18 May 2022

I’m honored to have co-authored this Bloomberg’s Estates Gifts and Trusts Journal article titled ‘Shoemakers with Barefoot Children’ with Martin M. Shenkman, Esq. In the article, Martin and I discuss what we feel the Attorney and CPA need to do to protect themselves and their families, just as they protect their clients and their families.

I encourage anyone who may have ‘Barefoot Children’ to give this a read.

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18 Jan 2022

A client benefits most when their advisors communicate with one another. If the subject of collaboration of advisors in the Family office, or in any setting, or the use of Traditional, or Private Placement Life Ins, (PPLI) is of interest, then I think you’ll find the Bloomberg article below a good conversation starter. 

If so, let’s be in touch and perhaps develop a mutually beneficial relationship where everyone involved benefits. I’m a good resource & happy to share my 35+ years of experience as an independent CFP practitioner. 

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06 Oct 2021

Paying for long-term care costs is costly. I’ve been providing advice to clients & advisors about the various options to pay for long-term care costs. Back then it was, “Should I or Shouldn’t I purchase coverage to protect against paying the costs myself?”

Today the question is focused on which of the 2 existing strategies provides the most cost-effective way to pay for such coverage.  

In my latest contribution to ‘Accounting Today,’ I describe those options.

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13 Jan 2021

Employers and employees alike are interested in supplementing their retirement income. Doing so on a tax advantaged basis is always a plus. While life insurance is usually thought of as an estate planning tool primarily used to provide tax-free death benefits to an insured’s beneficiaries, it can also be used to provide a significant ‘‘Living Benefit’’ to the insured during the insured’s lifetime whether the insured is the owner, a key employee of a business, or a highly compensated executive.

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22 Dec 2020

Let’s say some of your clients did the right thing and purchased a long-term care contract years ago while premiums were much less expensive. They also did so before many typical medical issues started popping up in their mid 60s. Yes, having a long-term care insurance contract is a wonderful thing. It will provide your clients with the dollars necessary to pay for some or all of their expenses associated with their care.

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23 Nov 2020

You’ve worked hard and saved your entire life to be able to enjoy the lifestyle. However any type of an unreimbursed long-term care expense, be it for a mental or physical impairment can of course completely ruin your and your spouse’s retirement plans. After the well spouse and their family gets over the mental shock, and the adjustment to what must now become the new normal, the reality of the situation begins to kick in.

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05 Jun 2020

Between the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the recently passed SECURE Act, there are many changes that may impact your or your client’s existing life insurance policy.

Slashed interest rates and the stock market plunge have further exacerbated an already deteriorating situation whereby a client’s non-guaranteed life insurance coverage is expiring prematurely as a result of client neglect and inaction caused by their not understanding their current life insurance portfolio.

You can view a recent webinar from the New York State Bar Association titled “The Impact of COVID-19 on Client’s Life Insurance & the SECURE ACT.” It covers specific steps and considerations you should be aware of as it relates to preserving your or a client’s life insurance.

03 Jun 2020

Change is something we now very much face with the coronavirus pandemic. This is exemplified by how the CARES Act has modified the SECURE Act, which itself caused sweeping changes to retirement planning.
For Accounting Today, Thomas D. Glascock and I discuss, at length, the many changes brought about by our current situation and how they impact various areas of planning including, IRAs, Trusts, Life Insurance, and more.

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18 Feb 2020

Life Insurance is confusing for several reasons, but it’s one area you can’t afford to make a mistake with. The attached article in Bloomberg Estates, Gifts and Trusts Journal describes one such popular life insurance product. I’m happy to share my 35 years of experience as an independent CFP and ABA author and act as a resource & answer any questions.

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19 Apr 2019

Hybrid long-term care (LTC) policies have become popular over the years, to the point that a law was passed in 2006 (The Pension Protection Act) that offered tax benefits for plans with LTC features. Since many carriers no-longer offer standalone policies, advisors need to a good grasp of the ins-and-outs of this type of product. This article provides an overview.

Trusts & Estates April 2019

04 Mar 2019

Let’s take a closer look and see what actually happened. In the early years, you didn’t feel each of the five-year incremental increases because they were very small. The dividend refunds during the first 20 years (ages 25 to 45) are in the 40 to 45 percent range, and the member is made to feel association term life insurance is inexpensive and the best deal possible because, for the first 20 years, several life insurance agents had unsuccessfully tried to compete for your business with a lower price, but couldn’t because the association rates were extremely inexpensive.

However, once you hit age 45, your cost for the same $1 million of coverage over the last five years triples. Once that same individual hits age 50, the cost almost doubles, and increases 90 percent at age 55. The costs then continue to increase by approximately 90 percent every five years up until age 75, at which point the coverage gets cut by 50 percent.

Those dividends that reduced the premium by 46 percent at ages 20 to 40, and were thought to continue throughout the life of the policy, have now been reduced to 36 percent from ages 40 to 50, 20 percent from ages 50 to 60, and down to 10 percent from ages 60 to 80.

A significantly better strategy, if you intend to keep the coverage beyond a 10-year period, would be to lock in the premium for a 20-, 25- or 30-year period, which would result in a significantly less expensive cumulative premium. Not only would the cost be less, but the death benefit would not be cut in half at age 75.

Another significant drawback with association insurance is that, if the member needs to convert to a permanent policy due to ill health, there is often only one single option that can be extremely overpriced, because they know you’re trapped. In contrast, a private term product would provide an array of more competitive products to choose from. For example, let’s say a 64-year-old policyholder became ill and couldn’t get coverage elsewhere, and would like to continue their coverage beyond age 75. The cost to convert their $1 million policy to the association’s conversion product is $44,000. Had they initially purchased a non–association private term product, the cost to convert $1 million of coverage would have been $16,000.

Keep in mind that although the association makes it easy, with convenient automatic payroll deductions and no medical exams, it is simply not worth the additional cost if you plan to keep your coverage beyond age 50. If you are relatively healthy and choose an association term product, you are unintentionally subsidizing those individuals who have a health issue and are unable to qualify for a standard rating on their own.

Association term insurance is a wonderful product if you’re under age 40 and especially if you’re unable to qualify for life insurance coverage on your own. However, if you’re over age 40, in good health and would like to continue your life insurance coverage into your 60s, 70s and beyond, then it would be less expensive to lock in a non-association 20- or 30-year premium, as it will have a cumulative lower net cost and, if desired, better conversion options . Every type of life insurance policy, even term insurance, should be periodically re-evaluated to determine if what you have can be improved upon with whatever else may be available in the marketplace today. Sometimes the answer to requiring additional coverage may simply be to rearrange what you already have.

Henry Montag, CFP, is the founder and principal of The TOLI Center East, which provides independent consultative fee-based life insurance performance evaluations for trustees, their advisers, and high-net-worth individuals. He can be reached by email at henry@thetolicentereast.com or by phone (516) 695-4662.

Bill Boersma, CLU, AEP, LIC, and is the founder and principal of OC Consulting Group in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Call (516) 695-4662 or Fill out the form to request a complimentary comparative analysis