You Hold the Keys to the Kingdom!

Legacy Planning with Living Benefits and “doublers” help your clients retain access to their loved ones, preserve their dignity, and protect those they leave behind.

The legal side of estate planning is a like a moat that we need to help our clients dig to protect their castle from invasion by the probate process and the knights of the courthouse. Other less obvious defensive ramparts exist and should be addressed in the process of protecting their kingdoms to ensure an efficient transition of power and resources to the heirs apparent. The attacks are coming from the “seven tribes of risk”- mortality, morbidity, taxes, inflation, market risk, sequence of returns risk, and longevity. The greatest of these is longevity as it increases the likelihood of each preceding risk occurrence(s).

Settling an estate may not be a fairy tale by any stretch, but think of all the stories and lore around this topic. People have been fascinated with transition for thousands of years, and today’s world creates complexities and challenges to your clients riches that are scarier than raiding hordes.

The health of your clients may be the biggest threat to their legacy. The biggest threat is within their own kingdom, within their own bodies in fact. Sounds like a crazy plot line, right?

Consider the expense of poor health, in home care, convalescence, long term care, memory care, the financial impact on surviving spouses and children. These challenges can empty the family coffers at record rates.

We can take a portion of the family wealth and offer protection for the entire kingdom so to speak while ensuring that portion will not be squandered.

Do not miss the fact that you can offer protection for little to no real costs to your clients and in fact leverage what they have to do more than you ever could before.

The knight in shining armor is you, and your Excalibur is living benefits.

Think of the bottom layer of your client’s financial pyramid as the income layer. Its job is to fill the gap in the retirement income plan and make sure the bills are paid; the second tier is the growth tier that can be accessed for lifestyle wants, and the top tier is for speculation.

If the first tier only pays the bills, it’s still a good plan. What if that income also offered a defense against the invasive costs of care? Enter the income-doubler on annuities, or living benefit riders on life insurance products. Having this earmarked for extra protection may ensure an estate that otherwise would be wiped out. Having these types of protection can allow clients to be more aggressive with their speculation tier since they don’t have to worry about paying the new higher health care bills because it’s already taken care of.

There is no question that leverage is a huge component of insurance protection, and I believe that it can be a huge part of everyone’s retirement income plan.

If you knew that your kingdom had a 75% chance of being raided and that the risks increased every day with age, wouldn’t you take steps to protect it?

This month we added a life product to the portfolio that covers living benefits for an amazing 18 triggers. The chassis is life insurance so there is no use it or lose it. We collect either a living or death benefit, and the product can be further leveraged within the Kai-zen strategy for retirement income. Annuity solutions are available today with increasing income and a “doubler.” Combine the two, and the moat becomes extremely wide.