When it comes to banks and money, you need to do what they do and NOT what they say. This is true with how they lend money, the assets they purchases and the type of life insurance they own.
How many times has your bank or credit union offered to sell you term insurance? For me, it is too many times to count. I find it incredibly hypocritical as a bank patron to be offered a term policy to then see that the very bank that offered me a policy owns billions of dollars of whole life policies. If it is good enough for the bank, why isn't it good enough for me?
Recently I was on the FDIC website looking over all the different banks and their public filings. I decided to dig in and look at Bank of America. These guys are one of the biggest banks in the world and they offer their customers term insurance regularly.
Yet, as of May 4th, 2018 Bank Of America owns $19,221,000,000 in cash value life insurance. Wow! $19 BILLION of this asset and you don't think the rest of us Americans would benefit from following your example!? Why would a bank do business one way and then teach us to handle our money a different way?
It's because they want us to remain customers and not become competitors. Banks need us to make money off our money. Without us they would crumble.
You can further dig into how many banks own cash value life insurance by searching the term BOLI. You can also learn how many corporations own cash value life insurance by searching the term COLI. Out of one side of banks mouths they are cutting deals and buying permanent insurance. Out of the other side of their mouth they are shaming it, educating us on how expensive and silly it is to own and offering us term policies.
Did you know that only 1 out of 100 term policies will be paid on? Term is a cash cow that is purposely made too expensive to own in your later years so that it will be dropped and the insurance company can keep all the money it collected on you for the past 20-30 years.
Here are a few other well known banks that have cash value life insurance in the billions.
- Chase Bank
- Wells Fargo
- Citi Bank
- US Bank
- Key Bank
Here are a few well known corporations that purchase cash value life insurance on key executives as part of their compensation package.
- Anheuser-Busch
- Abercrombie & Fitch
- Comcast
- Dow Chemical
- General Electric
- Harley Davidson
- McGraw-Hill
- Pfizer
- Ralph Lauren
- Starbucks
- TD Bank North
- Verizon
Some of the companies listed above push millions of dollars per year into life insurance for their key executives.
If permanent insurance is as high valued by banks and corporations for building large pools of tax-free money they can access, then why wouldn't it be good enough for us? Why would these same groups tell us to buy term and figure out investing on our own?
It reminds me of someone striking gold and then telling people he found it in a different location so they will be looking in the wrong place, while he continues to mine as much gold as he can before they catch on to his lie. Like magicians, banks and Wall Street distract us with one hand while they pick our pocket with the other hand.
Success leaves clues and this is a major trail of bread crumbs. Here is another trail I'll discuss in greater detail in a coming article, but several years ago The Wall Street Journal did an investigation on this very topic. They found that over 55% of all the cash residing in these tax-free insurance contracts is owned by the top 10% in America.
Whether you can start with a couple hundred a month or a couple million a year, these tax-free accounts that grow every year, are protected against market loss and allow you to access your money for purchasing large items the smarter way, are available to you.