The AND Asset Policy Study: What 1,735 Real Whole Life Policies Show About Infinite Banking

Most of what gets written about cash value life insurance relies on assumption rather than data. The strategy is described as a tool for the wealthy, built around a short list of famous carriers, and either dismissed as a scam or sold as a cure-all. Almost none of it is grounded in what real policies actually look like, because the firms that hold that data rarely publish it.

We pulled the aggregate numbers on every policy we have ever structured, 1,735 of them across all 50 states, and the picture they paint contradicts the common story. The typical policy is funded at a level a salaried professional or small business owner can carry, not a level that requires generational wealth. The carrier mix is concentrated in a way the marketing landscape does not predict. And the volume of policies has grown roughly sevenfold in seven years.

This is primary data, not a survey or an estimate. It is also a sample of one firm's book, not the whole market, and we will be clear about that limitation throughout. What follows is what 1,735 issued policies tell us about who uses this strategy, how they fund it, which carriers they use, and how fast adoption is moving.

00 / MethodologyWhat this data is, and what it is not

The figures here come from the 1,735 policies recorded as issued, what our system marks as Insurance Won, in BetterWealth's customer relationship management system, pulled in 2026. Every number is aggregate. There are no individual records, no names, no personally identifiable information, and no dollar figures tied to BetterWealth income. This is client-side design data: what the policies look like, not what the firm earns.

A few definitions matter for reading the rest of the study:

• Policy. A single issued whole life or term life contract. The book holds 1,735 of them.
• Owner. A distinct individual who owns at least one policy. There are 1,307 owners. The same person can own more than one policy.
• Household. An estimated grouping of owners into family units, about 1,025 of them. Household counts are estimated from owner records, so treat them as close approximations rather than exact figures.
• Annual premium. The yearly amount paid into the policy. All premium figures in this study are annual and aggregate. The premium distribution is based on 1,721 policies with complete premium data, slightly fewer than the full 1,735.

One limitation sits above all the others. This is one firm's book of business, designed by one team's approach, and it is a sample of the cash value life insurance market rather than the whole market. The carrier mix in particular reflects which carriers fit the designs we use, so another practitioner's book would look different. Read every number below as primary data from real issued policies, accurate for this book, and indicative rather than definitive for the market as a whole.

01 / The cost mythInfinite banking is not just for the wealthy

The most common objection to this strategy is that you need to be rich to use it. The data does not support that. The median annual premium across the book is about $7,200, and the average is about $16,400. The gap between the two tells the story: a small number of large policies pull the average up, while the median shows where the typical buyer actually sits.

The distribution makes it concrete. More than half of all policies, 54%, are funded under $10,000 a year. Another 28% fall between $10,000 and $25,000. That means 82% of policies are funded at $25,000 a year or less. Policies at $100,000 a year or more, the level people picture when they imagine this strategy, make up just 2% of the book.

A premium near $7,200 a year is roughly $600 a month. That is a level a salaried professional, a tradesperson, or a small business owner can carry, not a level that requires a fortune. The strategy still demands a long horizon and discipline, which we get to below, but the price of entry is not the barrier people assume it is.

02 / The carrier realityThe most-marketed names are not the most-used

If you research this strategy online, a handful of carrier names come up again and again in advertising. The book tells a different story. Penn Mutual carries 61% of policies, more than four times the next carrier. Lafayette Life follows at 13%, MassMutual at 10%, Ohio National at 7%, Guardian at 6%, and OneAmerica at 3%.

Why Penn Mutual? In our analysis it is the long-term cash value leader, with a flexible paid-up additions rider that suits aggressive overfunding, which is the engine of a cash value design. Its concentration here is an output of fit, not advertising spend. The carrier is the second decision in a cash value policy, after the design itself, and Penn Mutual fits the most common designs in this book. You can read the detail in our Penn Mutual review and our Lafayette Life review, the two carriers that together account for nearly three-quarters of the policies here.

The broader point for anyone researching this: a carrier's marketing budget tells you almost nothing about whether its product builds cash value well. The full breakdown of which carriers fit which designs is in our guide to the best life insurance companies for infinite banking.

03 / The vehicleWhole life is overwhelmingly the strategy's chassis

Cash value lives inside a whole life policy, so it is no surprise that whole life dominates the product mix. The top products in the book are whole life designs: Accumulation Whole Life at 19%, Guaranteed Whole Life II at 18%, Patriot 2022 at 7%, and Whole Life 95 at 4%. Guaranteed Convertible Term, in 10 and 20 year forms, accounts for roughly 14% combined.

The term presence is worth explaining rather than glossing over. Convertible term often serves as a bridge. It lets a younger or cash-constrained buyer lock in insurability now and convert to permanent whole life later, when income supports a larger premium. The strategy itself runs on whole life, because that is where cash value accumulates. Term is the on-ramp, not the destination.

If you want the design mechanics behind why whole life is the chassis, including how the base premium and paid-up additions split determines cash value, the deeper read is best whole life insurance for cash value.

04 / The trendAdoption grew roughly sevenfold from 2018 to 2025

Policies issued per year rose from 50 in 2018 to 369 in 2025. That is close to a sevenfold increase over seven years. The climb is steady rather than a single spike, with a clear step up beginning in 2021 and continued growth through 2025.

We want to be careful with this one. The growth measures our own issuance, which is a function of the firm's reach as much as of broad demand. It is honest evidence that interest in this strategy is rising, and dishonest to present it as the whole market expanding sevenfold. Inside this book, the direction is unmistakable: more people are structuring these policies each year.

05 / The ownersMost people hold one policy, families build over time

The 1,735 policies belong to 1,307 distinct owners across about 1,025 households. That works out to 1.33 policies per owner and 1.69 per household. Most owners hold a single policy: 78% own one, 15% own two, 4% own three, and 2% own four to six.

The owners who hold more than one policy usually add them for a spouse or for children, building a family capital base over time rather than stacking policies on one person. That pattern fits the strategy: the policy is a capital base for a household, and a household can have more than one person to insure and more than one place to deploy capital.

06 / The disciplineWhat the data does not show, and why it matters

A study like this can tell you what people fund and which carriers they use. It cannot tell you whether each owner is using the strategy well, and that distinction is the whole point of how we practice it. The strategy people search for here is what Nelson Nash called infinite banking, using a cash value policy as a personal banking system. Nash is the pioneer, and his insight about the structural cost of paying interest to outside lenders is the foundation. We respect that and we build on it.

What we practice is The And Asset, which operates on a different rule. IBC says a cash value policy is a personal bank you can borrow against for any purchase. The And Asset says you only borrow against the policy when the deployed dollars will out-earn the carrier's loan cost, because that is the only condition under which the math actually creates value. Anything less is an expensive way to spend money. The policy is the capital base. The value is created in what you do with the capital.

That is why a low median premium is encouraging rather than alarming. It means the strategy is reaching people who can fund a disciplined capital base, not just people writing six-figure checks. The premium gets you the capital base. The discipline of when and why you borrow against it is what turns the base into a return. The numbers in this study describe the first part. The second part is on the owner.

The dollars have to beat the loan rate, or you do not borrow. That rule is the strategy.

07 / The honest caveatWhat this study can and cannot claim

We built this study to be cited, which means we have to be straight about its limits. Here is what it is and what it is not.

• It is primary data. Every figure comes from real issued policies in our system, not from a survey, a model, or an industry estimate.
• It is one firm's book. The 1,735 policies were designed by one team's approach. The carrier mix especially reflects our design choices, so another firm's book would differ.
• It is a sample, not the market. Nothing here should be read as the size or shape of the entire cash value life insurance market. It is a meaningful slice of it.
• It is client-side only. There are no commissions, no revenue, and no individual client data anywhere in this study. The numbers describe policy design, not firm income.
• Household figures are estimated. The 1,025 household count is derived from owner records and should be treated as a close approximation.

Read with those caveats, the findings hold up: the typical buyer funds at a working-professional level, the carrier mix is concentrated in carriers that fit the design rather than the ad spend, whole life is the chassis, and issuance has grown sharply since 2018.

FAQThe AND Asset Policy Study, answered