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The Secret Value of Permanent Life Insurance

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If your life insurance could be permanent—lasting your lifetime—without ideally any additional out-of-pocket outlay, is there any reason why you wouldn't want it?

The problem is, we've been taught to look at life insurance as a "product," rather than the key player in a financial "strategy."

How can whole life insurance protect wealth from creditors, help us continue to save money during a disability, reduce taxes, give us more income to spend at retirement, and leave a legacy to the ones we love?

The real issue is whether adding whole life insurance to our strategy gives us more benefits, more options, more efficiency, more liquidity, and more wealth.

The real issue is whether whole life insurance gives us more value during our lifetime—making our life better while we live and helping us realize our dreams.

If it can do all of that, can you think of any reason why you wouldn't want it?

Whole Life Insurance sometimes gets a bad rap. Some people view it to be an unproductive way to accumulate cash over the long haul.

They need to think outside the box.

While the primary reason for purchasing life insurance is the death benefit, life insurance also has accumulation benefits. As the key component of a financial strategy, here are some of the benefits of permanent life insurance:

• A way your long-term savings can continue during a disability

• Protection of your hard-earned savings from creditors
• A guaranteed growth of your money
• If structured correctly, tax-deferral without 59½ rules
• Withdrawals from cash values on a tax-favored basis
• The ability to save Term Insurance premiums

The overall "productivity" of whole life insurance is found in the imagination of the policy owner.

Here are some examples of how smart people have utilized life insurance cash values to help fulfill a dream ... and create a fortune.

James Cash Penney

J.C. Penney was the son of a poor Baptist preacher. He had a vision for selling dry goods through retail stores. He began with one store in a small Wyoming town. His dream grew to be valued at over $14 billion. The retail store that bears his name is a nationwide empire.

In 1929, when the stock market crashed, Penny's dream was nearly wiped out. He rebounded with money borrowed on his $3 million life insurance policy. That fresh infusion of cash was enough to keep him in business. How productive was that policy?

Walt Disney

Walt Disney had a mental picture of what an amusement park should look like. His standard of excellence was radical at that time. After pursuing traditional means of financing, Disney realized that if his dream were to become a reality, he would have to provide his own financing.

It made his wife nervous, but Walt Disney began to collaterally borrow money from his life insurance cash values. By the time he had $100,000, he had decided on a name for his new venture: "Disneyland."

Doris Christopher

A home economist with two daughters, Doris Christopher started her business while searching for a new career. Using $3,000 she borrowed from a life-insurance policy, Christopher bought some basic inventory—kitchen shears, spatulas, etc. and some lumber for crates to hold her products.

Her $3,000 seed money, grew into a multi-level marketing business that Warren Buffet bought in 2002 for $1.5 billion. Her house wares enterprise: "Pampered Chef."

Ray Kroc

Ray Kroc didn't have the recipe ... but he had a marketing idea that changed the world. On the threshold of his life-changing decision, Ray was a distributor for a milk shake equipment company.

One of Ray's customers was a pair of brothers who had a very successful drive-in restaurant. The neon sign in front of their Southern California restaurant simply read: "McDonald's Hamburgers."

When the two brothers failed at an attempt to franchise their hamburger joint, Ray joined their team.

During his first eight years, Kroc did not take a salary. Taking an even bigger risk, he personally borrowed money from the bank and his life insurance to help cover the salaries of key employees.

Eventually, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers and built his hamburger kingdom. Today, McDonald's serves over 50 million people each day through more than 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries.

**Life Insurance products contain fees, such as morality and expense charges, and may contain restrictions, such as surrender periods. Please keep in mind that the primary reason to purchase a life insurance product is the death benefit. Guarantees are based on the claims paying ability of the issuing life insurance company.

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