Why permanent life insurance is the heart of a resilient financial plan

If the law allowed you to build your entire financial plan around just one product—only one—what would you choose?

This is the question that Bob Castilogne, the renowned wealth counsellor, began putting to clients decades ago. And even after all the innovation we’ve seen in financial planning, the answer is the same: it’s permanent life insurance. Here’s why:

Most people instinctively opt for investments they frequently hear about, those that could experience explosive growth. But what if we take a step back and define the ideal qualities of a truly effective financial plan that doesn’t rely on luck or timing?

As someone who counsels wealthy families and business owners all the time, I believe it includes the following:

1.  Outsourced willpower – because you pay the premium every month, your wealth increases automatically, and you don’t have to think about it. You never have to prioritize short-term and long-term goals because you’re already on track to achieve both.

   
   

2.  Liquidity – you’ll have fast, easy access to money for emergencies or investment opportunities. This means that if you need money for anything, you can get it without having to sell investments or cash in your savings.

   
   

3.  Tax efficiency – your beneficiaries are guaranteed to receive a tax-free death benefit when you die. You can leave them other things like stocks, mutual funds, a cottage, or whatever else you want. But those things do not transfer tax-free.

   
   

4.  Protection against life’s risks – death, disability, critical illness and job loss is more manageable when cash is available. Money buys time to heal and recover without having to liquidate assets that have years of growth potential ahead of them.

   
   

5.  Reduced investment risk – take all the risk you want somewhere else, but only after you’ve locked in the benefits of permanent life insurance. After that, you can buy as many stocks, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, and bonds as you want to, as long as you know how to manage investment risk.

   
   

6.  Flexibility – once you have a permanent life insurance policy, you can fine-tune it by increasing coverage, adding new beneficiaries, and creating a charitable giving plan. Your retirement income options multiply when you include permanent life insurance as an integral part of your financial plan.

When our clients see these six criteria, they usually say, “That’s exactly what I want in my plan.” And when I ask, “Would a plan that’s missing even one of these be ideal?”—the answer is always no. Yet, that’s what we see in most less-than-ideal plans.  

We’re not suggesting you only do one thing

The experiment above is meant to show how robust permanent life insurance is and why it’s a great place to start. If it were the only thing you did to secure intergenerational wealth, here’s what would happen:

• f you die, your loved ones are protected.

• If you become disabled, your financial plan continues.

• If you live for a long time, you have access to a growing pool of money—liquid, tax-advantaged, and protected from market volatility.

• You have peace of mind.

• You have options.

• You have freedom.

No other product offers such a combination of benefits. Therefore, permanent life insurance must be at the center of any sound financial plan. Will you achieve the highest possible market returns? Maybe not in the short term, but almost inevitably in the long term. Will you stand a better chance of achieving financial success with security, flexibility, and peace of mind with guaranteed results? Yes. And we believe that is a much safer strategy than only chasing returns in a market you can’t control.

Here’s an offer

Give us 20 minutes to prove that you can achieve greater financial results and build more resilient wealth, without having to spend any more than you do now. We’ll use real math to demonstrate why permanent life insurance needs to be the bedrock of your financial plan.