the most valuable traits an IBC practitioner can have is patience - you need to be able to “think long range”, as Nelson put it.
Which brings us to today’s topic: short pay and long pay policies.
This is a hotly debated topic amongst life insurance agents and there is a lot of confusing, contradictory advice out there. Today, we are going to weigh in on the matter and help explain these policy design approaches and how they pertain to the Infinite Banking Concept®.
Remember, everything in the insurance business is a tradeoff between cost and risk. There is no free lunch. So what are the tradeoffs when it comes to short-pay and long-pay policies for the purposes of deigning a whole life insurance policy for IBC?
This is super-important information so please give this one a listen!
LINK TO THIS EPISODE:
https://www.thefifthedition.com/60
0:00 - Introduction
0:12 - Episode beginning
2:55 - Some more context on “short pay”
7:27 - Why do people write short pay policies?
12:04 - Two other reasons that short pay policies have gotten more popular
16:07 - Another trade-off and long-term payments
18:06 - A policy becoming “paid up” and some more trade-offs
23:07 - Another trade-off, lower death benefit
24:24 - “Using your flexibility” and how it affects performance
27:29 - “The ability to go down”
29:45 - Measuring the performance of both
35:35 - The rule of thumb and where you would do a short pay
40:51 - The IBC mindset
43:19 - Episode wrap-up
Hello everyone, this is John Montoya.
John Perrings:And this is John Parings.
John Montoya:We are infinite banking authorized practitioners
John Montoya:and hosts of the Fifth Edition,
John Perrings:episode number 60 Long versus Short Pay Policies.
John Perrings:And in this episode, we're going to dig into the number of years premium payments
John Perrings:are made on a life insurance policy.
John Perrings:We'll talk about why are, why there are even different.
John Perrings:Premium durations in a life insurance policy, why that even exists.
John Perrings:And since everything with life insurance is about trade-offs, we'll talk a
John Perrings:little bit about, some general rules of thumb regarding long versus short
John Perrings:pays and the importance of mindset around the trade-offs between policies
John Perrings:that are paid for longer versus short.
John Perrings:So let's kick this off, John.
John Perrings:Yeah,
John Montoya:let's do it.
John Montoya:Let's first understand what is the difference between a short pay
John Montoya:policy versus a long pay policy?
John Montoya:What we're referencing here is how long you're going to be
John Montoya:contributing premium into a policy.
John Montoya:How long are you gonna pay premium into a whole life policy?
John Montoya:There are policies that can be designed where you can fund it every year for the
John Montoya:rest of your life, and that would simply be what we refer to as a long pay policy.
John Montoya:And then you have the other end of the spectrum, which is a policy where your
John Montoya:funding premium for let's say 5, 7, 10 years would still be a short pay policy.
John Montoya:So yeah, people get into this internal debate with themselves, really,
John Montoya:one is better than the other and we wanna discuss this because in
John Montoya:truth, there there's a couple things you gotta be looking at in order to
John Montoya:make a decision that's best for you.
John Montoya:And it's.
John Montoya:Black and white.
John Montoya:So this is an important episode.
John Montoya:If you're, teetering between what you think is, the best policy and there's.
John Montoya:A lot of information out there that you might see on YouTube and whatnot
John Montoya:that suggests, they're suggesting that one is better than the other.
John Montoya:But it all comes back to what is right for your situation.
John Montoya:And John, I know you have some data that you've put together regarding,
John Montoya:know, how long pays will work compared to a short pay policy that
John Montoya:I think we wanna get into as well.
John Montoya:This is a great episode to really dig into and learn more about IBC.
John Montoya:So let's get it started.
John Montoya:Yeah.
John Perrings:Yeah.
John Perrings:and just for, to help the listeners understand a little bit better, we
John Perrings:can define terms a little bit more.
John Perrings:And so some terms out there are, that we're going to use, you'll hear
John Perrings:us say things like short pay and so John mentioned some timeframes there.
John Perrings:Short pay, you used to be able to do single pay premiums and you still can.
John Perrings:But the, in most cases, the shortest duration is around five years.
John Perrings:We would call that like a five pay, or generically refer to it as a short pay.
John Perrings:And then, I'd say the shortest short pay is probably around 10 years.
John Perrings:And by the way, all the, all this stuff we're talking about regarding
John Perrings:payment duration a lot of it is a result of the i r s rules around
John Perrings:how life insurance is treated.
John Perrings:And there's a there's the seven, what's called the seven pay test that
John Perrings:determines the ratio that of cash value that you can have to death benefit
John Perrings:over a period of time, seven years before the policy becomes taxable.
John Perrings:And if you exceed.
John Perrings:Cash value number the policy will be taxed similar to how like an I R A is taxed.
John Perrings:So that's why we're even dealing with all of these payment duration questions.
John Perrings:You used to be able to just do a single pay premium.
John Perrings:No problem.
John Perrings:But now we're working around, some of the different rules.
John Perrings:But, I think another important thing to point out as we get into this
John Perrings:because short pay policy design has become I would say a lot more popular
John Perrings:over the, probably last 10 years.
John Perrings:I don't know, it may be more popular even before then, but
John Perrings:it's definitely popular now.
John Perrings:And I think it's super important to point out like a typical whole life, like a
John Perrings:straight whole life insurance policy.
John Perrings:For context is designed to have premiums paid all the way to age 100.
John Perrings:Okay, so if you're 30 years old you could pay premiums for 70 years
John Perrings:Right?
John Perrings:And so that's the starting point.
John Perrings:And so when people see these short pay policies they're assuming that's
John Perrings:like the best way to do it, but it's actually a a deviation from
John Perrings:just the standard policy, right?
John Perrings:Standard policy.
John Perrings:And again, I think it's super important to point that out because I think
John Perrings:by default there are a lot of agents and advisors out there who default
John Perrings:to short pay policies, in my opinion, because they're easier to sell.
John Montoya:A hundred percent.
John Montoya:Something Nelson would say a lot is that you, you have to think
John Montoya:long term, and here you have these.
John Montoya:Essentially, what we're referring to as short pay policies, advisors, designing
John Montoya:policies to be funded for 10 years.
John Montoya:Let's say that's the average.
John Montoya:Yeah.
John Montoya:On these short pay policies.
John Montoya:10 years.
John Montoya:It goes by in a blink.
John Montoya:It just, it does, and then you're stuck in this situation where if you
John Montoya:want to continue to put in premium, and I would argue, why wouldn't you?
John Montoya:If you have the resources you're stuck because that policy that you took
John Montoya:out 10 years ago no longer has the room to continue to put more premium.
John Montoya:Destroying the tax setup of the policy becomes the modified endowment
John Montoya:contractor, what we refer to as a mec, and that's because these policies are
John Montoya:being sold in a way that satisfies a person's initial desire for cash value a.
John Montoya:But only does in the near term without ever thinking about the long-term
John Montoya:consequences of, what the ramifications and trade offs are gonna be.
John Montoya:And people definitely run into this because you get
John Montoya:there year 11, what happens?
John Montoya:You want our premium in?
John Montoya:And oops, you can't.
John Perrings:That's right.
John Perrings:So maybe we could just get into, short pays and, why do people
John Perrings:write short pay policies, you and why are they easier to sell?
John Perrings:We like to come from the standpoint that everything's a trade off.
John Perrings:And there could be valid reasons and I think there are
John Perrings:valid reasons for short pays.
John Perrings:In general, my feeling is the longer you can pay, the better.
John Perrings:But, and we'll get into some reasons why you might wanna do a short pay, but let's
John Perrings:just talk about why it's easier to sell.
John Perrings:So from a.
John Perrings:From a design standpoint, what's happening is you're reducing the base premium and
John Perrings:cranking up the pua, which is in, all if all things were equal, of course that's
John Perrings:what we would want and we'd want as much cash value in that first year as possible.
John Perrings:But again, we're always designing to stay within the MEC limits, the IRS
John Perrings:modified endowment contract limits.
John Perrings:And we also want to.
John Perrings:Create a policy that has a lot of options.
John Perrings:But what we're doing with these short pays, we're driving down the base premium
John Perrings:significantly and cranking up the pua to the point where we're really maxing
John Perrings:that pua out for five years straight.
John Perrings:And then we have to pay it up.
John Perrings:Because if we don't, the policy will most likely become a mech.
John Perrings:And Why I think this is easier to sell.
John Perrings:I think there are a few reasons, and I think the biggest one is that the
John Perrings:typical mindset around life insurance views premium as a cost, right?
John Perrings:And when viewed as a cost it's easier to sell life insurance when, a policy owner
John Perrings:can see that there's an end to all this.
John Perrings:They're looking at they're seeing these premium.
John Perrings:Go out every year.
John Perrings:And if they're looking at that as a cost, then they want, they would probably like
John Perrings:that to stop, as soon as they could.
John Perrings:And I think short pays are popular because when a client sees the kind of
John Perrings:tangible end, in five years to their premiums, it's easy for them to get
John Perrings:their, easier to get their head around it and feel comfortable with it than it
John Perrings:is to look at a, policy illustration that has them paying, premiums for 70 years.
John Perrings:And the, in that case that I gave for the 30 year old.
John Perrings:And so I think that's one of.
John Perrings:One of the biggest reasons in that, I think people that rely
John Perrings:and only sell these short pay policies, they really just don't.
John Perrings:I think it's a kind of a basic type of understanding of what we
John Perrings:can do with life insurance when we know how to, properly use it.
John Montoya:Yeah, and I would argue that the advisors selling them really aren't
John Montoya:hitting home the true value of that death benefit because they're treating it the
John Montoya:death benefit as an expense as well, and completely missing the bigger picture.
John Montoya:The death benefit is what makes everything possible in a whole
John Montoya:life policy and e exactly.
John Montoya:Having the least amount possible.
John Montoya:You, in the long run you're gonna end up with fewer options with the, with
John Montoya:the least possible death benefit.
John Montoya:And it just I'll let you get into it, John, cuz you've run the
John Montoya:numbers and have prepared it for this episode, but, We always talk
John Montoya:about having more options, right?
John Montoya:That's what whole life Yeah.
John Montoya:Provides.
John Montoya:And if you're gonna limit yourself, you're shooting yourself in the foot
John Montoya:without even knowing it by, seeing or not seeing the bigger picture.
John Montoya:Yeah.
John Perrings:Yeah.
John Perrings:And I think it also should be mentioned that you.
John Perrings:When people start researching infinite banking, we do talk about minimizing
John Perrings:the death benefit because a person's need for capital is oftentimes greater
John Perrings:than their need for death benefit.
John Perrings:But I think there's a general misunderstanding of What is meant by
John Perrings:that, that we're not saying the death benefit isn't worth anything, right?
John Perrings:The protecting your human life value, which is your greatest
John Perrings:asset, is absolutely important.
John Perrings:And so there are ways to get that human life value while still creating a very
John Perrings:powerful infinite banking type of policy.
John Perrings:And so let me just let me touch on two other reasons why I think
John Perrings:short pays are easier to sell and have become more popular.
John Perrings:The short pay policies, they also typically have a significantly higher
John Perrings:early cash value especially year one, the cash value number as a ratio to premium.
John Perrings:Is gonna be higher than a longer pay policy.
John Perrings:And so people look, there's, for whatever reason, people really
John Perrings:focus on that first year of premium.
John Perrings:Meanwhile, it's one of the thing also in the book is
John Perrings:you've gotta capitalize, right?
John Perrings:And so we can't.
John Perrings:We can't start a business and expect to be, a hundred percent
John Perrings:liquid, have our investment back.
John Perrings:In year one if we're starting a new business, which is what we're doing,
John Perrings:we're getting in the business of banking.
John Perrings:But anyway, those, that early cash value does look better.
John Perrings:And lastly there is a higher degree of flexibility in a short pay policy,
John Perrings:from the premium outlay perspective because of the way it's designed.
John Perrings:And by the way, everything we're saying right now, there's, there are subtleties
John Perrings:depending on what insurance company you're working with, but In general,
John Perrings:the premium part of a pre excuse me, the pua portion of a premium payment has
John Perrings:a lot more flexibility in how much of that needs to be paid in any given year.
John Perrings:And so you have the ability to go down and reduce your
John Perrings:overall premium if you need to.
John Perrings:If you just run into a hard month or a hard year, you can reduce that premium
John Perrings:amount and it's pretty significant when, most of your premium is pua.
John Perrings:And you.
John Perrings:Increase some flexibility to go down, but we'll get into the trade off.
John Perrings:You're actually limiting your ability to go up if you need to.
John Perrings:And so this, the PUA portion is one of the ways we can build in some flexibility
John Perrings:without making any changes to the policy.
John Perrings:We have some flexibility in how much premium we need to pay in any given month
John Perrings:or year, but there, there are trade offs.
John Perrings:Yeah.
John Perrings:And the
John Montoya:number one trade off is gonna be the premium cost.
John Montoya:In order to fund a policy for a longer duration you need to have
John Montoya:more death benefit in the policy.
John Montoya:So as a result, and what I should back up and say, you need to have more permanent
John Montoya:death benefit in the policy, right?
John Montoya:In order to fund a policy for a longer duration.
John Montoya:So what does that mean?
John Montoya:It means that, , you're gonna have a higher base or a higher minimum
John Montoya:as part of your total premium, but that's also going to give you the
John Montoya:flexibility to continue funding a policy for a much longer period of time.
John Montoya:And the longer you're able to fund a policy, the more cash value, more
John Montoya:capital you're going to accumulate in
John Montoya:your
John Perrings:life.
John Perrings:That's exactly it.
John Perrings:So that gets into, some of our longer, if we were to talk a little bit
John Perrings:about, what's the difference between a short pay and a longer duration pay?
John Perrings:The longer you pay premium, you're typically going to have
John Perrings:a higher initial death benefit.
John Perrings:That's number one, right?
John Perrings:And something to think about when you pay for a longer period of time.
John Perrings:What's interesting is that you're paying level premium payments, right?
John Perrings:Meanwhile you're getting older every single year.
John Perrings:And the co if you were to start a new policy in every single year,
John Perrings:Just by way of example, your premium dollar the price of the premium would
John Perrings:start going up every single year.
John Perrings:However, for that same amount of death benefit, you're sta you're
John Perrings:paying the same premium every single year to get that death benefit.
John Perrings:And so it's a, it's an interesting way to start looking at, the earlier
John Perrings:you start, the more efficient it can.
John Perrings:Another, trade off of longer pay policies.
John Perrings:It's gonna be, it's gonna have a little less flexibility.
John Perrings:So going back to what we were saying before with the PUA rider,
John Perrings:you have a little less flexibility to reduce premiums if you need
John Perrings:to because more of the premiums premium is buying base whole life.
John Perrings:And probably some, term insurance via term insurance rider.
John Perrings:And so more of that premium's going to be required to be paid.
John Perrings:And so you do lose a little bit of that kind of downside flexibility
John Perrings:to reduce your premium payment.
John Perrings:But again thinking of long-term payments the, that steady payment is
John Perrings:also sta it also stays steady during, in, when inflation is happening.
John Perrings:So it's almost, it's kinda like the opposite of it's actually similar
John Perrings:to a mortgage where every time you make a mortgage payment that stays.
John Perrings:For 30 years.
John Perrings:And so meanwhile, it's buying you the same, it's buying you that house that
John Perrings:is increasing in value, presumably.
John Perrings:Whereas a life insurance policy is similar where every time you make
John Perrings:a premium payment, it's that same level premium payment, even though
John Perrings:all the other, even though the dollars are being devalued out there.
John Perrings:So in a, in inflation and adjusted terms, Your premium is actually going
John Perrings:down every single year to buy you that, to buy you that death benefit.
John Perrings:So some interesting things to think about from a long term perspective
John Perrings:are paying longer premiums.
John Perrings:So why don't we get into some trade-offs here.
John Perrings:Before we do that, I want to make one more definition, which is the
John Perrings:idea of a policy becoming paid up.
John Perrings:So we'll probably, if we haven't already, we'll probably use that term and really
John Perrings:what that means is when a policy becomes paid up, It's a fully paid policy, okay?
John Perrings:No more premiums are due on it, but you still have your cash value growing.
John Perrings:You're still getting dividends that you can use any way you want, and
John Perrings:you can still use policy loans.
John Perrings:So it's a fully functioning, enforced life insurance policy, but you can just
John Perrings:no longer pay any more premiums on it.
John Perrings:So these short pay policies are, would be considered, paid up at the end of the five
John Perrings:years or 10 years, whatever the number is.
John Perrings:And again, the tra you know, traditional or, or I guess baseline whole life
John Perrings:insurance policy goes out to age 100 and then is considered paid up at age 100.
John Perrings:So those are the goalposts.
John Perrings:So let's talk a little bit about some of the trade offs.
John Perrings:I just wanna go back to this idea of cost, right?
John Perrings:And so regarding premium cost, while it's true for term insurance
John Perrings:in most cases anyway, so here's a stat, like basically 1% of term
John Perrings:insurance policies actually pay out.
John Perrings:And 99% of the time term insurance premiums are a true cost.
John Perrings:And so that's a legitimate way to evaluate life insurance premiums term
John Perrings:life insurance premiums, I should say.
John Perrings:However, whole life, we really have to look at the premiums in
John Perrings:a totally different way because whole life insurance is an asset.
John Perrings:Every time you make a premium payment, you're building that
John Perrings:asset, it becomes more valuable.
John Perrings:And most people are.
John Perrings:And so when we look at The length of time we're paying premiums.
John Perrings:Most people are totally fine paying a mortgage for 15, 30 years, right?
John Perrings:But they sometimes have a problem imagining themselves paying a life
John Perrings:insurance premium for 15, 30, 40, 60, 50 years, whatever the number is.
John Perrings:Meanwhile, what's happening is really very similar.
John Perrings:You're, every time you make a mortgage payment, you b build equity in.
John Perrings:Asset of which is a house.
John Perrings:Every time you make a premium payment to a whole life insurance
John Perrings:policy, you also build equity in that life insurance policy.
John Perrings:And that's the val, the asset there is the death benefit and the
John Perrings:equity in there is the cash value.
John Perrings:So it's a very similar thing.
John Perrings:And so I'm just bringing that up to hopefully help people look at premiums
John Perrings:in a different way and why they might want to pay a little bit longer.
John Montoya:I think it's important there to just really crystallize
John Montoya:for people in both instances.
John Montoya:You have to view your property as an asset, the same as a
John Montoya:whole life policy, as an asset.
John Montoya:But most people, they have this mindset the life insurance
John Montoya:policy is a, an expense, right?
John Montoya:But what you just explain.
John Montoya:With a term policy being the actual expense because you pay into it and 99% of
John Montoya:the time your family ends up with nothing.
John Montoya:That makes a, in truth, a liability compared to a whole life policy.
John Montoya:Something that's permanent, something that's guaranteed
John Montoya:to pay out a death benefit.
John Montoya:It's guaranteed to accumulate cash value.
John Montoya:That is truly an asset.
John Montoya:And in fact, in the mortgage industry, I know most mortgage brokers never
John Montoya:ask this, but on the application, when you're applying for a loan
John Montoya:from a traditional bank, they'll ask you about your 401K assets.
John Montoya:You know how much money you have in the bank, and.
John Montoya:I'll say 99% of mortgage brokers, they might ask you how
John Montoya:much life insurance you have.
John Montoya:I'll take it back.
John Montoya:Only 1% will probably ask you.
John Montoya:99% won't ask you how much life insurance you have because they
John Montoya:don't realize it's an asset.
John Montoya:And that goes the same with, 99% of the public.
John Montoya:They don't realize life insurance is an asset and when you don't
John Montoya:value things, the proper.
John Montoya:It's hiding in plain sight.
John Montoya:that's why we have this incredible financial product, which is
John Montoya:whole life hiding in plain sight because it's not valued properly.
John Perrings:Exactly.
John Perrings:I Look at the balance sheet on any big bank.
John Perrings:They're holding billions and billions of dollars of whole life insurance as
John Perrings:part of their tier one capital, the most valuable capital that they have on hand.
John Perrings:And the cool thing is like we can actually we can have that, we can have the same,
John Perrings:tier one capital that the banks have.
John Perrings:If we just understood how to, as you said, value it in a correct manner.
John Perrings:Another trade off is short pay policies, which typically give you that higher early
John Perrings:cash value often results in a lower death benefit, which we did touch on before.
John Perrings:But if we.
John Perrings:Some, I, I think a lot of advisors out there get so focused on the cash value.
John Perrings:They really forget that the death benefit is super important as well, right?
John Perrings:There is no question that if something happens to you and your income your
John Perrings:family will have to make some changes.
John Perrings:And if they don't, that means they're going to consume other assets that.
John Perrings:Essentially earmarked for the future.
John Perrings:And so your family will either end up with less now or they'll
John Perrings:end up with less in the future.
John Perrings:And I think if people understood that that side of it they might be a little more
John Perrings:willing to under a little more willing to appreciate the death benefit side of it.
John Perrings:And, I talk to people all the time.
John Perrings:They don't care about the death benefit and that's fine.
John Perrings:If you don't have anybody that you know, you'd like to indemnify
John Perrings:against a loss, it's fine.
John Perrings:, there are still plenty of reasons to consider paying for a longer period
John Perrings:of time, which I'll touch on after we get through the tradeoff section.
John Perrings:All right.
John Perrings:Next on tradeoffs is we're, I want to dig into why it matters that the
John Perrings:more pua you have in your premium payment, how it gives you, it does
John Perrings:give you more flexibility to reduce your premium payment if you need to.
John Perrings:But I want to get into the trade off of actually doing that.
John Perrings:You have the flexibility But we have to understand that if you use the
John Perrings:flexibility, it will have a significant effect on the performance of your policy.
John Perrings:Okay, so when we design these short pays, and most of the premium is p u
John Perrings:a, That it's that PUA component that builds all that early cash value.
John Perrings:So if anything happens and you actually do decide to not pay the PUA
John Perrings:component of your premium your, the cash value in those early years is
John Perrings:going to be significantly affected.
John Perrings:Meaning it will be, you'll.
John Perrings:You'll have no new cash value.
John Perrings:Almost.
John Perrings:If you did it the first year, you'd probably end up with zero cash value.
John Perrings:And if you did it the second year might end up with zero cash value again.
John Perrings:So it's like, what people have to understand is that they.
John Perrings:Not paying.
John Perrings:Having that flexibility and using, having the flexibility is good, but using it
John Perrings:creates some pretty big problems that your policy's not gonna be anywhere near
John Perrings:what you thought it was going to be.
John Perrings:And so we've talked about in a, in another episode, which we'll
John Perrings:post in the show notes, I just thought of it, so I can't remember
John Perrings:the number off the top of my head.
John Perrings:But how much premium should you pay?
John Perrings:And, we talk about rather than, Dumping is, paying a big premium.
John Perrings:In the, because you know you can go smaller, your total premium should be
John Perrings:something that you feel comfortable committing to for a long period of time.
John Perrings:Because other, if you don't do it that way, the policy is gonna
John Perrings:drastic, be drastically different than what you originally planned on.
John Perrings:And another thing about this is there are some companies out there that have
John Perrings:what are called blended term pua riders.
John Perrings:And depending on how those are set up, if you are not paying the PUA portion
John Perrings:of that blended term, PUA rider, what could end up happening is the cost
John Perrings:of the term insurance could outweigh what's happening in the policy.
John Perrings:And you could actually lose cash value or worse, have a policy lapse, right?
John Perrings:You could lose cash value, you could lose death benefit, or the policy could lapse.
John Perrings:And so sometimes the flexibility, it really depends on the carrier
John Perrings:you're working with, the insurance company you're working with, because
John Perrings:these these blended pua riders could cause a big problem if you do.
John Perrings:Take advantage of that flexibility.
John Perrings:So again, coming up with a policy that has a longer payment period
John Perrings:with a premium that you know you can afford is in my opinion, rule of
John Perrings:thumb wise a much better decision.
John Perrings:Lastly The, we talked about the ability to go down and ha and pay much
John Perrings:less premium if you need to, but I touched on it a little bit earlier on.
John Perrings:When you have a policy set up that way, you're basically maxing the p u
John Perrings:a component out, and you can't put.
John Perrings:Anymore into the policy if you wanted to.
John Perrings:So when we focus on infinite banking, one of the ideas that we wanna
John Perrings:do is we want to go out and buy income generating assets, right?
John Perrings:If you're gen, if you just bought something that generates an income
John Perrings:and also pays your policy loan back where's that income gonna go?
John Perrings:And if you don't have any room in the policy, It'll just go
John Perrings:right back into a bank, right?
John Perrings:Which was what we're, what we, this is why we did the whole thing in the first place
John Perrings:cuz we want a better place to put cash.
John Perrings:And so what happens is if you take advantage of the flexibility or you've
John Perrings:got a policy that's maxed out, what ends up happening is you end, actually
John Perrings:end up with a way smaller policy than you would have if you just had built
John Perrings:in the flexibility and the options to.
John Perrings:More rather than focus on that first year to maybe five years of cash value.
John Perrings:And so now 20 years down the road, You've got a much smaller policy,
John Perrings:you have much less cash value because you weren't able to pay a premium.
John Perrings:Most important thing is pay a premium.
John Perrings:That's what's gonna build this thing for you.
John Perrings:And John Montoya, I don't know if you have anything to add to that before I get into
John Perrings:the, I've done a lot of research on this and I wanted to just share the results of
John Perrings:if you don't care about the death benefit, you don't care about the flexibility,
John Perrings:you might care about what the results are on the growth and the cash value.
John Perrings:And so I wanna talk a little bit about that, but I don't
John Perrings:know if you have anything
John Montoya:else, John.
John Montoya:No, I want you to keep going because it's that I think people are inherently
John Montoya:wanting to, they come into IBC.
John Montoya:With the idea of having this cash asset that can perform better than cash
John Montoya:sitting in a bank, they're starting to see the bigger picture and they want
John Montoya:more economic bang for their buck.
John Montoya:So yeah.
John Montoya:Go into the performance.
John Perrings:Yeah.
John Perrings:I've, it's a common thing.
John Perrings:Again, when you look at, when you compare the cash value of a short pay versus
John Perrings:the cash value of a long pay, and you actually, if you do an internal rate of
John Perrings:return calculation, the short pay does perform better from an I R standpoint.
John Perrings:And so a lot of people look at that, and that's the, that's where
John Perrings:they stop analyzing everything.
John Perrings:However, it's actually not that much better.
John Perrings:So what I did is I analyzed, A 30 year period.
John Perrings:And what I did was I took a single 30 pay and just designed the policy
John Perrings:for 30 years to pay for 30 years, and then I did six, five pays and
John Perrings:compared the outcome of both of those.
John Perrings:Because what often happens is people will, Agents will suggest doing a
John Perrings:short pay, like a five pay, and then and obviously after five years, the
John Perrings:policy's paid up and you can't pay any more premium on that policy.
John Perrings:So people are like where do I put my money now?
John Perrings:And the argument would be that's when you start your next policy.
John Perrings:And that could be true, but it may not be true because we don't know if you can even
John Perrings:qualify for life insurance in five years.
John Perrings:We don't know what your health is gonna be.
John Perrings:And John Montoya and I both have had people that, waited to get life insurance
John Perrings:and they're no longer insurable, right?
John Perrings:And so that can happen just as easily if you have one life insurance policy
John Perrings:or zero life insurance policies.
John Perrings:So first thing, we don't know if you can get another policy in five years.
John Perrings:But let's pretend you.
John Perrings:Let's pretend you're definitely insurable at the same the same health rating.
John Perrings:Your health never gets worse.
John Perrings:It's always the same.
John Perrings:The one thing we can't control for sure is your age.
John Perrings:So you're going to be five years older.
John Perrings:And so those, the cost of insurance is gonna be higher then , and guess what?
John Perrings:You're also starting a new policy in five years.
John Perrings:And so you have all of those new upfront costs in the new policy to overcome.
John Perrings:Again, you have you're you've just created a new policy that has that capitalization
John Perrings:period now, and so I think a lot of people miss that because they just see
John Perrings:the i r on their five pay compared to a 30 pay, and they say this is better, but
John Perrings:it's not better if you add everything up.
John Perrings:It's not an apples to apples comparison if you.
John Perrings:Six five pays over 30 years and compared that to a single 30 pay.
John Perrings:The truth is, if you combine all of the numbers, if you look at it from a totality
John Perrings:standpoint of each scenario the i r on the 30 pay is actually slightly better.
John Perrings:And you have a bigger policy, you have more cash value.
John Perrings:Cuz think of it this way, imagine in year six you just
John Perrings:made your last payment on a five.
John Perrings:And you're gonna go start your next five pay.
John Perrings:That first payment that you make, you're losing money, you make a premium
John Perrings:payment, and your cash value does not equal the premium that you just paid.
John Perrings:On the other hand, with a 30 pay in the sixth year, mo, more than likely, this
John Perrings:is all depending on health, of course.
John Perrings:But when you make that n that payment, that sixth year payment
John Perrings:in your 30 year, let's say you made a $20,000 premium payment.
John Perrings:You might have $25,000 of new cash value because that policy was, has
John Perrings:been capitalized and has been able to mature to the point where it's
John Perrings:becoming more and more efficient.
John Perrings:Whereas you're chopping all those five pays off at the knees and starting all
John Perrings:over with that capitalization period.
John Perrings:And so it's very easy to show the numbers where having that long.
John Perrings:That long range mindset I is really going to make a difference in terms of
John Perrings:what the actual outcome is going to be.
John Perrings:And by the way, just going back to the insur, the insurability perspective With
John Perrings:that 30 pay, you had the ability to pay premiums for the entire 30 years, right?
John Perrings:You didn't have to go back through underwriting, you didn't have to
John Perrings:do any of that stuff and qualify for another life insurance policy.
John Perrings:It was all right there.
John Perrings:And you had the ability to go down if you needed to, and you had the
John Perrings:ability to pay more in premium if you experienced a windfall.
John Perrings:And if that happens, you're gonna just, it's the policy's gonna blow.
John Perrings:The six, five pays out of the water.
John Perrings:No questions.
John Montoya:Awesome.
John Montoya:Sounds like the old tortoise versus
John Perrings:the hair.
John Perrings:Yeah, that's right, . That's a good, that is good.
John Perrings:Yeah.
John Montoya:And the irony is that, people unwittingly, choose
John Montoya:these five or seven, 10 pay options only to get to that endpoint and
John Montoya:realize, oh, they want more of it.
John Montoya:They didn't realize how much of a good thing this was initial.
John Montoya:But they get to the end of that roadmap on that short pay policy, and
John Montoya:they're like, yeah, I want another one.
John Montoya:And the irony is that you sacrificed what you could have accomplished
John Montoya:for, a lower overall premium.
John Montoya:because you didn't see the bigger picture.
John Montoya:And that's what we're trying to really emphasize people that you gotta take
John Montoya:a look at things like Nelson said, from a long range point of view.
John Perrings:Yeah.
John Perrings:And his minimum long range, by the way, coincidentally was 70 years.
John Perrings:So I, earlier we were talking about paying a premium for 70 years.
John Perrings:His minimum outlook was 70 years in the book.
John Perrings:So we just we just talked about a rule of thumb.
John Perrings:Depending on the scenario I think long pays are better in most cases because
John Perrings:of the the flexibility, because of the death benefit and because of the overall
John Perrings:performance of the policy compared to trying to do a bunch of short.
John Perrings:That being said, , are there any reasons we would wanna do a short pay?
John Montoya:And I can think of one.
John Montoya:So a rule of thumb that I go by is source of premium.
John Montoya:And there's a second one.
John Montoya:Yeah.
John Montoya:But just starting with the first.
John Montoya:Rule of thumb, source of premium.
John Montoya:The best, or I should say easiest example to understand is take an example of a
John Montoya:person who, let's say, used that same 30 year old person they are in the workforce
John Montoya:and planning to work, let's say for 30 years before heading off into retirement.
John Montoya:They're going to plan on funding their infinite banking whole life policy.
John Montoya:or policies using their income as their source of premium?
John Montoya:It makes sense to have at a minimum, and we would argue maybe even longer, but
John Montoya:at a minimum 30 years worth of runway, meaning 30 years worth of premium that
John Montoya:you could put into a policy versus.
John Montoya:What you're talking about in your examples where, you compare
John Montoya:it to six five pays, right?
John Montoya:You wanna match your source of premium to the duration of the policy.
John Montoya:So that is one example.
John Montoya:The second would be the age of the insured, because let's
John Montoya:say you're in your fifties.
John Montoya:and your source of income, is going to be your job and you're
John Montoya:anticipating working for the, let's say, the next 15 years or even 10
John Montoya:years, depending on your situation.
John Montoya:If we're matching the source of premium we also have to take into consideration
John Montoya:your age because if you're gonna retire in 10 to 15 years, does it necessarily.
John Montoya:Make sense to design a policy for 30 years worth of premium.
John Montoya:There is an argument to be made.
John Montoya:Yes.
John Montoya:And maybe John, you might wanna get into that, but there's two examples
John Montoya:where, rule of thumbs, it makes sense to, look at these variables to figure
John Montoya:out what is best for your situ.
John Perrings:Yeah, and I think those two things actually tie in
John Perrings:together too, because, it, you were talking about the source of premiums.
John Perrings:If you have a lump sum, does that make sense?
John Perrings:To stretch out a lump sum over 30 years, maybe the premiums wouldn't be that big.
John Perrings:And you're also Earmarking a large lump sum of money that's not able
John Perrings:to do anything for a long period of time other than pay those premiums.
John Perrings:So it might not be the best use of a large lump sum.
John Perrings:And if you're let's push that age out to retirement.
John Perrings:Let's say there already are retirement or there.
John Perrings:Retired, or they're five to 10 years into retirement.
John Perrings:A lot of those people, they might have a lump sum, sitting in the form of, one
John Perrings:of their retirement plans that it might, it may make sense for them to move that
John Perrings:over into their life insurance policy.
John Perrings:So those are, I think those are great examples of, when it could make
John Perrings:sense to do a short pay However, I would also say both of those people,
John Perrings:they could presumably have assets that pay them in income, and so
John Perrings:they still need a place to put cash.
John Perrings:It, so I guess what we're saying is, it, there could be a place for a
John Perrings:short pay, there's nothing, written in stone that you can never do a
John Perrings:short pay or anything like that.
John Perrings:But we really just wanna examine the, the situation and.
John Perrings:I do have a hard time, for a young person, I have a hard time thinking of
John Perrings:a good reason other than what you said.
John Perrings:If they have a lump sum source of premium and they wanna, fund a
John Perrings:policy with that, I might even, say that, Hey, maybe it makes sense to.
John Perrings:Create a policy that you can pay a premium on for the next, in our
John Perrings:30 year old example, pay a premium for the next 70 years or 30 years,
John Perrings:or 50, 50 years, whatever the number is as long as possible.
John Perrings:And then we could fold in that lump sum into that.
John Perrings:Into that policy so they can still pay a premium on it.
John Perrings:But again, it's all just relative and it makes it, it matters what the
John Perrings:bigger picture is, like you've been saying, John Montoya matters what the
John Perrings:bigger picture is in terms of what's the best way to accomplish that.
John Montoya:Yeah, and I think.
John Montoya:It all comes back to principles and the IBC mindset and that's
John Montoya:where we're gonna finish off.
John Montoya:Ultimately what we're talking about is warehousing your wealth,
John Montoya:and if you are blessed to live a very long time, you need to.
John Montoya:Create places where you can redirect that wealth and that,
John Montoya:that's what these IBC policies do.
John Montoya:It allows you to create a cash asset that is gonna earn 40 times what
John Montoya:you would get at a typical bank.
John Montoya:It's going to give you an intangible of sovereign financial.
John Montoya:Individuality in that you're not indebting yourself to a traditional bank, right?
John Montoya:When you wanna finance all the major things in your life, you're not
John Montoya:beholding to a traditional bank.
John Montoya:You have this family banking system, so to speak, that you've set up, or
John Montoya:you can go to it anytime you want.
John Montoya:We've hit on in previous episodes the tax benefits.
John Montoya:We always touch on, the accessibility of these funds.
John Montoya:That, that can be really a life raft.
John Montoya:Especially in times, when times get tough.
John Montoya:There, there's that saying, we find out who's who's been swimming
John Montoya:naked when the tide goes out.
John Montoya:When you've got these IBC policies and you've been redirecting your
John Montoya:wealth to these policies over time, you're never gonna be swimming.
John Montoya:So there, there's absolutely, yeah.
John Montoya:Yeah.
John Montoya:Anything you want to add to that, John?
John Perrings:I would just add, if you haven't yet, go back and listen to episode
John Perrings:55, IBC and the power to heal and, you can listen to John's wife Kelly's story
John Perrings:of having a liquid source of capital at the time she needed it the most.
John Perrings:And that's really that's really one of the things that this is all about.
John Perrings:I would just, the only things I might add are, the potential creditor protection
John Perrings:as well, depending on what state you're in, all the things you were talking
John Perrings:about with growth, everything grows tax deferred and you can get to it tax free.
John Perrings:You mentioned the tax benefits.
John Perrings:Those are a couple of them.
John Perrings:And then I guess we could probably wrap it up by.
John Perrings:It's a quote from Ed Slot who's an accountant.
John Perrings:I'm not a fan of everything he does.
John Perrings:He's an I u L guy a lot of times, which I'm not as big of a fan
John Perrings:on i u l, but he makes a great point about using life insurance.
John Perrings:If you had a place to put money that had all those qualities we just talked about,
John Perrings:earned 40 times what it would earn in a bank, grew tax deferred gave you the
John Perrings:liquidity you needed when, if you need.
John Perrings:The worst possible time, gave you that liquidity and then gave you
John Perrings:all the tax advantages, right?
John Perrings:If you had a place to put money, would you wanna only be able to put
John Perrings:it there for a little bit of time or would you wanna be able to put
John Perrings:it there for as long as possible?
John Perrings:And I think that's a great Just thought exercise around,
John Perrings:why, what are we doing here?
John Perrings:We're strategically accumulating capital and I can't think of any reason why
John Perrings:you wanna shortchange yourself and in terms of how long you could do that.
John Perrings:Amen.
John Perrings:Awesome.
John Perrings:We went a little bit long on this one cuz I think it was worth,
John Perrings:really digging into if you have any questions, you can always go to the
John Perrings:fifth edition.com and right there you can schedule an appointment with us.
John Perrings:No cost, no obligation.
John Perrings:And you can find out, how these principles could work in your life.
John Perrings:And if you're one of those people that, just likes to really learn
John Perrings:on their own before they talk to anybody, we have a course up there
John Perrings:that you can get a 50% discount on it.
John Perrings:And Go through that and do all the self-education to your heart's desire.
John Perrings:So thanks everybody.
John Perrings:Looking forward to talking to you next time.
John Perrings:Thanks, John.