Whole Life Insurance Is Actually a Scam? Response to @RichonMoney Harsh Critique

Whole Life Insurance Is Actually a Scam? Response to @RichonMoney Harsh Critique

Considering whole life insurance? If you're a high-net-worth investor or value creator like an entrepreneur or investor, this episode delivers a deep dive into the myths and truths about whole life insurance policies. Caleb Guilliams, founder of BetterWealth, explores the real costs, benefits, and strategic uses of whole life insurance beyond common sales pitches, helping you understand if and how it fits into a robust financial and wealth-building plan.

BetterWealth excels in crafting max-funded whole life insurance strategies tailored to sophisticated individuals seeking intentional wealth growth and protection. Caleb unpacks a recent video titled "Whole Life Insurance Scam: What The Salesman Won’t Tell You" and offers a nuanced perspective that balances common financial wisdom with advanced planning approaches.

Gain clarity from an industry expert who respects differing views, emphasizing transparency, tax efficiency, and legacy planning within life insurance products as part of a broader financial ecosystem.

In This Episode, You'll Learn

  • How whole life insurance differs from term life and why the cost variance matters
  • The impact of fees and commission structures on whole life policy performance
  • Why cash value growth typically lags market investments but has strategic tax advantages
  • The real value behind borrowing against your policy’s cash value versus traditional loans
  • How wealthy individuals and banks use whole life insurance for diversification and generational wealth

Featured on This Episode:

Caleb Guilliams, Founder and Visionary of BetterWealth

"Permanent life insurance is not a scam; it just isn’t for everyone. When set up correctly, it can serve as a powerful asset that provides options and efficiencies you won’t find elsewhere."

Key Takeaways with Caleb Guilliams:

  • Whole life insurance offers lifetime coverage but comes at a significantly higher premium compared to term life, often 15 times more costly for similar death benefits.
  • Over 80% of whole life policies are surrendered early, often due to misunderstanding cost and commitment.
  • Investing the premium difference in market instruments like an S&P 500 index fund historically yields higher returns but lacks the tax advantages and guaranteed death benefits of life insurance.
  • Policy loans against whole life are not interest-free; rates often exceed the policy’s cash value growth, so strategic use is critical.
  • Max-funded whole life policies, as designed by BetterWealth, strategically optimize cash value growth and death benefit increases, offering bespoke insurance and investment advantages.
  • Life insurance plays a broader role beyond investment returns, including income protection, liquidity, and estate planning benefits respected by high-net-worth individuals and institutions.

Resources:

  • Aflac - Provider referenced for insurance premium comparison
  • Dave Ramsey - Personal finance expert mentioned for insurance philosophy
  • Ernst & Young - Financial services firm referenced for studies on diversification

Want My Team's Help?

Click the Big Yellow button to Chat with BetterWealth for personalized guidance on whole life insurance, retirement, taxes, or estate planning.

Connect with Caleb Guilliams:

Full transcript follows below for detailed insights directly from the episode.

Full Transcript

If you want a whole life policy also for a million, it doesn't end at 60. You get paid when you die, no matter how old. That's nice, right? Yeah, but it's pretty expensive. Here's one of the biggest scams involving whole life, the damn fees. I challenge you to find an example of a whole life insurance illustration that clearly details the cost. They're just not transparent. All right, guys, I'm reacting to a video in real time, whole life insurance scam, what the salesman won't tell you. I've not seen this video yet. Joel, our producer, put this on my radar. We'll see how this goes. I guess if it goes terribly, you won't see this video. But if it goes okay, we'll be posting on YouTube. I'll just say, Rich, if you watch this video, I would love to have you on the show. No idea what you're going to say, but I just want you to know that ahead of time, we want to have a platform where we're talking about all kinds of things. I for sure don't think that permanent life insurance, whole life insurance should be for everyone. but the word scam is just a strong statement. And I do think if set up and used properly, it can be a powerful asset. So that's my bias on this video going in. And we'll see what we got here. Some slimy salesman is trying to convince you that a whole life insurance policy is the path to wealth and a secret of the ultra rich. Prepare to find out what's really going on with whole life insurance and their shady salesman. So what the hell is whole life insurance? I'm going to give you the three main characteristics and then I'm going to rip it all apart. revealing the truth behind their exaggerated claims. You'll also find out what you should do with your money instead of buying this crap. Number one, whole life insurance is a lifelong benefit. You've probably heard of term life insurance. You make a small monthly payment and you would get a death benefit, for example, a million dollars if you die. But typically that policy ends at a certain age, maybe like 50. That's why it's cheap. With a whole life insurance policy, your million dollar policy never ends. If you die in the first week you have it, or at 90 years old, you still get the million dollar payout. Hell yeah, that sounds attractive, right? It's actually not. We'll get to why later. Number two, whole life builds a cash value that you can borrow against. The salesman liked this one. It sounds sexy. This unique feature allows you to take loans from the money that is accumulated in your policy instead of using a bank. This is sometimes referred to as infinite banking or be your own bank, and it sounds attractive, right? It isn't, and I'm going to tell you why. And number three, the cash value of a whole life insurance policy grows over time. These whole life insurance policies usually predict the cash value you are accumulating will grow on average at 4% a year. This seems pretty nice in light of all the other benefits, but it isn't. It's actually a really bad investment and we're going to get into it right now. Let's start dissecting this. All right. So the three points, it sounds like he's going to make the argument that death benefit stays level. It's a common common thing that Dave Ramsey and many other on his team uses and maybe for typical life and whole life insurance. You have to realize that, you know, those of you that watch our channel or our clients, better wealth, like we're, we're designing a life insurance policy, very custom where a lot of these talking points may or may not be, be, be valid. And so I have to remember that always when I'm watching this, that there's a lot of people selling index universal life and whole life insurance and it could just be a really overall bad product for many people, even the people that could benefit from permanent life insurance. So he's talking about death benefit stays level, talking about the borrowing against your cash value, infinite banking is just a dumb idea overall. I agree with that statement if all you care about is the cash on cash arbitrage. I've had many videos talking about that, but we'll see what points he makes and also make an argument of why that still could be a good idea. And then the third thing is the cash growth. at 4% is a terrible investment. For those of you that have seen any of my videos, I agree. I think if you're putting your money to invest in life insurance, that's a bad idea. And so I would agree with that. And so those are the three points that he's made. And we'll see as he dissects this, what other talking points he gives us. And get to the truth behind the lies these salesmen are telling you. Remember, number one, whole life insurance has a lifelong benefit, right? And supposedly this is better than term life insurance that might end at a younger age, like 50. Here's the problem. You pay extra money for whole life insurance to last that long. You pay a lot more. Let's say you're a healthy 30-year-old male non-smoker. You want a million-dollar life insurance policy that lasts until you're 60. You'll pay 60 a month for that. That's nothing. And it'll cover you in case you die while you're young. It'll help your family get by without you. I guess that's kind of morbid. If you want a whole life policy. Also for a million, it doesn't end at 60. You get paid when you die, no matter how old. That's nice, right? Yeah, but it's pretty f***ing expensive. You'll pay $9.20 a month. Okay. $60 for term insurance, $920 for whole life. That's 15 times more. These numbers come off the Aflac website. You can Google it yourself. Okay, so number one, Aflac, great. Don't have the ability to write with Aflac, not because they're a bad company. It's just like they're not necessarily at the top of the list when it comes to whole life insurance. So they have a whole life insurance product, but they're not nearly on the top of the list when it comes to many of the criteria that we look at. The other thing is this is the same. I mean, I don't disagree. Would we ever would we ever sell a permanent million dollar death benefit for the need of coverage whole life? And like, would we ever do that? No. So I don't disagree. I'm a big fan of term insurance. I have term insurance. My wife has term insurance. We sell a lot of term insurance. So term insurance is the most effective way to protect your family over a temporary period of time. And so the first and foremost is they always use the... it's 15 times more and yes it's permanent but they'll essentially show if you could just invest a difference you have more than that that money in the in the long run so that's the talking point but they're not talking about over funding and and when we're talking about max funding a policy which is really important we're taking the premium that you're going to pay and trying to get as little death benefit as possible and try to optimize it for cash value and then over time your death benefit grows are we selling that as an insurance protection first and foremost It is insurance, but there's a different way into it. And so what we would say is if you do that and it doesn't cover you enough to protect your family properly, which most people it won't, then get a term insurance policy either in there or in addition to that. And so now you're protecting your family, but you're getting some of the benefits of permanent life insurance, which I know Rich and many other people say there's none. There are some. It may or may not make sense for you, but it's not a scam if you do it that way. I can see where if you go on to Aflac and someone comes to me and they're like, hey, I want a life insurance policy. And then I give you the pitch of like, well, you could get this term policy, but if you actually get this whole life, it's going to last your entire life. And it's 15 times more. And I'm selling it with you, which usually the cash value is terrible in the first couple of years and horrible growth. I mean, 4% might even be generous long term with those type of policies. I can totally see the talking point. So that's what I'll say about that. Totally absurd to pay 15 times more. $920 a month to have life insurance available if you die past the age of 60. And I'll show you why this is a horrible idea. Instead of funding a whole life policy, you simply bought the cheaper term policy and invested the $920 a month yourself in a retirement or brokerage account that you controlled. Here's what would happen. See, the problem with whole life is this. It's a complicated and expensive solution to a problem that actually has a much simpler and less expensive answer. It's commonly accepted that money invested in the... The S&P 500 index over the long term grows at 8% a year on average. I respect the 8% versus 12% because you could look at certain studies and see even 10, 11, 12%. But I think 8% is very conservative, especially even if you look at the next 30 years. Are there going to be ups and downs with the Fed printing money, blah, blah, blah? I think 8% is a good long-term number that many people could feel good about from a planning perspective. A lot of times we start at 6%. just to be even more safe. But I respect the use of 8%. Exactly this myself throughout my life. And I've done better than this in my accounts over the last 25 years. So if you invest 920 a month, starting at the age of 30 until the age of 60, which is when your term life insurance policy would cancel, how much money would you have by then? If you invested it yourself, would it be anywhere near the 1 million that a whole life policy guarantees Well, after just 20 years, when you're 50, you'll have accumulated more than $500,000 in an account that you control. So what about after 30 years? If you were to take the money that you would have invested in your whole life policy, invested it yourself from the age of 30 to 60, after those 30 years, you would have, drum roll, please. That's a really bad drum roll. $1.3 million. It will have grown to $1.3 million and change, and you don't need to die to have it. It's already yours. It's been yours all along. It's been growing and compounding in your account the entire time. It doesn't belong to an insurance company until you die. It belongs to you right now. But the whole life policy will pay you a million dollars if you die at the age of 80, right? How much money would be in your account if you just invested it yourself until 80? Again, I'll say this till I'm red in the face. You're assuming a policy that literally stays level to the day you die. Even with AFLAC, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe this is the case. I would imagine even with AFLAC, their policy would increase more, but maybe they have a policy that stays level to age 80. I'm not disagreeing with his point that he's about to make or what I think he's going to make, but that's... It's just like I don't know what to say outside of like that's why the policies that we design every year that you fund your policy, your death benefit increases. Why does it increase? Because we're optimally designing it that way. And so, again, I'm not trying to stick up for majority of the life insurance policies that this person is talking about, but I'm just letting you know like when you say that whole life insurance is a scam, people watch these videos and then they put everyone in that category and you wonder why like there's people in our space that. don't like me because I make different videos. I don't necessarily call it a scam, but I'm in a different way exposing the pros and cons in our own industry. And didn't even bother with whole life. Is it a lot more than a million? Hell yeah, it is. $7.3 million and you don't have to die to get it. So if you live that long, the whole life insurance company makes out pretty damn well, doesn't it? They only pay you a million dollars. You could have made 6 million more had you invested the money yourself. And that's exactly what the insurance company did with your money. The whole life insurance company will make that difference as their profit. Pretty damn nice, right? Why the massive difference? Easy. Whole life insurance is a huge moneymaker for the companies that sell it and for the salesmen involved that look like this guy. No offense. On top of that absurdly massive gap, it has massively high commissions. Most sources I checked said the commissions on a whole life insurance policy was the equivalent of one year of premiums. In the case of what we're talking about today, that would be an $11,000 commission. Damn, I'm in the wrong business. And he's not wrong when it comes to maybe this typical policy. Again, usually when you say one year of commissions or one year of premium, it's what type of premium? Is it fully based premium? Is it PUAs? Is it term riders? They pay different on different cases. cases. That's why when you overfund, you end up getting earlier cash value, but that usually comes out of what you would be getting paid. So that's... Another maybe reason why not everyone talks about these type of policies that we talk about on our channel because you end up getting paid a lot less. But also people tend to come to us and want to work with us because we designed that. So it's like a catch-22. Why am I trying to help you guys out? I should be selling whole life insurance. Also, the cash value that you're accumulating. By the way, I actually disagree with that statement. There's many days that I'm like, you know what? Why do I even bother making these videos? I could just totally be like... fully in the tax business, helping people pay less in taxes, which we do, or I could be totally just doing like a financial advisor, like fee, like I could, I could be going down a different route and I'm not saying any of those routes are bad. And one of the things that we're doing at better wealth is we are ramping up our ability to serve more people. I just, I want you to know that like, this doesn't put me in the cool club. Like I don't make these videos to be like cool. I'm not making these videos because I'm trying to like respond to, I'm literally just trying to, to be a as you're on this journey of like learning the pros and cons of any type of strategy to try to give you a fair balanced approach and I've you know I try to do that I'm definitely looking for feedback I know that people in the comments want us I will be doing more in the future of on like looking at my actual policy and my family's policy and some of the actual real-life examples so you can see if if you want to see more of those and we have plenty of that on our channel we have our sister channel the end asset show, which will be in the show notes. And we have tons of case studies there. One of the reasons we want to show numbers is we want to be as transparent as possible. We're not trying to hide anything. We're trying to like show you exactly how this works so that you could make the better decision. And again, all at the end, I'll share again, why for maybe the hundredth time, why like you're hearing one side of the story, why someone would want to do life insurance. And I think that's always helpful when you watch these videos. It's like, why in the world would anyone want to do this well you There is some reasons. I'll try to share them with you, but I also try to acknowledge the reasons where you should avoid. Hey, it's Caleb Williams here. I'm just interrupting this video quickly to invite you to check out our Andesit Vault. You may have been there. We've actually revamping it. And if you are somebody that wants to learn more about, is life insurance the right fit for me? Does this Andesit make sense? Like, does this actually help me be more efficient? We've put together a 10-minute documentary-style video that I think does a really, really good job giving the history, why the Andesit. different setups and designs that we use. And then we have an and asset vault that gives like case studies, calculators, handbooks, and so much more. We are here to serve you, whether it's a conversation, whether it's education or the video. So make sure to go check out andasset.com slash vault, learn more. It doesn't grow at the 8% like it would if you invested it yourself. It does grow some, it'll be about half that, maybe 4%. This 4% you're getting doesn't really start happening until many, many years, maybe 10 or 15 years into paying your policy. The policy is actually negative for a long time. He's not wrong, but if there's a 4% actual rate of return, that's assuming every single year. What he's right about is in the first couple of years, you'll have less money than what you put in. But over time, if a life insurance policy says it earns 4%, like internal rate of return, it's every single year. But what I have a problem with is people say, oh, this is a guaranteed 4%. policy, but it's like, dude, it's not ever going to make 4% if you actually look at the rate return. So you have to look at the actual internal rate return to actually see what's actually going on in the policy. Because of all the commissions and various other fees. In fact, here's one of the biggest scams involving whole life, the damn fees. It's actually kind of impossible to get a clear picture of what the fees and commissions and payout actually are for a whole life insurance policy. I challenge you to find an example of a whole life. insurance illustration that clearly details the costs, similar to a way a mutual fund has to tell you the expense ratio, sales commission, other fees. They're just not transparent, probably by design, which makes it impossible to understand what you're truly paying for and what you're actually getting. Remember the cash value I was talking about? Well, maybe getting the death benefit and the cash value payout at the end could add up to something serious, right? Nope, that's not what happens. The cash value that you keep hearing about disappears into the insurance company's pockets when you die, and your family only gets the death benefit. If you have an outstanding loan at this point, it'll just get subtracted from your death benefit. But wait, the whole life insurance salesman wants to remind you, you can still borrow against your whole life insurance policy's cash value. You can be your own bank. Isn't that awesome? Don't you want to stick it to the evil banks? Stick it to the man? I don't need you. I don't know. I think I'd rather have several million dollars in my bank accounts that I control and I have access to, and I'll just go to the bank if and when I need a loan. I'll be getting the best rates because I have a massive net worth. Banks will be beating down my door and buying me steak dinners. And this loan that you're supposedly taking from yourself, it isn't interest free. You're paying an interest rate to the insurance company for the privilege of borrowing your own money. That's kind of... Trying to let this guy talk because I know this video is going to last forever. Yes and no. I agree with the whole don't buy into the narrative of being your own bank, and that should not be the only reason why you do this. So I agree with that talking point from a standpoint of never let a sales pitch get you to it should make sense mathematically. The second thing is you're not borrowing your own money. I think I've had plenty of videos on this. Your cash value is collateral. You're borrowing the insurance company's money. And so again, then the next question is, okay, If you're only, in this scenario, let's just say, only earning 4%, and let's say the insurance company is going to give you a loan for 5%, why would you ever want to do that? You're paying 5% when your cash values are only earning 4%. From a mathematical standpoint, that's not a good idea. Like I said it. There's other benefits to life insurance, though, that you have to factor in. And if the other benefits of life insurance don't make that 1% difference in that scenario, then you shouldn't ever do that. because that would be dumb why would you pay why would you pay more for the access to your money when you could use it for cheaper unless you're getting other benefits to life insurance which again at the end of this video which we're almost done I will explain the the thesis of why that works f'ed up look if you are a whole life insurance salesman you might want to stop watching right now I'm just gonna keep trashing you guys I'm sorry I kind of feel bad it's just really easy oh wait your whole life and I would be making these videos too you. Like I just, I have so much empathy. I don't take it personal. Rich. I would, again, even, I would love to have you on the show. Talk it. I'm not going to try to change your mind. You're probably, you could double down on your statements. You're not going to offend me. I, um, and I actually think some of the points are good. They're the same points that a lot of people are making. And that's why I want more conversations because it's like, it's like we make the same video a hundred different ways. And it's like, if we could have a conversation, maybe we could get more in depth, go to like level two, level three, and then have the nuance conversation and be like, yeah yeah Still probably doesn't make sense for 90% of the population. We'll still both be there, by the way. Maybe 95% of people should probably not have permanent life insurance. That's not I will get behind that statement. Permanent life insurance is not for everyone, and a lot of the same people, because of these talking points and it's not the product that is like the yeah, that's the first thing that you should be focused on. A lot of people should be focused on making more money, getting an emergency fund, starting to invest. protect their family with term insurance but there is a reason why some of the wealthy banks, why like sophisticated people want to use this product. And it's not because it's just like they get lazy over time and are buying into scams. It's because it as a product, it does, it gives your dollars, it gives your plan multiple options, which creates greater, greater efficiencies in some areas. And that's what nobody talks about because it's like, we're so like, we're so simplistic sometimes in how we view things. We say the same talking points over and over and over again. And that's what I hope that people see. It's like, okay, can we get like a Version two or version three criticism of life insurance, would that actually go deeper than saying the same stuff that could easily be refuted if you talk to someone like myself and be like, yeah, we all agree. Like we had a chart. We agree. Now can we talk about these things and can we have a nuanced conversation? Which, by the way, some people I'm not going to change Rich's mind, but hopefully I can help him understand like there are some areas where maybe it's not a scam across the board. That would be my goal in this conversation. Rich, you will never do this. But can you admit that sometimes this is not a scam? Hence why some of the wealthiest people in the world have life insurance. Do you think they're getting scammed? Do you think they have it for a reason? One more time. He wanted me to mention that these whole life insurance policies are a secret of the ultra rich. They don't want you to know about. Billionaires and even banks use this tool to build generational wealth. Don't you want to do the same? Well, there is some truth to this. It's true that billionaires and banks sometimes use these policies. But let me tell you why. It's because they already have lots of investments that could potentially make more money. These billionaires maxed out their IRAs, maxed out 401ks. They have real estate investments. They have businesses. They have all these superior investments to a whole life policy. They invest in whole life because they're happy to have a small percentage of their money making three or 4% on average as a diversification to their investments that make more, but might be more volatile in the short term. But you're not in the same position. You need to max out all those smart investments like real estate, IRA, 401k, and businesses that you run before you should even consider whole life. And really, I would still not use it. 99% of investment advisors will tell you to use term life insurance and stay the hell away from whole life. And the 1% that don't are the ones that want these damn commissions. I'm not going to blame them. I'd want them too. If you're still not convinced, would the fact that 80% of people who purchase a whole life insurance policy, surrender it prior to death. concern you. What does that mean? I would love to see where he's getting that maybe from athlac.com or kind of deal, or maybe from a certain study, but that's from the whole life insurance carriers that like, they're actually, if you get a whole life insurance policy, if you want to do it the right way, 80% is not, is not the number. Basically changed their mind and canceled the policy. It's kind of like a mortgage. You have to pay large payments to keep it going. And some people either realize it's. There's these things called reduced paid-up policies, which essentially mean if you want to stop paying, you can reduce your policy, which means the death benefit might come down a little bit, but you don't have to go out-of-pocket anything. There's the traditional 10 pays, 20 pays, but a lot of people don't know that you could be funding a whole life insurance policy and then at age 7, 10, 15, 20, if you just want to stop paying for some reason, you could stop paying and your policy is not going to blow up. again, if it's set up properly, if it's I can't I can't co-sign for ATHLEX life insurance policy. So I don't know how they have it set up. But that's this is this is not true. Not worth it or can't afford it. When you surrender it, there are penalties. It can also sometimes create a taxable event. It's kind of like trying to get out of that one year gym membership. You're not going to use anymore, except 100 times more expensive. Oh, there's a lot more. But you get the point. And I'm just too lazy to keep going. So if you sell whole life insurance, I can only imagine how pissed off you are. Not pissed. Nothing personal. You'll still find suckers out there. Not everyone's going to watch this video. What have I got now? Like 100 views? Finally? To everybody else, what do you think of whole life insurance and the information I gave you in this video? Let me hear it in the comments. This is Rich Carey from Rich on Money signing off. Rich, come on. Expose us more. Come on the show. And let's have a conversation, and I'm sure together that could get more views and expose people to more of the talking points. Here's what I'll say about this everything, and guys, I'm sorry for interrupting so many times. That's the problem of watching this in real time is I probably could have done a better job in talking points. But overall, the points of death benefit. You lose your death benefit or stays level. I agree with all that. I will publicly say don't do a permanent life insurance policy if the death benefit stays level or doesn't go up aggressively. So that's point number one. Your cash value, he talks about if you just invest a difference, you'll have over a million dollars at age 60. Yeah, that's totally valid. And again, your cash value is not meant to be an investment. I actually agree with him that this should not be. be used as a place as an alternative before Roth IRAs or other things. There's really two ways that life insurance can be integrated into your plan. Plan number one is if you're like most people and you're making money and you want to invest it and then you want to retire someday, which is future cash flow, what you want to do is you want to invest in such a way that you can have income in the future that's optimized. If that's the case, the majority of your money should be in investments that grow over time. A portion of your money should be to protect your ability to earn income. I would be curious to see what Rich would talk about with disability, like protect your ability to create income, which is by far your greatest asset, which is the ability to just earn. And then the other aspects are, do you value emergency funds? Do you value, you know, some people would just put their money in a target date fund, which does something similar where it's like, okay, if you put your money in a target date fund, it's going to be more risk, risk, risk, risk, and then level off. And you could make the argument that putting a portion, maybe a small portion, maybe 10%, 5% or something into a permanent life insurance, when you get that at 60, you're still getting the benefits of majority of your money being efficient, growing in the market. But now you have options when it comes to retirement. And it's not just me. It's Ernst & Young did a study on this. Are they in on the scam? is Dr. Wade Fowle, who's like the... head of the retirement distribution school, which is not just an insurance school. It's a lot of financial advisors go to get this designation, the RICP designation. There's academic people out there that don't have any skin in the game, don't get any commissions when it comes to insurance that are saying, yeah, there are things like annuities, which you probably hate, like reverse mortgages, like you probably hate, like just the fact that you can have a volatility buffer. There are aspects of that. So for the majority of people that are watching this, that are investing for the future. majority of your money should go into investing if that is your thesis on life. If that is your goal, most of your money should go into investments. And some of you guys should just buy term and have all your money in investments. Some of you guys, if you have a proper plan, may want to put a portion of that into a high cash value life insurance policy that can act as your bond over time. You can compare the difference. If you want to work with us on the retirement side and look at a plan, awesome. If you want to work with other people, just challenge them on the... yeah, I want a good rate of return. I want a high net worth, but how does this translate into the goals that I actually want? So that's, that's number one. Number two is there are plenty of people that don't want to put all their money in the market. Like I know that that's an effective way. I know the, the simple path of wealth is a great philosophy of like, put your money in an index, have a compound over time. That's going to be amazing. There are people that don't want to do that. They're they, whether it's in real estate, whether it's in business, like myself own multiple businesses. So... I want to have access to capital to be able to deploy and to invest. Now, could I put that in the market and then use that money to invest in businesses? Absolutely. Could in years that work out really well? Yeah, because it could go up 15% and then I take that money out and reinvest. Could I put my money all in Bitcoin and could it go to the moon and then could I take that money and invest in businesses? Absolutely. Are there some risks, short-term risks as an entrepreneur to put your money in those vehicles? and then count on that to be like your emergency fund or use it to deploy in businesses? Yes, that's where life insurance can be a little bit more conservative. But again, all the talking points of terrible cash value growth and all that stuff can be eliminated if you structure these things properly. And so which leads me to the next question. If you are an entrepreneur investor, why would you want to store money into life insurance? Like, why would you want to do that to begin with? It's such a terrible place to put your money. Well, OK, let's just go with the assumption that over time you can make four to five percent internal rate of return. Like this is the actual rate of return that you're getting. Not going to knock any socks off. Like I think over a long period of time, if you could earn over 30 years, 40 years, if you could actually earn four to 5% in a high yield savings account, like every single year, that should be pretty good. Like that'd be great. The reason why life insurance is better than that is it's tax-free if set up and used properly, which if you keep your life insurance policy set up and you use policy loans, you don't have to pay taxes on that. Well, now that's a greater rate of return than 4% or 5%. Okay, still not going to knock your socks off, still not going to outperform investments, but still is a greater return. And if your death benefit is increasing every single year, which it should, your initial million-dollar death benefit is far greater, which is, again, maybe, Joel, we put up an example of a life insurance policy where the initial death benefit's here, and then you see how it grows over time, and you see what you put in. And just to show that that's more than possible and more than doable when it comes to this stuff. And so then the next question is, even if you had that set up, why would you borrow? Why would you borrow to use your own money? Well, you do that because life insurance has other benefits to it. And you, it's just very clear, you, with all the benefits that you get, can decide, do I want this in my plan or do I not? And people like myself would choose, yes, with all the things that I get with life insurance, I choose to take a loan against the insurance company. Whether my loan might be more or less than what I'm getting in my cash value, more of the time it will be a little bit higher. Do I choose to take a higher interest rate loan versus what I'm getting on my cash value because of all the other benefits, including the permanent death benefit, the credit protections, the chronic illness riders, all the other benefits that I'm getting, including the tax efficiencies? Do I that's the tradeoff. And again, like if... If this video is kind of confusing, then you probably shouldn't do permanent life insurance. You should probably do by term and invest a difference. But calling it a scam is a strong statement. But I don't get triggered or upset at videos like this. And overall, I would be making the same videos too if I took a different path. And so again, I would love to hear your thoughts. If any of you know Rich and can connect me with him, I'd be more than happy. I'll do my best to... Try to slide it into your DMs, Rich. But overall, I appreciate you making videos like this. And let's get to part two, version two of like all after the couple of talking points. What are some of the more nuances? Because as we dive into that, there are reasons why some people shouldn't do permanent life insurance. There are reasons why some people should choose certain types of life insurance. And it usually comes down to the plan and looking at like this is the plan. And there's no No such thing as a perfect plan, but the idea of plans is looking at all your inputs based on certain assumptions. How can we get the best outcome? And there are uses for other products so that you can create more certainty. There is an argument even to be made that if scenario one gets you to a greater net worth, but there's a 10% or 15% chance of that creating a worse scenario, like a black swan event. There are some reasons where plans to say, I'm okay with a few, like a less net worth, but more certainty. Some people don't care about that, but some people like a good example of that is disability income insurance. Let's say person one wants to take all their money and their high paying job and invest it all in the market versus person B has the same job, invest the same in the market, but instead of investing everything that person A is doing, they're taking a portion of that. and buying disability income insurance, ensuring that if they become disabled, they're going to still get a stream of income. Well, person A will be ahead in a perfect scenario if they don't get disabled. They will. Person A will have more money than person B, and if they have the same investment, person A will benefit from a greater income stream because we're looking at scenarios that both underlying investments are the exact same. But if person B will be better off if life happens and something crazy happens, Like, Maybe there's a disability. Maybe there's something happens to you. And there's if you look at the statistics, like it's not like there's a good chance of something happening over your lifetime that allows you not to work. And so that's the example. What is a better plan? Well, most people don't get disability income insurance. That tells you most people are voting with their dollars that they don't care about that. But there's some people that are like, I do care about that. I will feel better. Like I feel like I have a better plan if I have more security. Life insurance is just a version of that as well. It's like... Does the person that have life insurance, do they have more options if it's structured properly? If you know what you have, I would say yes. If you don't know what you have, then you just have a crappy investment. And I'm saying that with quotations if you're listening to this on the podcast. You have a crappy investment that's just a drag, but that just tells me that you may not appreciate all the other benefits. And if you don't appreciate all the benefits, you probably shouldn't do this to begin with. So with the fifth time trying to land the plane, I'm going to sign off. Appreciate you all for watching. Appreciate the comments. And we're going to keep these rolling. And I'm going to do more reactions, not just to life insurance, but other reactions to other things because there's, believe it or not, a lot of other things that we do here at Better Wealth. Life insurance is the thing that we're most known for. But if you have questions about taxes, if you have questions about retirement planning, if you have questions about estate planning, make sure to check out the Clarity Call link, whether it's a life insurance related, whether it's a policy review, whether it's another question, we're here to serve you. And with that, I'm signing off. Take care.