The Most Underrated Type of Life Insurance for Business Owners | Paul Franklin

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Life insurance often suffers from misconceptions, especially among entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals. However, it is a powerful tax strategy and an essential part of retirement planning and risk management for business owners and executives. In this masterclass, Paul Franklin, a seasoned insurance professional with over 20 years of experience coaching and advising business owners and executives, breaks down the complexities of Keyman Insurance — what it is, why it matters, and how it benefits both businesses and key employees. His decade-spanning career, combining coaching with financial services, gives him unique insight into building lasting client relationships and structuring bespoke insurance plans.

Keyman Insurance is a niche but vital tool for protecting businesses from the financial impact of losing a critical team member. Paul walks through everything from basic definitions to advanced structuring strategies. If you're a business owner, entrepreneur, or financial professional who wants to understand how to use life insurance beyond basic coverage and maximize its value as a tax-efficient asset, this blog post will serve as your comprehensive guide. For more insight into whole life insurance's role in wealth building, check out our article on unlocking the potential of cash value life insurance.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

In this episode, you'll discover the essentials of life insurance as a risk management tool and what makes Keyman Insurance uniquely suited for business owners. Paul explains the two main types of life insurance—term and permanent—and why combining them is crucial for efficiently managing risk and building legacy. You’ll learn how businesses use Keyman Insurance to protect against the loss of critical employees and incentivize key team members, including the tax nuances of premiums and policies.

Additionally, you'll understand how Keyman Insurance complements buy-sell agreements and how proper funding safeguards business continuity. This episode also highlights the lesser-known benefits of permanent life insurance policies, such as tax-deferred cash value growth and liquidity that banks value highly, which can aid in refinancing and exit planning. To deepen your understanding of permanent policies, see our beginner-friendly guide, What Is Whole Life Insurance?

How Does Keyman Insurance Protect Your Business and Build Wealth?

Keyman Insurance is a life insurance policy that a business takes out on the life of a key employee whose absence would cause significant financial harm. The business owns the policy, pays the premiums, and is the beneficiary of the death benefit, which can be used to cover lost revenue, recruitment costs, or business loans during the transition period.

This insurance acts as a risk transfer and leverage tool that shields the business from the economic fallout of losing its highest-impact individuals. Permanent Keyman policies, which build cash value, provide both protection and a liquidity asset the business can access tax-deferred, supporting reinvestment or operational needs. For example, if a chief salesperson responsible for majority revenue suddenly cannot work, the policy’s payout allows the company to hire and train a replacement without threatening its cash flow.

Because Keyman Insurance is structured thoughtfully with professional advisors, it integrates well with buy-sell agreements that legally define ownership transfers in the event of disability or death. However, the core advantage lies in its ability to fund these agreements, ensuring seamless corporate succession and financial stability.

Mentioned in This Episode

The following entities and concepts provide additional context to the discussion on Keyman Insurance:

“If you're a business owner or the sole income producer, you are your greatest asset. Protecting your ability to produce is not just smart—it's essential for your family's and business's future.” – Paul Franklin

Key Takeaways with Paul Franklin

  • Keyman Insurance transfers risk from businesses to a life insurance provider to protect against the loss of essential employees.
  • There are two main types of life insurance: term (if you die) and permanent (when you die), each serving different business and personal needs.
  • The business owns the policy on key individuals and is the beneficiary of the death benefit, which funds hiring, operations, or covers lost income.
  • Properly funding buy-sell agreements with insurance ensures smooth transitions of ownership after death or disability.
  • Permanent Keyman policies build tax-deferred cash value that businesses can leverage for liquidity and growth.
  • Insurance can be structured to incentivize key employees with benefits tied to tenure, boosting retention through “golden handcuffs.”
  • Team coordination among CPAs, attorneys, and insurance advisors is necessary to structure tax-efficient and legally compliant policies.
  • Planning early is critical — waiting until business sale or health decline reduces options and increases costs.

Resources

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

What is keyman insurance and how does it protect a business?

Keyman insurance is a life insurance policy a business purchases on key employees to protect against financial losses from their death or disability. The business owns and pays the policy, receiving proceeds to cover operational disruptions or hiring costs. It safeguards business continuity and future revenue by mitigating risk associated with critical personnel loss.

How is keyman insurance different from personal life insurance?

Unlike personal life insurance, keyman insurance is owned by the business and used specifically to protect company interests. The policy insures a key employee, and benefits go to the business, not the employee’s family. This setup is designed to offset financial impact on the company, making it a business risk management tool rather than personal protection.

Can keyman insurance help retain important employees?

Yes. Many keyman policies include incentives tied to tenure, such as sharing cash value growth or transferring policy ownership after a set period. This functions as “golden handcuffs,” encouraging key employees to stay while offering financial benefits beyond standard compensation.

Are life insurance premiums tax deductible for businesses?

Generally, premiums for keyman insurance policies are not tax deductible as a business expense, but the death benefit is usually received tax-free. Tax treatment can vary based on policy structure and should be coordinated with CPAs and tax advisors to ensure compliance and optimize benefits.

How does keyman insurance relate to buy-sell agreements?

Buy-sell agreements legally define ownership transfer if an owner dies or becomes disabled. Keyman insurance often funds these agreements by providing necessary liquidity to buy out a deceased owner’s share, enabling smooth business succession and protecting all parties involved.

When should a business owner consider purchasing keyman insurance?

It’s best to consider keyman insurance while the business and key employees are healthy and the company is growing. Early planning maximizes coverage affordability, ensures policy insurability, and provides long-term protection that aligns with business goals and expansion.

Is permanent life insurance better than term for keyman insurance?

Both have their place. Term insurance offers affordable coverage for specific risk periods, while permanent policies build cash value that offers additional liquidity and business advantages. Many businesses use a hybrid approach to balance cost and benefits effectively.

What if a business has several key employees to insure?

Businesses can insure multiple key people by purchasing separate policies tailored to each individual’s impact and compensation. This layered approach comprehensively protects diverse roles essential to business operations and revenue generation.

Want My Team's Help?

If you’re a business owner or executive wondering how to protect your assets, manage risk, and retain top talent with effective life insurance strategies, you’re in the right place. We know it’s complicated to navigate tax rules, policy options, and legal structures alone. Our team specializes in simplifying keyman insurance and wealth-building strategies tailored to your needs. Click the Big Yellow Button to Book a Call and let's explore what it would look like to keep, protect, grow, and transfer your wealth the BETTER way.

Connect with Caleb Guilliams

Follow Caleb on Instagram, connect on LinkedIn, and follow BetterWealth on Instagram.

Below is the full transcript.

Full Transcript

Paul Franklin, welcome to the show. Caleb, nice to be with you. How are you? I'm doing phenomenal. I'm excited to roll up our sleeves and talk about Keyman Insurance. This is something that, you know, it's not going to go viral, let's be honest. This video is not going to be like watched by the masses, but there are advisors, insurance agents, financial professionals, companies, lots of people that watch us, and they want to know like, okay, I want to learn the niche strategies. And so I want to create like a masterclass around. What does key man insurance entail? How do you get it done? Who's it for? Who's it not for? Horror stories. Before we jump into all of that, though, you didn't just one day go like, hey, I want to sell life insurance. So I know that everyone that I talk to has a story. I would love to get your backstory on, you know, why you're doing what you're doing and kind of a little bit of the highlight reel. And then I would love to roll up our sleeves and talk about key man insurance. Sure. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. So born and raised in a small town in Cleveland, Ohio, moved out to DC area, went to a small liberal arts college and played division three baseball there. And then I moved to DC in 2006. And, you know, I kind of moved here. And the only thing I knew I wanted to do was coach. So I interviewed at a couple schools and started coaching high school football, baseball, wrestling. middle school, all those sports as well. Worked in institutional fundraising for a couple years and that's kind of really where I learned sort of cultivation and relationship building strategies and got a lot of experience meeting people in the D.C. area and then did that for two or three years. 08-09 hit and decided to take a shot at the financial services business. So joined the insurance business, joined a career agency shop. I had great training, you know, great management, just great practice building materials. But the one thing that I sort of told myself was, if I'm going to do this, I'm not going to give up my first passion, which was coaching. And so, you know, I've been coaching high school football in the D.C. area for 20 years. We've built out a practice where we basically have three verticals, which are closely held business owners, entrepreneurs and highly paid executives. And then we work with professional athletes and entertainers. And so just by going to coaching clinics as a 21-year-old kid, you're meeting other 21-year-old kids. And then now I'm a 40-year-old father of three. And those 40-year-old coaches are general managers in the NFL. They're offensive coordinators. They're head coaches. Everyone's upgrading. Yeah, exactly right. So the moral of the story there is it just takes time. time, right? You just got to grow with people. And so that's kind of been what I've tried to do is sort of, you know, hitch my wagon along with people that I thought were going to be successful and maintain really good relationships with them. And from there, you know, most of our work is direct referral. So we do a good job for one family or one player or whatever, and then we get referred around. And that's kind of how we build our practice. Love it. I love it. Okay. So when I think of key man insurance, I think of, and there's really two parts, obviously, Insurance is a benefit. I would love your take on like what is insurance and why. But then the key man aspect is different than just regular insurance that someone will get working directly with an agent. So let's first talk about why life insurance in a world where Dave Ramsey and many others think it's the worst place to put your money in the whole entire world. What is your pitch or framework or how do you explain like why is life insurance valuable to begin with? I mean, you talk about. Working with business owners, highly paid executives, athletes and all, like why in the world would they even be interested in life insurance? Let's tackle that first. And then let's talk about the different type, like what key man is different than, you know, other. I'm shocked that key man hasn't been canceled yet. You know, should be a key person, right? Probably not. Sure. So, I mean, insurance at its core is a transfer of risk, right? So if you're sitting in front of a family or you're sitting in front of a business owner or an athlete, right? their balance sheet, their portfolio, it has a certain level of risk. And so they can either take that risk and bear that risk themselves. And something bad could happen, they could have a disability, they could have a career ending injury, they could get hit by a car, they could not wake up one day. And if they bear all that risk themselves, then their beneficiaries, their heirs, their charities, or whoever they're that's important to them, they have to basically rely on the portfolio that's there. And whatever's there is there. And most of that portfolio, is taxable. So whether it's a brokerage account or it's an IRA or it's just cash, there's not a lot of leverage there. So if you look at insurance at its core, it's a transfer of risk. And when you buy insurance, you're basically using leverage. So you're taking pennies and you're turning them into tax-free dollars. So insurance is one of those quirky products where it's one of the only products in the world that has tax-free access from cash value standpoint. Death benefits are generally income tax-free. If you're dealing with a high net worth individual and you're using insurance to get wealth out of your estate, it's a very good vehicle to use. And so it's a simple product, but it has about 50, 75, 100 uses to it for different types of profiles. So I think the common misconception is that. Most insurance brokers or salespeople are trying to sort of fit the same product or one product into every single client that they meet with. And the most talented individuals and really good planners out there, they're taking the time, number one, to ask really good questions, right? They really get to know the prospective client or the client that was referred to them. So we spend a lot of time asking questions, right, which is what we call our discovery process. So typically one, two, maybe three meetings, we're really just trying to get to know what are your goals? Tell me about who you are as a person. Tell me about your business. Tell me about how you grew up. Tell me about what you want in the future. And so when we're able to take all those answers, and then if there's an opportunity where we think there's risk on the table, we can cover that risk with different types of insurance solutions. And again, it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. So I would say Ben Feldman is one of the greatest insurance salespeople of all time. And Ben used to use very, very simple language, which was, if I can take pennies and I can turn it into tax-free dollars, why wouldn't you want to do that? And for most people that are decently coached up on this stuff, it definitely resonates and it makes sense to them. But I think the best clients that we have are the people that come back to us in year five, year 10. You're 15. And they say, you know what? I'm so glad I did this. This is I understand that. I now know why it makes sense. Because when you're 20, when you're 25, when you're 30, you're just starting a career, you're just starting a family. Mortality is really unless something horrible has happened to your family directly or some or you've lost somebody. Mortality is really not in your wheelhouse. You're not thinking about mortality right away. Right. You're invincible. But once you. Do you guys talk about the benefits of life insurance while you're alive? Or is it most of your clients are using it as a risk management leverage tool for if and when they pass away? That's a great question. First and foremost, it's a risk management tool. So legacy is first and foremost the most important thing to our clients, right? Whether it's leaving a legacy to their spouse, whether it's leaving a legacy to their children, to their trust, to charitable, you know, whoever they have in their mind. That is first and foremost, because there has to be an insurable interest, right? Once you've established the insurable interest and you've assessed the appropriate amount of risk that that client needs to take on, then you figure out, okay, Mr. and Mrs. Client, there's basically two types of insurance out there. There's what we call if you die insurance, right? Which is temporary insurance, term insurance, right? Which we're big proponents of. We load up on it. I own a ton of it. My clients own a ton of it, right? You got to protect. while you're kind of in your income growing years and you're growing your human capital, right, which is your ability to earn income and things like that. So that's if you die, right? But it's only good if you die. And the actuaries have, you know, pretty good numbers on if they know whether or not you're going to die, right? That's why you have to do medical exams and look at medical records and all that kind of stuff. So if you look at the statistic of term insurance policies that actually pay a death benefit, it's... it's minuscule. It's very, very low. So you're basically satisfying a risk parameter that's only a certain number of years. Okay. So that's put that in the parking lot for a moment. That's one type of insurance. The second type of insurance is what we call when you die, right? It's there when you die. So it's a lifetime policy, permanent policy, cash value policy. There's different names to it, but essentially it's going to be enforced when you die. So if you die at 60, you die at 80, you die at 100. If you own that particular solution. then the death benefit, if properly structured, which is that's a big if, right? You got to make sure you're buying the right policy with the right cash flow, the right premiums, the right nuances to everything has to make sense. Then when that's enforced and you pass away, that death benefit will flow to your spouse. It'll flow to your kids or it'll flow to your trust. And most of our clients, you know, when they're doing planning, they're setting up revocable trust. They're setting irrevocable trust up because we're typically working with. higher net worth folks that have a lot more than just, you know, a couple incomes in a house. And so they're making sure that they're doing the appropriate estate planning. And that's when you start to tie in work with other advisors, which is why it's so important to have, you know, very good insurance advisor, a good wealth manager, money manager, a good CPA, and a good estate attorney. And when you get those advisors working collectively together on behalf of the client. then it really works nicely. So making sure that you have the right advisors and kind of the right people on the bus sitting on the right seat is huge. Yeah. Shout out Jim Collins for that analogy. A couple of things. I wrote down risk management arbitrage. I love that. The idea of like you can manage risk, but use leverage in the way that you address that is going to happen. I love the fact of if you're going to die versus when you're going to die, that iteration. And I think it's important to have if insurance and when insurance if you have the right setup. I like the concept of multi-generational, you know, that multi-dimensional aspect of giving your dollars more than one job. And I use the analogy life insurance can be very much like a cell phone. It gives you a lot of different uses. And a lot of times we like to focus on just one or two uses, but we underestimate. some other uses that are hard to put into an IRR calculation. Before we get into the key man master class, is there any benefit that life insurance gives you that you feel like is way underestimated or not talked about or not appreciated as much? Like, is there anything that you want to highlight to be like, hey, most people don't talk about this, but like, let's be real, like this thing is super valuable and why? Yeah, I think it's a, I think it's a boring vanilla product and that's why it's not covered a lot in the media and talked about a lot because it it i don't think it necessarily gets people out of bed and and they want to talk about it but when you're going through a struggle in your job or your life or the economy or there's uncertainty based on whoever's in office or whatever's going on having that is as an anchor asset, because I mean, that's how we position it, right? It's an anchor asset, and it insulates your portfolio. It's typically asymmetric to everything else you're doing, whether you're a business owner, or whether you're just investing in the market, it's asymmetric. And so- Explain asymmetric to the listener. Yeah. Yeah. No, if you're getting a product that has built-in internal guarantees, and you're buying it through a reputable carrier. that has a fortress balance sheet, that has very, very high financial strength ratings. I mean, that piece of paper should allow you to put your head down at night and know that everything's going to be okay, right? I hope nothing goes wrong. But as I tell clients all the time, life is not linear, right? So we can show you an illustration. We can show you a model. Whatever advisors you're working with, they can show you 20 pages worth of stats, okay? But as soon as you walk out of that appointment, as soon as you walk out of that office, life is not linear. You could get in a car accident. You could get a call that your kid is getting rushed to the hospital. There's a million things that could go wrong. And we hope that they don't go wrong, but we are there to make sure that the solutions are enforced so that if they do go wrong, we're the advisor that's walking in the door with a check. And I think that's really powerful, right? Right, which is. If we're just playing the insurance hat and I can sit there and I can tell the client, look, when something happens, we're going to walk in with a check. That's, for me as a professional, that's really impactful. So now let's talk about key man aspect. And what I want to set the stage here is if you're someone watching this and you're like, hey, I'm really interested in learning about life insurance. We have a resource vault for you. We have a link that you can talk to someone on our team. If you're someone that is excited about learning more about life insurance, key man insurance like this something that what paul's going to get into we have a special link for you if you want to learn more about key man insurance or even talk to someone like paul we're so grateful to paul that you'd be willing to to work with us on the back end as it relates to that so i just want to give a shout out Because obviously it is one thing to learn grateful, but then there's another thing to like, does this apply to me? So I'm going to create, I'm going to ask a hard question, but I'm going to try to hold you to this. I want simplicity, but I also want depth. So what I would love when it comes to Keyman is simply explain it to me, but then let's go a few degrees hotter in a sense. but like let's make sure we get big picture and go depth. And I really would like to call this the key man masterclass. And so without further ado, let's tee it up. What is key man insurance? My quick like summary, if I had to explain key man insurance is where a business owner or a business has certain people on their team. Not all people are created equal on your team. There's certain people that if they were to leave, that would be. devastating or very difficult or very costly for that business or if that person were to die prematurely deal like that would that would affect the business and so what you can do going back to life insurance is it's a contract that mitigates risk or it leverages risk risk management what you're able to do is get insurance on your key people on on your team and the business pays for that insurance. And the business gets some type of benefit, but then that person also gets a type of benefit incentivizing them to stay in the business. So it's kind of like some people call it golden handcuffs. The key person wins because there's an extra incentive for them to stay. The business wins because they're trying to incentivize them to stay. And if something crazy happens to their employee, they'll get compensated if something happens. and You know, I know with taxes, there's some weird things that go into that. But am I like way off? Am I kind of on? Like, talk to me about my like quick summary. No, you're good. You answered for everybody. I don't have to do anything. So no, I mean, that's a fun having you. Yeah, have a good one, right? No, that's a perfect explanation. I mean, I think most entrepreneurs and business owners, they're so focused on growth, right? They're so focused on growth and generating revenue, which is their job, right? Which is what they should. So when you have an advisor like ourselves or whoever you hire and you have somebody that specializes in risk management, you know, talking about key person, you know, key person, it's it could be, you know, a chief sales officer. It could be an HR person. It could be somebody else in the C-suite. It could be an operator that you've had for 30 years that if they left tomorrow would be detrimental to the business. Right. So again I've had clients call me and they're like, hey, I need Keyman. I need Keyman. Well, Keyman is just, you're using a life insurance product. We're just titling it different, right? It has a different purpose, okay? So when the underwriter is looking at assessing the risk, right, if you buy, you know, $5 million of term insurance because you need it to protect your mortgage or your income replacement, the underwriter looks at that risk very differently than if you were to apply for $5 million a key person. So what are they looking for? for, right? They're looking at the financials of the business. They're looking at the income of the key person that you're trying to insure, right? There's limits to that. So if I own a business and let's say I have a chief salesperson that's absolutely killing it, that's generating all of our leads, all of our sales, most of our revenue. And let's say that person's 40 years old, married, two kids, okay? If that person doesn't come home yesterday, right? Hit by a car. they die, disability, what have you, then that income is no longer getting paid to that person, but also that revenue, that future revenue is not being generated. And so there is a calculation that we have to do to solve for the fact that Jimmy is not coming into work anymore. And so generally we take a multiple of that income that that person's making and we set up a key person policy, right? And so the key person policy would be our business would... own the policy on Jimmy. And if something happens to Jimmy, we would be the beneficiary of that policy. And then we can use the money that flows into the business to go out and interview and hire a new Jimmy. And all the while, while we're doing that, if that takes two, three, four years, or maybe it takes six months, we have reserves to be able to survive without Jimmy's production. Okay. So that's one use of it, right? You can also you can have hybrid uses of it. Right. Which is that, you know, sometimes you'll have the spouse be part of the beneficiary in some cases where you're taking care of her and you're also taking care of the business. So not all key person policies are created equal, but really most entrepreneurs, they're focused on growth. So we have to educate them on, you know, kind of what we call a three part equation. Right. Which is keep, protect and grow. right and so keeping it's just about efficiency right making sure that you're keeping as much profit as you possibly can that you have the right entity structure that you're mapping out your personal balance sheet and your business balance sheet and then when we get to the protect aspect of things that's often the most overlooked part of a business owner or an entrepreneur's focus is they really don't focus on protecting their assets and so when you look at protecting your assets You have to build what we call liability walls, right? Which is you have to have the right life insurance. You have to have the right disability insurance. You have to have the right umbrella coverage, right? You have to have everything in place so that you as a business owner can focus on generating revenue. So when you start to build that team, you're going to start to see those key people rise to the ranks. And those are the people that you need to insure. Okay. So let me break this down. the Jimmy, we'll talk about Jimmy. Jimmy will be our example. Jimmy's a key person in the business. We can buy life insurance on Jimmy and the business is the beneficiary. Business pays premium. Let's say we're getting the when you die policy, so a permanent policy. So the business is making premium payments to the policy. Tax deductible to the business or not tax deductible? Depends how it's structured. So we don't we're not CPA. So we don't give tax advice. So that's where we would have the CPA involved talking about, you know, whether or not you can generally speaking, premiums are not tax deductible. There are certain strats, there are certain advanced planning strategies like non qualified deferred comp and key, you know, executive bonus and different things like that, that you can structure. But it all is based on the entity of the structure that you're buying the insurance into. Okay, so you have cash value, and that's building up tax deferred. Correct. And could the business use that asset to reinvest in the business if they wanted, or is that kind of not kosher? No, no. In fact, I mean, that's where you get into which product makes sense, right? Which type of insurance, right? So you have key person using term. Right. And then you have key person using permanent. OK. And, you know, that kind of gets into key person weaving into buy sell agreements. We do a lot of buy sell agreements. And when we sit down with a lot of business owners, one of the first questions that we ask is, do you have a buy sell agreement? And they sort of look at you with their eyebrow raised going, well, I think we have an operating agreement that we wrote on the back of a napkin 25 years ago when we were sitting at a coffee shop figuring out what our business was going to be. But if you're a... you know, a seasoned business, right? You've got an attorney that has drafted an operating agreement, drafted a buy-sell agreement. But let's say they have a buy-sell agreement, right? Which is, let's say you and I own a business and we're 50-50 business partners, right? And you've got a family and I've got a family. If something happens to either one of us, we have to have a buy-sell agreement, which states that if I die, you're able to buy my 50% of the business from my family and my family can go on. living their life and you can go on trying to replace me, right? So that's essentially at its core, very fundamentally what it is, okay? But when you sit down with most business owners, let's say they do have buy-sell agreements. 90% of who we sit down with, we ask them one question, is your buy-sell agreement funded? And we get another eyebrow raise. And that's the key. Most buy-sell agreements say what's going to happen. But they're not funded with anything. Yeah. And so the insurance. Yeah, exactly. The insurance is what funds the buy-sell when one or two business owners pass away, get disabled, etc. So is there another way to say is buy-sell is another form of key man? Is that the Well, buy-sell is the overarching legal agreement that dictate there's different types of buy-sells, right? Okay, let's go back to key person because I just want to like follow this train here. So. not tax deductible to the business generally speaking if you're going to send a lawsuit send it to paul not me okay he's kidding i i always say don't sue me this is just educational purposes only we don't know anything okay so that um not tax deductible policy it could be a term policy obviously there's no cash buildup if there is cash buildup in most cases that policy could grow tax deferred that's capital that you as a business owner the business can control Okay, what's in it for Jimmy? I get what's in it for the business. Jimmy dies, whatever. Jimmy, most likely, there's more likely Jimmy's going to leave me or go somewhere else than dying. So it's like, what's in it for Jimmy? Because isn't there, like, is that all in the agreement? It has nothing to do with the insurance. It's all about, like, if Jimmy stays with us five years, he gets X. If he stays with us 10 years, he gets X. And we're using the insurance policy cash value to fund that. So can we say, like, Jimmy gets 50% of the policy if he stays five years of the value, and he gets, you know, 100% of 10 years value of a life insurance policy. And so not only are we... ensuring our risk as a business owner, not only are we able to use that capital, you know, for the first five years, and then 50% of the capital for the next five years, like talk to me about how what's in it for Jimmy, because I'm sure a lot of these key person insurance is also trying to incentivize people to stay with you as a as as another way, not just protecting you if they die. You're also protecting like you're trying to create an incentive for them to stay. Right. So, I mean, you can do carve outs where the death benefit can go to the family. That's obviously one incentive. Right. You're giving them insurance that the company is paying for. You have to just obviously work with your CPA to make sure how you understand how the death benefits are taxed. But number two, if you're using a permanent insurance policy, there's a couple of things. Right. So, number one, as you know, right, banks are some of the biggest purchasers of life insurance in this in this in the world, in the country. OK, and so if you Google B.O.L.I., right, Boli Bank Owned Life Insurance. you're going to see that banks own a ton of life insurance. So as a business owner, if you have permanent insurance on your balance sheet, banks absolutely love that, right? They love the liquidity. They love that profile. It also helps when you sell your business, if you're getting a line of credit, you're asking for a loan, whatever it is. But as an employee, if there's a permanent insurance policy on your life, the business and your advisors can work on a way to where when you retire or you leave, that policy actually could go with you depending on how the structure is put in place. So there's different sort of mechanisms and toggles that you can choose so that if you do leave, you can take it or you have to stay for a certain number of years. And there's different ways that you can access that money as well. So there's I mean there's infinite ways that you could do this, but you could say like, hey, if you stay 10 years, we're going to transfer. the life insurance policy, and you're going to become the owner of it. Now, I don't know if that creates any taxable issues or not, but it's like, maybe does then the employee in that case scenario pay the tax? And I know you're not a CPA, but like, if that's the case, and then I would also assume that the magic here is the contract as along with the policy. Like it's a, it's a, it's a probably a written contract from like a CPA or an attorney that. Yeah, it all comes down to the entity that is buying the insurance. That's number one. So the entity sort of dictates the taxation. And there are definitely case studies out there that have gone to, you know, through the judicial system where there were certain situations where insurance was improperly purchased or the entity didn't make a lot of sense. So, you know, we're again, we're not attorneys. We're not CPAs. That's why it's, again, so important to have a good CPA. a good attorney, a good advanced planning insurance person, all on the same team so that before you set up the insurance, you're structuring it properly. Did Walmart get in trouble back in the day by setting up life insurance policies for their greeters? Or is that just a made up story? I don't know the validity to that. I know it's something that is always a story that goes around the tables when you're talking with fellow brokers. What I've heard is that they would insure their greeters. And it was totally fine, but they didn't like disclose it properly. And so what's funny, though, is like, you know, again, this is the person that told me this is like when greeters die or something. A lot of them are not not super young. Let's put it that way. And then Walmart would just get the death benefit. It would just be like a and I was like, that can't be true. And then it probably is. But yeah, it was it was that's that's an example. Obviously, you could make the argument that a greeter at Walmart maybe is not. key person to that business. But that's maybe another example of like how people can use group life insurance policy. That could be a first. Yeah. I mean, the biggest use case that we do, Caleb, is again, our focus is closely held businesses, right? So let's just say you have a company selling widgets and it's, you know, four business owners, right? And they each own equal share and i've got a Bunch of key people in there. Let's say the company's 10 people, right? 15 people. And they really want to reward their key employees. They can use permanent insurance as a way to ensure the legacy, right? If they were to die, that key person need, right? The insurable interest. But number two is they can always, they can bonus their employees, right? They can use it as a way to give them extra dollars to where those are growing tax deferred. And when they take the policies after they retire or if they leave after whatever said vesting schedule is made, those dollars inside that policy can be taken out tax-free from the policy and based on the contract terms. I think the thing that is maybe a disadvantage is it's not a tax deductible to the business, unlike other ways to compensate. But it could be that could be an extra value to the employee who might be highly compensated and getting crushed by taxes so there's like a there's an indirect cost to everything or there's an indirect benefit to everything you know and so as long as that's being communicated that's key did uh jim harbaugh back in the day did he get compensated with something like this or is it was his split dollar different than key man yeah so you know the uh, The concept with Jim and then and look, we work with a lot of coaches across the country is essentially, you know, a university is a nonprofit. Right. So there's an excise tax. And so, you know, if if you have a properly structured policy on the coach or could be the athletic director, there's tax advantages to to doing that in a form of compensation versus just paying the coach directly. So sort of when you set that up, all parties essentially win. The university has to win because they're the ones that are funding it. And then, of course, the coach and his family have to agree to accept part of their compensation in that manner because then you've got a massive life insurance policy on the coach if something happened to them. And then if they leave, they get to reap the benefits of the tax advantages of the contract. Cool, cool. Paul, is there anything else that is like you should very much mention before we wrap this thing up? I do appreciate the... mini masterclass when it comes to key person, key man. And is there anything else that is like, I definitely should mention this, or this is what most people get wrong, or here's a big misconception when it comes to key person? Yeah, I think, you know, first and foremost, if you're a business owner, or you're the sole income producer, like you are the asset, right? So you have to protect your ability to produce. If you don't protect your ability to produce. then you're putting your family, you're putting your other business owner, colleagues, everybody that works for you, you're putting everybody else at risk. So if you're not protecting that, it's in my opinion, sort of a selfish move. Now, look, if you're not healthy and you can't get coverage, then, you know, you got to figure out something else. But that's why it's so important to do it while you're young and you're healthy, because as you know, your health can change in a matter of a day or six months. Number two is, you know, don't wait. until you sell your business to plan because by then it's too late to optimize anything. So you've got to do the groundwork. You've got to do the planning while you're building your business. And that's very hard for business owners because they're so focused on generating revenue that they don't want to do the planning. And look, you don't need to be rich to plan like the rich. You can start out and you can be doing these things at a fundamental level. But just remember what works for a business owner that has a million dollar business. doesn't work for a business owner that has a $50 million business. So you've got to make sure that you have the right professionals around you that are speaking the same language as you and understand kind of what your goal. And again, it gets back to goals and objectives. What are your goals and objectives? And you're at point A. You want to get to point B. Our job as advisors is to say, to get you from A to B, here are the gaps that we have to fill. And then we bring those solutions to the table. I love it, Paul. Thank you. Thank you. for coming on. Thank you for sharing your passion. It's very clear. It's like you're getting me fired up about life insurance. And definitely if you're wanting to learn more about life insurance, we'll have a link down below for resources. You can talk to someone on our team. And if you want to learn more about Keyman, we'll have a special link for you to click and check out that. Paul, any final words as you wrap up? your very first podcast on the Better Wealth Show, at least. Yeah, no, we appreciate all you're doing and getting the word out there. I think it's an important topic. It's not the sexiest topic in the world, but it's an essential topic. And I think that your generation, and I'm an older millennial, but I think our generations, it's important to us. And we want a plan, right? And we want to leave a legacy. And we want to make sure that everybody's okay. And that's the biggest thing I've noticed, especially in Gen Z, Gen Z is super educated. They want to learn and they're coming out of college ready to go. They don't want to just go out and necessarily sell. They want to learn. They want to help grow teams and build teams. So I just think everything you're doing and the messaging you're getting out there to a wider audience is super important. So appreciate everything you guys are doing. Appreciate it, Paul.
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