Imagine that you could instantly double the value of a financial product. Further imagine that you could do so while at the same time making detailed instructions about exactly when, how and by whom the financial benefits could be used.
Skilled business and financial professionals know that just such a technique exists in planning using the Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, or “ILITs”, as they are commonly known. While ILIT based planning is an important tool for planning, and may in fact become even more important absent major changes in the tax law, it is a technique which requires a clear understanding of applicable rules.
Some of the important questions any competent professional dealing with life insurance should be able to answer are:
• Why have a life insurance trust at all? Who needs one?
• Why is an ILIT frequently called a “gift with strings attached”?
• Who is Clifford Crummey and why did he change the way planning is done?
• Why should I always try to buy NEW insurance when I want to double policy value with ILIT planning?
• What is an “incidence of ownership” and why don’t I want one?
• Why can signing an insurance application cause a problem for a client?
• Is it OK to have just anybody as a trustee on a life insurance trust?
• What’s a “5&5” and why should I care?
• If it’s irrevocable, does that mean it can’t be changed?
• What is a transfer for value, and how valuable is it?
Please join Jim Carolan and me on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 7:30 a.m., at the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, as we discuss these and other topics of interest to a professional dealing with life insurance:
“THE IRREVOCABLE LIFE INSURANCE TRUST – WHAT YOU MUST KNOW”