The Balancing Act Design:
A comprehensive approach to strategic life insurance planning incorporates all of your life stages. When your family is young, you will be covered with the highest level of protection. As years pass, your financial obligations begin to diminish, until eventually your only financial protection need is for your final expenses.
This example includes a strategy called laddering, which consists of two or more life insurance policies to protect your loved ones. As your children age their financial dependence on you normally diminishes. By anticipating these types of future changes, you can purchase multiple policies at a lower cost to protect them now and in the future. Laddering makes it possible to have the protection you need now and well into the future without the need to start a new policy when you’re older.
This example also incorporates leveraging. By including a policy that guarantees a cash-value build up (equity), over time the premium you pay for all of your policies can be returned to you, providing your family with a high-quality life insurance plan which ultimately costs you nothing.
Example:
30-year-old male in excellent health
His spouse and primary beneficiary is also 30 years old
They have two children – ages 5 and 2
Your loved ones and all of your financial obligations are protected throughout your entire life. And this is accomplished in a very cost-effective way. A no-cost, long-term plan is the best way to protect your loved ones if you can fit it into your budget.
10 Year Term – $500,000
Temporary protection while raising a family
$13.17/mo x 10 years = $1,580.40
Total cost with this design = $0
The insured will be 40 years old when this 10-year term ends
When you begin your life insurance coverage, your family needs a lot of protection. There are many years of financial dependence ahead for your young children. In this example, the total life insurance protection starts at $1,100,000 (including all 3 policies detailed here).
30 Year Term – $500,000
Temporary protection while raising a family
and lifestyle protection for a surviving spouse
$29.75/mo x 30 years = $10,710.00
Total cost with this design = $0
The insured will be 60 years old when this 30-year term ends
When your children reach their teenage and pre-teen years, your coverage is reduced by $500,000. Your children are 10 years older, therefore your coverage can be reduced. Your family still has $700,000 of protection.
Participating Whole Life – $100,000
Lifetime protection OR
Leverage cash-value to recoup premium
expense for this policy and the 2 term policies
$100.05/mo x 30 years = $36,018.00
$59,160 projected cash value after 30 years
Total cost with this design = $0
Twenty years later (a total of 30 years), your children are grown and your spouse no longer needs lifestyle protection (a widow(er) is eligible for Social Security benefits at age 60), so your coverage can be reduced by $500,000. Your participating whole life policy can be cashed out, and you will recoup all of the premium you paid for both the term and whole life policies. You may even experience a sizeable gain.
Guarantees are important when protecting those that you love. A non-guaranteed policy, such as a Variable or an Indexed policy, is not appropriate for this strategy.
All policies in this example provide both a guaranteed death benefit AND a guaranteed level premium, meaning your premium will never increase.