Family, I was recently engaged in a discussion on life insurance and realized many of us are STILL behind the 8 ball on this matter. It doesn’t matter what someone or some company did to family members in the past. That’s a lesson to ‘learn’ from not a reason to ‘run’ from. What are you going to do for yourself and your family in the TODAY and TOMORROW? Individuals should set aside time to “study to show thyself approved” and stop playing with what somebody ‘said’, whether in person, on the phone, social media, etc. Study the facts and make good decisions. Insurance is not the only solution; however, it deserves very serious consideration when putting together the bucket of things that contribute to self-preservation, family legacy, wealth creation, community development, etc. For the record… DEATH is not the only time an individual can benefit from life insurance. As people climb the ‘financial’ food chain, what insurance does in DEATH is less important that what it does during LIFE. Life Insurance is often underestimated and misunderstood in our communities. I could probably write the equivalent of a book on the topic, but REALLY wish everyone will consider self-educating themselves on some form of life insurance. TERM LIFE Insurance is meant to replace estimated ‘life earnings’ for an important financial contributor in a household or company. It really should be titled ‘death insurance’, as it’s only paid when you die. It’s very cheap and protects your family, or business, against the risk of a ‘financial contributor’ dying earlier than normal. If you were to make $50,000 per year, and were 45 years old, with a work life expectancy to 65 years, you have ‘life earnings’ years remaining of 20 (65 – 45 = 20). Thus, you might take out $1,000,000 of term insurance (20 work years remaining x $50,000 annual earnings). That’s a simple example. 99.5% of term insurance policies are NEVER exercised; meaning, no one ever receives the proceeds. That does not mean you should not have it. It simply means, you have ‘outlived’ your work life (referenced earlier as to age 65) and your coverage for the ‘risk’ of death is no longer needed. It's a start, and ONLY a start. Whole Life Insurance is Permanent insurance. ‘Permanent’ is the important term. It can be paid in full and NEVER go away. As noted, people push products they call ‘permanent’ that are not really ‘permanent’. Whole Life Insurance truly does deserve the title of ‘LIFE’ insurance as it can be used during ‘life’ (to pay you) and will ALSO pay in death. It’s an ASSET on your family Balance Sheet/Net Worth statement. Whole Life increases your liquid and illiquid net worth. Both are good. 'Liquid' is excellent, as you have access to money, under most circumstances, right now. There are so many options on ‘Whole’/’Permanent’ Life insurance that we’d really need a family seminar to address them. It can act as the bank you never thought about, while also maintaining its existence as an ASSET (you can access money – bank - , but not be forced to touch YOUR money – asset -; that’s a good thing). You might want to read that twice. 98% of whole life insurance is exercised, meaning it PAYS your family. The other 2% is usually ‘cancelled’ or ‘cashed out’. In both cases, on truly ‘whole’ life, money is present/exchanged. Further, Life Insurance is ‘tax free’, when properly set up, because it’s meant to replace ASSETS. You are simply replacing something, whether currently present or listed as a future value of an income stream. Replacing ASSETS are not taxable events. If a hurricane hits your home, destroys it, and you receive an insurance check from your home insurance policy… that insurance check is not taxable because it replaced an ASSET. If you have certain types of insurance and break the rules, you can create a taxable event. However, you would be the cause of that problem 😊. Please DO NOT read this family post and decide to run out and get an insurance policy with just anyone. EDUCATE YOURSELF! Ideally you want to deal with a ‘Mutual’ insurance company as they are not publicly traded. Mutuals do not operate for the benefit of shareholders tied to Wall Street, but for YOU!! Mutuals, typically, require reserves equal to 100% of the death benefit listed on your documents. If the company has 100% of the death benefit in reserves, they obviously have 100% of the ‘cash value’. Cash value grows through your contributions, paid interest, and paid dividends, which causes the value to exceed your contributions. Again, this type of ‘life insurance’ must be set up correctly; that’s easy to do. Start your journey by ‘knowing something’ (study) and not just accepting what’s being told/sold to you by someone. Make your next step an investigation of products and talk to experts who will listen to your needs verses what they ‘want’ you to need. Consider a third step of talking to one more person, with subject matter expertise and common sense, before making the final decision. Finally, there are many types of insurances, disguised as something better, (IUL, VL, VUL, FUL, etc). One might consider them variants of term insurance on steroids. Even when these have pseudo ‘guarantees’, you probably want to compare the guarantee to what you can do on your own. Yes, they ‘can be’ or ‘have the possibility’ to be greater at some point. However, when addressing your ‘life’, your ‘death’, and your ‘beneficiaries/legacy’, are you wanting a ‘can be’ or ‘possibility’? Or, do you want a good old-fashioned ‘guarantee’? Requesting ‘In force’ illustrations will always tell you the truth. If it’s not WHOLE, it’s not ‘permanent’. If it’s not permanent, it’s very hard to call it an ASSET. Inspire Someone. Build Wealth.