Insurance Strategies
We offer a broad portfolio of insurance products and protection strategies for individuals, groups and businesses.
Life Insurance
Life insurance can be the foundation of your financial security and can provide comfort and stability for your family. The purpose of life insurance is to help provide your loved ones with financial protection after you die, in exchange for the premiums you pay to your insurer during your lifetime. Some life insurance policies can provide you with financial protection for the short term, while others accumulate cash value, offering a living benefit that can be used for supplemental retirement income, funding for a child’s education, or cash for emergencies.1
Life Insurance as a Retirement Planning Strategy
You’ve worked hard and dedicated all your resources to build and grow your business into a successful enterprise. When the time comes to move on to the next chapter in your life, will you be prepared?
Retirement planning is about creating a strategy that helps ensure the lifestyle you've grown accustomed to will continue long after you retire. Careful preparation today can help make this important phase of your life a reality tomorrow.
Life insurance can be a key component in a diversified retirement planning strategy. As a small business owner, you may be limited in your qualified retirement planning options. Life insurance can provide an alternative to supplement the retirement funding vehicles you already have in place.
Life insurance pays a death benefit, generally income-tax free, to a beneficiary upon the death of the insured. In addition, life insurance can accumulate a cash value on a tax-deferred basis. This cash value can be accessed for a variety of life's opportunities and challenges, including supplemental retirement income.1
Life Insurance as a Business Succession Strategy
The death or disability of an owner is one of the greatest threats to a business. Not only can it severely impact the day-to-day operation of the business, but it can raise all sorts of business succession and estate tax problems – proper succession planning can help.
Succession planning affects everyone who has an interest in the business—business partners, family members, and key employees. It is critical that you have meaningful discussions about often overlooked issues, such as who the ideal successor should be, what is the value of the business, and what is the timetable for transition. No matter what event occurs, either expected or unexpected, we can help you develop a succession plan that can help ensure a smooth transition according to your vision for the business’ future.
Consider a few of the following options:
Disability Income Insurance: A disability Buy-Sell policy is a great way to help ensure the orderly succession of a multi-owner business in the event of a long-term disability.
Life Insurance: Business succession plans using life insurance can help ensure that your business is protected.
1 Distributions under the policy (including cash dividends and partial/full surrenders) are not subject to taxation up to the amount paid into the policy (cost basis). If the policy is a Modified Endowment Contract, policy loans and/or distributions are taxable to the extent of gain and are subject to a 10 percent tax penalty if the policyowner is under age 59½. Access to cash values through borrowing or partial surrenders will reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit, increase the chance the policy will lapse, and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured.
Do you need life insurance? *
If you have anyone that depends on you financially or if you don’t want to leave your loved ones with burial costs or debt, then the answer is yes. And if you’re just starting out and want to lock in an affordable rate for when you have a family, different types of life insurance can help with that, too. In addition to its death benefit protection, consider adding whole life insurance as part of your retirement income strategy or your overall wealth accumulation and wealth transfer strategy. Ask us how.
* The decision to purchase life insurance should be based on long-term financial goals and the need for a death benefit. Life insurance is not an appropriate vehicle for short-term savings or short-term investment strategies. While a policy can allow for loans, you should know that there may be little to no cash value available for loans in the policy’s early years.
Insurance Policies
Whole Life Insurance
Death Benefit | Cash Value | Opportunity to Earn Dividends
The benefits of whole life insurance include guaranteed fixed premiums, a guaranteed death benefit and guaranteed cash value growth. This means that with whole life insurance, your premiums never increase as long as they’re paid, and the policy has “living benefits”, which may enable you to access the cash value of the policy for any purpose while you’re alive.1 One thing to keep in mind when taking a distribution from a whole life insurance policy is that accessing the policy’s cash values will reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit and increase the chance the policy will lapse.
1 Distributions under the policy (including cash dividends and partial/full surrenders) are not subject to taxation up to the amount paid into the policy (cost basis). If the policy is a Modified Endowment Contract, policy loans and/or distributions are taxable to the extent of gain and are subject to a 10 percent tax penalty if the policyowner is under age 59½.
Access to cash values through borrowing or partial surrenders will reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit, increase the chance the policy will lapse, and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured.
Term Life Insurance
Death Benefit | Affordable Coverage | Convertible
Term life insurance provides coverage for a set period of time at a generally lower cost than permanent insurance. Many term life insurance products allow you to convert to a permanent policy, such as whole life insurance. The cost of insuring oneself increases over time, so it’s important to understand your short- and long-term needs for financial security when you select a policy.
Universal Life
Death Benefit | Flexible Premium | Build Cash Value
Universal life insurance provides lifetime death benefit protection along with flexibility that gives you choices as your needs and finances change. It offers options such as coverage amounts that may be increased or decreased, and premiums that you can vary based on your finances as long as there is enough money in the account to pay for the monthly insurance and administrative charges.
Variable Universal Life Insurance
Death Benefit | Flexible Premium| Investment Options
Variable universal life introduces an investment component. With variable universal life, you can allocate net premiums and account values among divisions of a separate account and guaranteed principal account.2 You can direct a portion of your net premium payments to any of the investment options available through the separate account depending on the particular variable universal life product.
Each investment option offers a different level of risk and growth potential. One feature of variable universal life insurance (and universal life) is its premium flexibility: you can skip payments as long as your policy has accumulated enough account value to meet the monthly deductions. Also, you can add numerous riders to your policy. Riders are available for an additional premium.
**Variable life insurance policies are sold by prospectus. Before purchasing a variable life insurance policy, investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the variable life insurance policy and its underlying investment choices. For this and other information, obtain the prospectuses for the variable life insurance policy and its underlying investment choices from your registered representative. Please read the prospectuses carefully before investing or sending money.
2 Guarantees are based on the claims paying ability of the issuing company or companies.
Disability Income Insurance
Income Protection | Retirement Protection | Customizable Coverage
A sudden interruption of income—due to an extended period of sickness or injury—can have serious financial consequences for many of today’s employees. If you are lucky, you may receive group disability benefits through your employer. However, you will need to make sure the benefits available through your group disability coverage are adequate for your needs. Group disability benefits are taxable if your employer pays the premiums, may be capped at a relatively low amount, and may not cover variable income such as bonuses or commissions. As such, these benefits may not be enough to maintain your lifestyle or pay all your bills if you become too sick or injured to work.
An individual disability income insurance policy can help supplement your group long term disability benefits and protect a larger portion of your income. An individual disability income insurance policy you purchase on your own is fully portable, meaning you won't have to worry about losing coverage if you change jobs, and the benefits are generally paid are tax free if you are the premium payor.1 In addition, an individual disability income insurance policy is non-cancelable by the carrier (as long as the premiums are paid), and with a guaranteed renewable policy, your premiums will never change for the life of the policy. Disability income insurance policies have exclusions and limitations.
Disability income insurance policies have exclusions and limitations.
Note: The information provided is not written or intended as tax or legal advice and may not be relied on for purposes of avoiding any Federal tax penalties. We are not authorized to give tax or legal advice. Individuals are encouraged to seek advice from their own tax or legal counsel.