Life insurance is a confusing topic in and of itself. Start a conversation about life insurance at your next cocktail party and see what happens. The subject is guaranteed to cause eyes to glaze over, even among many professionals. To rid some of...
A client's lack of sophistication and guidance regarding trust-owned life insurance (TOLI) can put estate-planning lawyers in the hot seat. Most states have now enacted the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA), which imposes a higher standard...
Long-term care (LTC) insurance can be an attractive investment alternative for high-net-worth individuals for two reasons: (1) It has a multi-million dollar upside if extended health care is needed, and (2) there's little or no cost if care...
A great deal has been written in the last decade about trust-owned life insurance (TOLI) and the responsibilities and obligations of trustees/fiduciaries of irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs). Although descriptions of a TOLI may be...
A client who has a personally owned life insurance policy comes to you. You convince her to either sell or gift the policy to an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT). You need to get the value of the policy, so you call the insurance company...
The Dec. 17, 2010 enactment of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (2010 Tax Act) added the concept of portability and dramatically increased the gift tax exemption to $5 million per individual ($10...
Among other perplexing issues facing clients these days is what to do with life insurance policies that are calling out for attention, sometimes very loudly. Clients might be hearing that they need to increase their premiums to support the death...
Life insurance is unique among types of insurance in that it insures against an event (death) that will occur as opposed to an event that may occur. But, although death is a certainty, individuals buy life insurance to hedge against the time when...
Now more than ever, trustees, and in particular, corporate trustees, face administrative issues that arise in relation to an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT), in which the primary asset is one or more policies of life insurance on the...