Posts by Rachel Marshall
The Rockefeller Strategy: How Millionaires Use Life Insurance to Build and Keep Wealth
The standard understanding of life insurance goes like this: you buy a policy, pay the premiums, file it away, and hope it never gets used. Protection for your family if you die. That’s it. But that’s not what wealthy families are doing. American dynasties, high-profile entrepreneurs, and the country’s biggest banks have been using life…
Read MoreIUL vs. Whole Life Insurance: Who Carries the Risk?
Someone put an IUL illustration in front of you. Maybe it was pitched as “market upside with no downside.” Maybe as a “Roth IRA on steroids.” Maybe as a way to “be your own bank.” And now you’re trying to figure out whether any of that holds up, or whether whole life, term, or a…
Read MoreThe Best Cash-Flowing Assets and How to Build a Portfolio That Pays You
The default wealth-building playbook goes like this: buy something low, hope it’s worth more someday, then sell to capture the gain. That’s the appreciation model, and it can work. But it’s not the only path, and for a lot of business owners and high-income professionals, it’s not the most reliable one either. The Money Advantage…
Read MoreBefore You Buy: The Questions Every Infinite Banking Practitioner Should Be Able to Answer
Infinite Banking has grown fast. Really fast. And with that growth has come a flood of practitioners, coaches, agents, and advisors all claiming they can help families become their own banker. Some of them are exceptional, some are undertrained, and some are simply using the Infinite Banking label to sell products they were already selling,…
Read MoreFear Is the Most Expensive Financial Advisor You’ll Ever Have
The most expensive financial advisor many people will ever have doesn’t send an invoice. It doesn’t show up on a fee disclosure. It never introduces itself. But it has shaped more financial decisions, and quietly eroded more wealth, than almost any market downturn, bad product, or conflicted advisor ever could. That advisor is fear. Fear…
Read MoreWhat 54 Life Insurance Policies Reveal About Family Banking
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and his wife reportedly own 54 life insurance policies. Yes, fifty-four! Most people see that headline and think it’s extreme. Maybe even a little absurd. Why would anyone hold that many policies? Who does that? But there’s a more interesting question worth asking – what does someone who owns 54 policies…
Read MoreIndexed Universal Life Insurance Is Not for Everyone: Who Should Not Buy an IUL
IUL gets pitched to young professionals, families, business owners, retirees, and pretty much everyone in between. The message is always consistent: this product can solve your financial problems, provide market upside with downside protection, and generate tax-free retirement income. One product, all things to all people. For most people, IUL is the wrong tool entirely.…
Read MoreWhen Financial Complexity Hurts More Than Helps
There’s a belief in the financial world that complexity equals sophistication. The more moving parts a strategy has, the smarter it must be. The harder it is to understand, the more impressive the advisor must be. And if you can’t quite follow what’s happening with your own money, well, that’s just the price of having…
Read MoreSave Automatically & Invest Intentionally: The Order That Changes Everything
You set up your 401(k) contributions years ago. They go out of your paycheck automatically, before you even see the money. You’ve been doing this for years. And you’ve been telling yourself you’re saving for retirement. You’re not saving. You’re investing. Automatically, often without much thought, into a market-linked account where the value can drop…
Read MoreWhole Life Dividends Explained: What They Are – and What They Are Not
When most people hear “dividend,” their brain goes straight to stocks. That’s understandable. And completely wrong when applied to whole life insurance. That one assumption causes real problems. People chase companies with the highest declared dividend rate. They compare illustrations side by side and pick the bigger number. They make decisions based on a metric…
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