Hello blogworld, I've decided to post my next entry regarding kids college saving plan and what is the best plan out there. Usually the most popular type is the 529 plan and I'm against it simply because of the fact that if you don't utilize in the future for your kids tuition you can face a huge penalty. Also there is liquidity issue with this plan and it doesn't accrue any interest. You simply lock your money up and in the future you have access to it.
Solutions....
Now if that is the case I'd recommend a ROP (return of premium) life insurance. If your a mother or father and have a kid who is dependent on you, your going to need life insurance anyways because in the case of the absence of the breadwinner, the people who are dependent on you can continue on with their lives financially. ROP also guarantees that you are insured for 10,20,30 years (however you delegate it) and by that 10,20,30 years, if you are still alive and well the Life Insurance Company will give you back all the money you've contributed. Plus you have access to portion of your money starting the 4th, 5th, 6th year and each year you'll have more access to your money. If you decide to not touch your money until that 10,20, or 30th year, then you have access to all your money and you can use it for whatever you want.
Another solution will be a ING global plus life insurance. This product you have liquidity so you can use it without any penalty or getting taxed for your long term goals. I'll get into more details about this product when my video uploads...VIDEO COMING SOON!
Monday, August 15, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
My own Universal Life Policy
I will be uploading a video of my ING Indexed Universal Life policy really soon and I'll be explaining how my policy will help me with my long term savings on a tax favored basis. If you are anxious and want to see a rough draft of this video, please be sure to email me at bemyownbank@gmail.com
P.S. Any other questions or concern, feel free to email me as well.
P.S. Any other questions or concern, feel free to email me as well.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
10 reasons why life insurance is good for you
Let's all take a deep breath after Congress attempted to settle their $14 Trillion dollar deficit, USA dropped their credit rating and the stock market had gone berserk. Here are some simple reason why life insurance is good for you
1) tax free income
2) guarantees during down market
3) liquidity, access to your money
4) if the breadwinner is absent, the family can still continue on with their lives financially
5) Accelerated Benefit Rider, if insured has terminal illness, that person has access to portion of their death benefit
6) use for kids college tuition
7) use to buy a car without ever financing!! or paying interest!!
8) can potentially give retirement income for life! Like a pension
9) flexibility in your contribution (ex: $66.22 a month to $250 a month)
10) At the end of the day you feel your in the right path towards your long term savings goals and protection for your family in the case of your absence.
1) tax free income
2) guarantees during down market
3) liquidity, access to your money
4) if the breadwinner is absent, the family can still continue on with their lives financially
5) Accelerated Benefit Rider, if insured has terminal illness, that person has access to portion of their death benefit
6) use for kids college tuition
7) use to buy a car without ever financing!! or paying interest!!
8) can potentially give retirement income for life! Like a pension
9) flexibility in your contribution (ex: $66.22 a month to $250 a month)
10) At the end of the day you feel your in the right path towards your long term savings goals and protection for your family in the case of your absence.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Why is it so important for agents to follow up with their clients?
This topic came to my attention because I've been going over some issues on yahoo answers and it truly amazes me how many times the insured never updates their life insurance policy.
For example, let's say your father was married to your step mom couple years back and they are currently divorced. Unfortunately your father passed away unexpectedly and he never heard from his life insurance agent ever since he issued that policy to your father (this happens all the time). Your father, therefore never got around to changing the beneficiary and now your stuck with your dad's bill and the step mom keep the death benefit and won't help whatsoever with the funeral expense or any financial problem that your father incurred. Unfortunately whoever the name is on the beneficiary will get that death benefit and there is really nothing that can be done to change that.
Tip of the day: Make sure that your agent follows up with you or your guardian at least once a year because lifestyle and circumstance do change!
For example, let's say your father was married to your step mom couple years back and they are currently divorced. Unfortunately your father passed away unexpectedly and he never heard from his life insurance agent ever since he issued that policy to your father (this happens all the time). Your father, therefore never got around to changing the beneficiary and now your stuck with your dad's bill and the step mom keep the death benefit and won't help whatsoever with the funeral expense or any financial problem that your father incurred. Unfortunately whoever the name is on the beneficiary will get that death benefit and there is really nothing that can be done to change that.
Tip of the day: Make sure that your agent follows up with you or your guardian at least once a year because lifestyle and circumstance do change!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Are annuities good for you?
I’ve came across a few discussion with some elderly people and they like the idea of receiving a guarantee paycheck for the rest of their lives but wanted to know how it works.There are many different types of annuity such as deferred annuity, immediate annuity, or even fixed annuity. Today I wanted to briefly touch base with deferred annuity and what it can do for you.
Ex) Let’s say a guy by the name of Jonathan Wilson is 60 years old and he is interested in some form of guaranteed income 10 years from now because he is smart enough to start planning his goals and needs in the near future. He decides to talk to a annuity specialist such as myself and I introduced with a ING annuity which ING calls it Opportunity Plus. He has $300,000 that he can set aside so I break it down for him.
1) As soon as you deposit $300,000, ING will give you a bonus of 5% so Mr. Wilson starts off at $315,000 instead of $300,000.
2) Then for the next 10 years, each year ING will give interest compounding based on the interest of the S&P500 but will guarantee 6% if S&P500 performs less than that.
3) Within the 10th year Mr. Wilson is guarantee at the bare minimum $532,186 (I feel strongly that Mr. Wilson will end up more because S&P500 won’t perform that horribly all 10 years).
4) The start of the 11th year Mr. Wilson will be 71 years old and he wants to start taking guarantee income for himself. He will get 5% annually of whatever cash value is in the annuity. So for instance if it was the worst case scenerio and he ended with $532,186 as his cash value, he will be getting a guarantee income of $21,287 annually (before tax) guaranteed for the rest of his life.
5) Now there are other factors such as if Mr. Wilson was to pass away prior to receiving enough income (more than his principal amount), then there is a death benefit that can go to his beneficiary or he could have set up the annuity where if he passes away his spouse can continue receiving the guaranteed income.
Hope this explain it in a nutshell but it is important to talk with a right annuity specialist (watch out!! Some annuity specialist can be only looking out for themselves and how much commission they can extract) so that they can explain it in more detail and delegate your annuity according to how you want it to be set up.
Ex) Let’s say a guy by the name of Jonathan Wilson is 60 years old and he is interested in some form of guaranteed income 10 years from now because he is smart enough to start planning his goals and needs in the near future. He decides to talk to a annuity specialist such as myself and I introduced with a ING annuity which ING calls it Opportunity Plus. He has $300,000 that he can set aside so I break it down for him.
1) As soon as you deposit $300,000, ING will give you a bonus of 5% so Mr. Wilson starts off at $315,000 instead of $300,000.
2) Then for the next 10 years, each year ING will give interest compounding based on the interest of the S&P500 but will guarantee 6% if S&P500 performs less than that.
3) Within the 10th year Mr. Wilson is guarantee at the bare minimum $532,186 (I feel strongly that Mr. Wilson will end up more because S&P500 won’t perform that horribly all 10 years).
4) The start of the 11th year Mr. Wilson will be 71 years old and he wants to start taking guarantee income for himself. He will get 5% annually of whatever cash value is in the annuity. So for instance if it was the worst case scenerio and he ended with $532,186 as his cash value, he will be getting a guarantee income of $21,287 annually (before tax) guaranteed for the rest of his life.
5) Now there are other factors such as if Mr. Wilson was to pass away prior to receiving enough income (more than his principal amount), then there is a death benefit that can go to his beneficiary or he could have set up the annuity where if he passes away his spouse can continue receiving the guaranteed income.
Hope this explain it in a nutshell but it is important to talk with a right annuity specialist (watch out!! Some annuity specialist can be only looking out for themselves and how much commission they can extract) so that they can explain it in more detail and delegate your annuity according to how you want it to be set up.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Term insurance or cash value life insurance? What is the difference?
Term Life Insurance is insurance that pays the 'sum insured' in the event of the death of the 'life insured' to a designated beneficiary, if the death occurs during the Term of the insurance contract. In other words, you are only insured during the life of the contract. Typically, these Terms can be found for 1 Year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Alternatively, depending on the jurisdiction, you may find terms that last until a certain age (e.g. Term 80, 85, 100). The longer the term, the higher the premiums.
Term insurance doesn't have any cash values (though some hybrids may include a rider that includes some additional benefits).
You cannot 'Cash in' a traditional term insurance policy. Should you outlive the Term (i.e. the insurance expires), you will lose all your premiums.
Some of the more interesting riders include: Guaranteed Renewable, and Convertibility. Renewability usually means that you won't have to pass a medical to be insured, though the premiums may be way higher. Convertibility means that you have the option to convert your policy to a different form of insurance (e.g. whole life). This may be an advantage if you initially were focused on low premiums, and then decided that you preferred accumulated cash values and an extended term. This may happen when you discover, later on, that you have a medical condition that would either raise your rates or render you uninsurable.
The advantages include: Low premiums, simplicity, convertibility.
Disadvantages: expiry of term (uninsured past a certain date), late premiums are not tolerated and leads to loss of insurance.
Insurance with cash values come in many forms.
Usually, Whole Life calculates cash values based on prevailing interest rates (very low right now). Whole Life has many riders including: Child rider, Disability (i.e. insurer pays your premiums while you're disabled), Accidental Death & Dismemberment, Dividend Participation Rider, Paid-Up insurance, Term rider (e.g. 100K whole life plus an additional $50 000 Term 20 years -- popular for those buying a home). You can rarely touch the entire cash value amount, but you could borrow against the cash value either directly -- through the insurer -- or through a third party like a bank. If borrowing from a bank, they will usually want the policy to be assigned to them and/or have the policy assign them as the beneficiary.
Universal Life is a modern Hybrid insurance model. It contains two components: Insurance Policy and Cash Values. The insurance portion is usually a Term Life policy. T100 or Term to 100 years old is a very popular choice. For the Cash Value portion, you could chose a mixture of Interest, dividends, and index instruments. Index instruments reflect a chosen Stock Market Index (e.g. S&P 500, Dow Jones 30, World Index). With these various investment options, it is possible to increase your rate of return and potentially accumulate high cash values.
For a Universal Life (UL) Policy, your premium has two components: the basic premium plus the optional contribution. The basic premium covers the insurance component. The Total Premium can never be lower than the cost of insurance. The optional contribution is the amount that you may decide to contribute over and above your basic premium. This will constitute your future cash values. Many jurisdictions have an Upper Limit on how much you may contribute in excess of your basic premium. The reason is that Payouts, upon death of the insured, are usually tax-free, therefore there is a huge incentive to pad your cash values for estate-planning and tax-free ccompounding reasons.
As for Advantages, for the above-mentioned reasons, UL is very compelling. You can: accumulate high cash-values, grow cash values with stock-market like returns, grow tax-free, etc. Also, many of the riders, but not all, of whole life policies may be available to you. You may also have many Terms in one UL policy, at the same time (T100 for estate planning, T20 for mortgage or business-life purposes). The premiums would lessen once the shorter term expired. Like Whole Life, you may be able to borrow against your cash values
Also, UL is flexible: Once you have accumulated some cash value, you may instruct your insurer to deduct any late premiums from your cash values. This is useful when cash is tight, and the business cycle is hurting your business. Furthermore, you may accumulate enough cash values, after a certain number of years, to self-finance your premiums. For example: if you put substantial amounts in cash values, you could stop paying premiums in 20 years or so.
Disadvantages: Less riders than Whole Life. Similar disadvantages as Term insurance depending on Term chosen for your policy. May face substantial tax penalties if you cash in some of your cash values. Cash values can decline when using indexed funds for cash values.
Note: Cash surrender values are not the same as Cash Values. Cash Values are the amounts, in addition to the Covered Amount, that will paid out to your beneficiaries in the event of your death. Cash Surrender Values are amounts that the insurer will pay you if you Cash In (stop the insurance) your policy. Cash surrender values are usually lower and increase with age.
Finally, consult your accountant. The biggest saving that you may enjoy is that of paying your premiums through your company, and having the beneficiary be a member of your family. This is a way of avoiding taxes. If you take money out of your company to pay your premiums, you will pay taxes on that money, and put the net amount towards your premiums. However, if your company owns the policy, you could pay the premiums directly from your company's cash, and then your estate or beneficiary will eventually receive the money tax-free. Combined with high 'Optional Contributions', this can be a way of reducing taxes and/or getting money out of your company tax-free. The rules and procedures of this strategy vary from jurisdiction to jursidiction; do ask a competent insurance agent or accountant how to proceed with your insurance premiums.
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