Increase and Protect Wealth With Life Insurance

In its most basic form, life insurance* is pure financial protection. Most people buy life insurance to provide the financial means to pay final expenses, cover outstanding debts and leave family with the financial ability to carry on.

For high-net-worth indviduals, however, life insurance can help to meet a variety of financial challenges from helping to protect and even increase intergenerational wealth to financially protecting a closely held business against a variety of risks, life insurance can help meet a variety of financial challenges.

Multi-Purpose Vehicle

For example, life insurance can simply be a means to leave a cost-effective financial legacy behind for a favored charity without depleting assets earmarked to family beneficiaries. Affluent estates often use it to help offset estate taxes. While life insurance proceeds are generally income tax free, they are considered part of an estate for estate tax purposes unless coupled with an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT).

Life insurance is also one way owners of closely held businesses fund a buy-sell agreement or protect against a key employee's loss. Both strategies, when paired with a properly structured arrangement, use life insurance’s death benefit to offset resulting financial losses.

When one child inherits a family business and another isn’t involved in it, life insurance can also be used to equalize an estate. Permanent life insurance’s cash value can also supplement retirement income or increase the policy’s death benefit.

There are a handful of varied life insurance types, each one offering different advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, you need to be wary of overfunding any cash value policy that creates a modified endowment contract, which would result in losing many of the tax benefits. So, it is important to seek the help of a financial professional to ensure you use the right type of insurance and structure with any life insurance policy.

*Applications for life insurance are subject to underwriting. No insurance coverage exists unless a policy is issued and the required premium to put it in force is paid. Accessing cash values may result in surrender fees and charges and may require additional premium payments to maintain coverage and will reduce the death benefit and policy values and may have tax consequences. Guarantees are based on the claims-paying ability of the issuer.