2023 Banking With Life — Live Event
October 21st, 2023
Yet another great event to hear from outstanding leaders in the Infinite Banking world, and meet more amazing people who are experiencing the transformational power of this concept.
Though I am not capable of sharing all that was said, this article is my attempt to share some of the valuable insights from the event.
(Undisclosed Life Insurance Executive)
It takes several years for a whole life insurance contract to be profitable. Therefore, insurance companies must make sound long-term decisions.
Because of the good decisions this particular company has made over many years, they did not have to receive TARP funds during the 2020 government lockdowns. During this time of uncertainty, they were actually able to acquire another insurance organization to expand their services.
A great detail to know about this particular company also is that its officers are required to serve on charitable boards and actually serve in those charities.
David Stearns
David is the President of The Infinite Banking Concept, LLC, a Co-Director of the Nelson Nash Institute, and a son-in-law to R. Nelson Nash.
In his presentation that he calls “A Tale of Two Dads”, he demonstrates the financial philosophy of his own father compared to his father-in-law.
Robert D. Stearns
His own father believed in typical financial planning, had a typical financial advisor, worked hard to retire at 60 years old (he actually retired at 61), and took Social Security as soon as possible. He lived a great life traveling the country with a travel trailer and passed away at 95 years old.
David explained that throughout his father’s 34 years of retirement, he complained about the lack of control of his assets as well as the taxes associated with them. David also shared about the difficulty in settling his fathers estate after his passing and that the blessing to his heirs was whatever was left over.
Robert N. Nash
His father-in-law was the creator of the Infinite Banking Concept and aggressively practiced what he taught. He did not utilize typical financial strategies nor did he have a financial advisor. Though he hated the concept of retirement, he did have a military pension, a retirement plan from his Life Insurance career, and he received Social Security (he used SS income to pay his income taxes from other sources). Nelson believed, and in his experience, that the most productive and satisfying years of someone's life were their later years. He didn’t want to hinder that enjoyment. David said that Nelson did actually retire though… the one day he couldn’t work leading up to his passing.
Throughout Nelson’s life, he was able to travel the country as well as internationally.
Not only did Nelson have access to plenty of tax free income for he and his wife Mary for the rest of their lives, he was actually gifting policies that he owned to other people. He simply requested an ownership change with the life insurance company, thereby, he was able to substantially bless the people he cared about while he was still able to enjoy it.
David acknowledged that helping to settle Nelson’s estate was much easier and more beneficial to Nelson’s heirs.
Here is a snapshot of David’s presentation slide that summarized the comparison between both of his fathers:
James Neathery
In James’s presentation, he started by summarizing typical financial planning as:
- Utilizing arbitrary numbers and timelines
- No consideration for “banking” in financial education
- Focus is reduced to the lowest common denominator — the Rate of Return
Then he summarized the results of this way of thinking:
- Dependency
- Abdication of control and opportunity (most of the time without knowing)
- FOMO: Fear of Missing Out
- Rate Chasing
Using the most common consumer debt instruments, he also explained that from his observation, the volume of interest that the average person is paying to other lenders is 40%-50% today, rather than the 34.5% that Nelson illustrated in his book Becoming Your Own Banker.
By focusing on the rate, you can see that IBC style life insurance begins in the negative, but over time can be more than 200%. Focusing on the rate does not provide an accurate depiction of what is really happening and what is possible with life insurance. The focus should be the volume of money flowing through our hands and how much of it are we capturing for our benefit. By capturing as much as we can, we truly become our best investment.
Ryan Griggs
Ryan presented beautiful graphs that demonstrated the compounding effects of whole life insurance when started at various ages. His observation from the comparison is that it really does not matter the shape or steepness of the compounding curve (they are mostly the same). The question really is, do you have one working for you?
Similar to the idea of planting a fruit tree. The tree growth process is the same no matter when it is planted. Ideally it should have been planted decades ago, but since it wasn’t, the next best time is today. It can be a blessing to you in your lifetime, but it will benefit future generations who didn’t have to go through the startup process. Someone needs to do it. The earlier the better — for everyone.
His demonstration also included various policy structures (for properly designed policies, not 10–90 or other monstrosities) that revealed how little it ultimately matters whether the Base policy is a little bigger or the PUA rider is a little bigger. It comes down to would you rather have higher cash values earlier or later.
Ryan also reminded the audience that life insurance policy loans are the only “debt” on the planet where the lender guarantees the value of the underlying collateral.
Again, this event was full of valuable information and encouragement. This article is simply my takeaways from all that was shared. What a blessing it was to commune with like-minded individuals and families to nurture each others financial development.
