Retirement Security:

As priorities are assigned, clients are often eager to start allocating assets for these worthy purposes. However, it's easy for emotion to override fiscal prudence. By setting aside money or assets for these causes, consumers are automatically reducing their retirement income nest egg.

For example, if Grandma and Grandpa set aside $500,000 of their own assets to send all 3 of their grandchildren to college, they remove the consumption of those assets from the retirement income equation. Now a once comfortable and manageable monthly retirement income may be stretched too thin.

Considering the use of life insurance as the funding vehicle for a legacy may not be intuitive, but it does have merit. Through a survivorship life insurance policy, consumers can generate income (tax-free) thereby creating an asset for the grandchildren on a deeply-discounted basis. Remember, most survivorship life policies will cover one uninsurable in case either Grandma or Grandpa has significant medical issues.

The same scenario applies for grandparents who want to provide for a special needs child, grandchild, niece or nephew. Again, life insurance can provide a more effective avenue in creating dollars to pass on to beneficiaries.

What we're doing is saving assets for personal use by creating other assets to meet the overall goals of our clients on a cost-effective basis using life insurance as the funding vehicle. As you know, the least expensive way to create those assets would be with a survivorship life policy. For any given premium outlay, survivorship allows our clients to maximize the death benefit provided to meet their financial goals.

Conversely, for any given death benefit target, such as leaving $1 million to their favorite charity, the least costly way to provide those dollars is again using a survivorship policy. This effective use of life insurance can be applied to family and community legacies, allowing assets to be used for your clients' own enjoyment in retirement.

We, as an industry, have a unique opportunity to enhance our clients' retirement years by helping them move beyond the short-sighted view of retirement security as just a monthly paycheck. By taking a broader view, we can help clients with a comprehensive plan to assist a financially secure retirement for themselves and a secure future for their family and community.

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"We, as an industry, have a unique opportunity to enhance our clients' retirement years by helping them move beyond the short-sighted view of retirement security as just a monthly paycheck."