Tax Overhaul Directly, Indirectly Affects Life Insurance Planning The recent overhaul of U.S. tax law will affect life insurance planning directly through changes to reporting requirements and tax-basis calculations for contracts.  Indirect effects include the likelihood that many clients will no longer need life insurance to pay the federal estate tax, for which the exemption has doubled. To read the full ...

What to do With an Underperforming Life Insurance Policy Several options exist for handling a universal life insurance policy that is no longer serving a client's needs.  In this real-world example, four experts offer advice on what they would do with such a policy, with some of them recommending that the policy be surrendered. To read the full article in WealthManagement, click: Surrender a Universal Life ...

Life Insurance Loan Can Have Tax Consequences When life insurance is surrendered or lapses, its remaining value is used to repay any loans that have been taken out on the policy—a situation that can create unexpectedly large tax bills, as the taxable gain on the policy is calculated without considering the presence of the loan.  Michael Kitces explains that clients can avoid this "tax bomb" by holding on to ...

Are Older Insured’s Doomed to Pay More? Why is the Cost of Insurance suddenly rising?! Is there anything that insureds can do? For decades, carriers explicitly said that COI increases were unthinkable. In this article, the author identifies the reasons given by four carriers for COI increases and looks at what some other carriers have done to mitigate COI increases. This is particularly important for older ...

Dispute Defensible Best Practices, Part 3 of a three-part series In this third part, the last of a three part series, the author stresses that in order for a policy “review” or annual statement to rise to the level of a true “audit”, it needs to incorporate all elements of the above criteria. It needs to do this in a format providing actionable information. Without actionable information, a “review” cannot ...

Disputes Defensible Best Practices (Part 2 in a 3-Part Series) In this second part of a three part series, the author looks at examples of how potential catastrophes have been avoided or reversed by employing a comprehensive policy audit. He then focuses on what is needed to make a policy audit dispute defensible. ...

Dispute Defensible Best Practices (Part 1 of 3) TIn this first part of a three part series, the author suggests that while there are many articles about how to properly analyze a life insurance policy to determine its value, the critical analysis that is needed is not to ascertain value, but to determine viability. Professional advisors involved in buy-sell and exit and succession planning will want to foll ...

This past summer, the firm of Pluris Valuation Advisors LLC released a detailed white paper on the valuation of life insurance. According to the authors, when valuing life insurance or life insurance-linked instruments such as split-dollar collateral assignment receivables or split-dollar promissory notes, there are only three elements of Fair Market Value. These include: Illustrations from the insurance co ...

Plus: Bishop v. Commissioner Rules on When and Whether a Bad Debt Loss Can Be a Claimed Deduction In Schwab v. Commissioner, a case turns on when a variable universal life insurance policy is a taxable event.  In Boone Operations Co., LLC v. Commissioner, find out when contributing fill dirt to the city of Tucson is or isn’t a charitable or taxable event. ...