Owning the Most Important & Most Profitable Business in the World
A Glimpse into the Infinite Banking Concept
To understand the concept of banking, the first thing that must be understood is that we finance everything we do. Money flows into our possession by various means, we accumulate it, then it flows out to pay for the things of life. In the process, we either pay interest to someone else, or we give up interest we could have earned (opportunity cost). Either way interest is being paid to benefit someone (most of the time, not us). But a simple and reliable system can be implemented to recapture that enormous amount of interest paid or given up over one’s lifetime.
To start and operate a privatized banking system properly, we must think like a Banker, and understand the basic process of a bank startup.
Commercial Bank Startup
- Education: study the business.
- Capitalize: get some Capital (money; about $20 million or more) that is very liquid stored in some other bank earning low interest.
- Charter: apply for a Bank Charter from the Banking Commissioner’s office. This may take years if you get it at all.
- Location: find the real estate and build an attractive building (considerably expensive).
- Help: hire people to carry out the needs of the business.
- Advertising: attract deposits by paying higher interest than competitors.
- Lend: loan based on depositors’ money, not the original capital. Note: The current financial system in the U.S. is built on fractional reserve banking whereas banks actually lend money that did not exist prior. Inflating the money supply equates to price inflation.
- Revenue: collect loan repayments.
- Expenses: pay the hired help, depositor interest, and the utility bills.
- Profit: pay dividends to the bank owners (typically not us).
- Expand: start new branches and provide additional services.
Why on earth would anyone go through this insanely expensive process to establish a typical banking entity?
Because it is insanely profitable.
What if someone could start a “banking” system without all the difficulty and expense of starting a typical commercial bank?
What if there was already a large, very old system in place that someone could simply connect to and utilize for their own personal “banking” system?
This idea has been utilized by some people over the past few hundred years, but it was fully discovered by R. Nelson Nash in the early 1980's. Through his own personal financial crisis, he stumbled onto it and implemented it in his own life to change the financial future of he and his family for many generations to come. He then set out to educate as many people as he could to do the same as he did. He coached individuals through the process and traveled the country conducting seminars to help people experience what he discovered. Eventually, he wrote a book titled Becoming Your Own Banker: Unlock the Infinite Banking Concept. The Infinite Banking Concept, as he coined it, is a way to properly structure a dividend-paying whole life insurance policy to function more like a bank than just life insurance. In fact, whole life insurance behaves very differently than any other insurance policy, whether liability, property & casualty, health, term life insurance, etc. It has more in common with banking than it does with life insurance. Mr. Nash said, “A better name would have been a ‘banking system with a death benefit thrown in for good measure.”
Privatized Bank Startup
Insurance Companies did not create the Infinite Banking Concept. In fact, they know very little about the full potential of dividend-paying whole life insurance. The banking mechanism within mutually owned whole life insurance has existed for over 200 years. All the ingredients for banking are already in play; people just have to understand it and tap into the existing system.
The process is very similar to starting a Commercial Bank, but without the enormous amount of startup cost and time.
1. Education: study the business. Start with Nelson’s books and videos.
2. Application: everyone must qualify for a life insurance policy, just like they must meet the requirements when applying for a bank charter.
3. Capitalize: get some money in it. As much as you can fathom based on your circumstances.
4. Lend: loan or borrow from the policy based on the amount of Cash Value/Capital that has been put in. Note: Insurance Companies are not a part of the fractional reserve banking system and cannot inflate the money supply.
5. Revenue: when loans are repaid, this contributes to the profitability of the insurance company, which the Policy Holder is an owner of. “Extra Interest” could also be charged against the outstanding loan as a way to fund additional premiums.
6. Expenses: pay the hired help at the insurance company and keep the lights on. This is built into the costs of purchasing a life insurance contract.
7. Profit: dividends are paid to the bank owners (policy holders).
8. Expand: start new branches (policies) to expand the system and grow the possibilities. Once an individual has maxed out their insurability on themselves, they can start policies on anyone else they have an insurable interest (spouse, kids, grandkids, business partners, etc.).
The Inner Workings of a Life Insurance Contract
Actuaries — To begin, a banking policy needs to be designed. The engineers of life insurance are Actuaries. They have data from over 10 million lives that have gone through the screening process with a theoretical lifespan of 100+ years.
Rate Makers — determine what they should charge customers to make the system work over time.
Attorney’s — create the legal contracts.
Sales Force — sell the contracts to the public.
Administration — Executives, Administrators, Clerks, etc. are the glue that holds it all together.
Company — must put their premium income to work in various investments to pay the future death claims. They may invest in bonds, mortgages, real estate (developments, joint ventures, office space, shopping centers, other private organizations, etc.) When profits are made, they can set aside a portion into a contingency fund to prepare for unexpected risks in the future. The remaining profit can be paid out to policy holders as dividends.
Policy — The policy itself is engineered to become more efficient every year no matter what (so far as the owner does what they are supposed to do). This is because the cash value is guaranteed to equal the face amount/death benefit at a certain age (currently 121 years old) no matter what.
Policy Holder — is the owner of the contract, not the company. The owner is the most important part, but they must qualify for a contract and hold up their end of the agreement, so the company will be able to hold up theirs. The owner outranks ALL potential borrowers for access to 100% of the equity (cash value) of the contract anytime. The owner has absolute control over the investment function of the company as it relates to their contract. The only limits are how much money was put in and the policy holder's imagination.
Premiums (capital deposits) — Paying high premiums creates a pool of cash value from which to borrow and pay for life’s needs. Spending patterns can be restructured to flow through this type of Life Insurance contract.
Fees — The hired help must be paid for their work. The costs are pro-rated among policy holders.
Cash Value — is the amount of money, minus any outstanding loans, that the life insurance company will pay the policy holder upon the surrender of the policy. It is the current equity of the asset, similar to the equity of real estate property.
Policy Loans — A loan from a life insurance policy is secured by the policy’s cash value. The policy owner only has access to the amount they have put into their “banking” system. With certain mutual companies, dividends and interest continue to be earned on the full cash value regardless of any outstanding loans.
Loan Interest — Interest on outstanding policy loans is tabulated as simple interest throughout the policy year. Any interest not paid by the end of the policy year will be added to the loan balance and charged interest. In other words, the interest on a policy loan compounds annually. Loan repayments made in the middle of the contract year are applied 100% to principal.
To build a profitable business (a bank), everyone, including the owner of it must pay normal, or greater, prices. Loans must be paid back at least what would be paid to any other lender or the best business in the world, banking, will die. In doing so, the interest typically paid out to make other lenders wealthy can be recovered to make the policy owner wealthy.
We must recognize where money is flowing to, and charge interest to ourselves for the things we are going to buy using our own banking system. If we are willing to pay interest on someone else's money, why not our own? Anytime we can cut out the payment of interest to others and direct the same volume of interest to an entity that we own and control, we have significantly improved our situation.
Dividends — Actuaries always “overbuild” everything they design. They always build in a “fudge factor”. This more often than not results in annual profits that payout to the owner/policy holders as dividends. Dividends are not guaranteed, but once a dividend is declared, its value is guaranteed from that point on and can never lose value in the future. Dividends are also not taxable because the IRS considers them a return of premium rather than an investment return.
Paid-Up Additional Insurance — The owner can use the dividends to purchase Paid-Up Additional Insurance that requires no further premium and does not have a cost of acquisition, sales commission, etc.
The total premiums paid each year into the policy can also be divided between an optional PUA rider and the required base premium. A PUA rider is an important key to implementing an IBC style policy. The result is an ever-increasing death benefit supporting an ever-increasing, tax-deferred accumulation of cash value.
Death Benefit — An individuals need for Finance/Capital is much greater than their need for death benefit. However, if the needs of life would be financed through dividend-paying whole life insurance policies, the death benefit over time will automatically become much greater than an individual may otherwise purchase.
Expand — The system should be expanded over time to include multiple policies on multiple people in which there is insurable interest. This will provide an incredible opportunity to accommodate all the needs of the owners, as well as the people around them; like a bank that starts multiple branches.
First, buy all the life insurance on yourself that is allowed, then buy policies on anyone you are legally allowed to. At this point, all of your income could potentially flow through your own banking system instead of someone else’s.
Legacy — Once the system is established, it can be passed on to future generations, as long as they can be taught how it works and learn not to steal from it. Ownership of policies can be transferred to others while the original owner is still living. What a joy to be able to generously give the most powerful wealth system in the world to someone, or something, we love while we still have the choice to give.
“Banking is the most important and most profitable business in the world. It should be controlled by you and me.” — R. Nelson Nash
