Breaking Bad: One Decision That Could Have Saved Walter White from Becoming Heisenberg

So this coronavirus has given us all a chance to spend more time with our immediate family and, of course, binge even harder on our favorite TV shows.

I know I couldn't resist the opportunity to re-visit the downfall of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman on one of my all-time favorite shows: Breaking Bad.  I just finished watching the last episode of season 2 last night.  This show is about as perfect as a TV show can get.

There's just one thing that bothers me though.  Walter White never would have had to go all "Breaking Bad" into his alter ego Heisenberg if he had just done one simple and easy thing.

If you've watched the show, you know Walt is absolutely brilliant but his immense intellect and talents are relegated to teaching high school chemistry while all his peers have gone on to makes millions and/or earn industry accolades.  At one point, near the end of the show's run, his brother-in-law Hank calls Walt the dumbest, smartest person he's ever met.  That pretty much nails it for me, too.

You see, Walt had a choice up until he was diagnosed with lung cancer that could have altered his legacy for the good.  This one choice would have saved so many lives and heartache.  It wasn't just Walt's family that suffered from Walt's decision to build a meth empire.  There's Jane, Jesse's girlfriend, who choked on her own vomit as Walt watched her die and did nothing, the 167 passengers on flight 737 who also would still be alive, and this is just from the most recent episode I watched.  Talk about collateral damage.  The list of casualties can and does go on and on.

All of this happened for one reason.

Walt had one goal when he learned that he had advanced stage lung cancer.  He wanted to make enough money somehow so that his family would be taken care of after he was gone.  Financial security would be his legacy and gift to his family.

And he could have done it simply and legally.

Can you guess where I'm going with this?

This makes me think I need to get in touch with every teacher out to ask one specific question:

Do you have enough life insurance??? 

Seriously, that's all it would have taken for Walt to be at peace with his legacy and to save countless lives he irrevocably harmed.  

Of course, there would be no Breaking Bad to binge watch and enjoy.  Heck, the show would have been as boring as... the life insurance policy Walt would have owned on his life.

And if Walt had been overfunding a cash value life insurance policy like the Infinite Banking designed Whole Life plans I recommend for my clients, he could have had access to his cash values to pay for the best doctors and treatment without resorting to running behind his wife's back to cook meth in the desert with Jesse.

Most policies these days even have Accelerated Benefit Riders that give access to the death benefit while still alive.

The point I'm making is this, Walter White was definitely smarter than the average joe but when it came to protecting his family and leaving a legacy, he was as dumb as it gets.   

Please do yourself and your family a huge favor.

Lock in your insurability while you are still young and healthy with at least a convertible term policy.  This way you'll never have to... break bad.

If you need help determining how much life insurance you should own, contact me here:  www.IBC.guru.

Cheers,

John Montoya

Term or Whole Life Insurance?

Most people I encounter who own life insurance typically only have term insurance. This is often because their friends and family have only ever had term insurance. So when faced with the choice of purchasing a permanent life insurance policy like a Whole Life insurance contract, people will struggle with the decision to do something that is unfamiliar to them.

To compound the difficulty in making such important and potentially a life or generational altering decision, most financial advisors and life insurance agents are not properly trained to structure a Whole Life contract the way the authorized advisors with Bank on Yourself are taught to do.

The conventional wisdom about Whole Life insurance is that it's unaffordable. This couldn't be when you  further from the truth!  It's only expensive if you work with an advisor or agent who doesn't understand the mechanics of how a Whole Life policy works and is unable or unwilling to properly design a policy for you!!

The big secret about a properly designed Whole Life policy is the application of special riders that reduce the cost of insurance and build cash value from the very first premium payment. These special riders allocate the majority of the total annual premium into the savings portion of the policy which puts the cash value growth on hyper-drive.

When the premiums dollars in a Whole Life contract are properly allocated, the commission an advisor receives is nearly 100% bypassed. In fact, an advisor or agent who utilizes these special riders goes from making up to 100% of the annual 1st year commission on the total premium to just 1.5% on the portion of premium allocated into these special riders. On a typical Bank on Yourself Whole Life contract, 50-70% of premium dollars are allocated towards these little known riders.

So if less premium is going to pay a commission on a Whole Life product, that means 50-70% of the premium is going to your cash value right away! Is it any wonder why advisors and agents fail to structure a Whole Life contract that best serves both your short and long term planning needs? Don't get too mad at them if you already a Whole Life policy though. It's very likely your advisor was never trained to structure a Whole Life policy the way Bank on Yourself certified advisors are trained to do so. Having been part of two very well known and respected insurance companies as a career agent, I can tell you firsthand, the financial planning community doesn't teach what I offer in my private practice. More on this below.

Another fallacy about Whole Life is that it has an investment component built into it. Whole life policies are NOT investments.  Whole life policies actually have a savings component, NOT an investment component. What's the difference? Saving accounts are engineered to protect and grow assets. They are never exposed to the risk of market loss. A whole life contract guarantees to grow the cash value each year. The only type of permanent life insurance with an investment component is a variable universal life policy which like any investment has the potential for both loss or gain. I would stay away from those.

By comparison, term insurance has no savings component. It is purely a death benefit policy that offers a fixed premium for a fixed "term". For individuals and families on a very tight budget, it is the optimal way to afford life insurance and the correct recommendation. For individuals and families who have more discretionary income to put toward savings, there is a better way to structure a life insurance portfolio by often combining both term and Whole Life insurance contracts.

Probably the most surprising fallacy is thinking a fee based and/or Certified Financial Planner will know how to structure a well thought out life insurance plan. While a fee based advisor is a good option in general, for specific life insurance purposes, I'd recommend an advisor who understands how to use single and level paid up addition riders on a whole life contract combined with term insurance to properly design an affordable and flexible life insurance portfolio. If they cannot sit down with you and show how your premium dollars are being allocated into the special riders I focus on, then they are not going to be able to explain the benefits these riders provide.

My experience with fee based or Certified Financial Planners I have interviewed is that they have never been taught to use paid-up-addition and term riders to make a whole life policy both affordable and flexible. They also have never been taught how to create a banking system utilizing Whole Life policies.

Having been thru the CFP curriculum with the American College the oversight in the coursework regarding life insurance planning is quite telling. A properly structured whole life contract not only provides an increasing permanent death benefit but an accessible, tax-favored savings account in the form of available cash values, too. This type of IBC designed Whole Life  is not the same type of policy that is commonly misunderstood and generically sold by the financial planning industry.

Bottom line, people will always stand to benefit from having a savings account and no widow or beneficiary will ever turn away an income tax-free transfer of wealth. If your budget has room to put away money for a rainy day and you would like to have that money work for you without exposing it to risk of loss and future taxes, it'll interest you to see how you can expand the life insurance protection you provide to your loved ones by using the same dollars you'd otherwise put in a bank at a lower rate of return, or possibly at risk of loss in the stock market.

For a private consultation, you contact me here:  www.IBC.guru.  And to answer the question at the top: Term or Whole Life? It can be a blend of both.

Thank you,

John Montoya

Incredible Money Saving Tips You Can Use & Invest The Difference

The most common marketing ploy for term insurance tells us to buy term insurance rather than cash value insurance and invest the difference. If that’s such sound advice, why don’t we apply the wisdom more often? For example:  

• Buy folding chairs, not a couch, and invest the difference.
• Buy a push mower, not a power mower, and invest the difference. 
• Buy a bicycle, not a car, invest the difference. 
• Buy a shovel, not a snow blower, invest the difference. 
• Buy a pet, don’t have kids, invest the difference.
• Buy scissors, cut your own hair, invest the difference. 
• Buy just aspirin, not your prescriptions, invest the difference. 
• Stay at home, don’t take the spouse out, invest the difference. 
• Move back in with your parents, sell your house, invest the difference. 
• Visit the mall, instead of taking a vacation, invest the difference.

It seems this philosophy works with everything! Simply extract value, and invest the difference. 

Dave Ramsey seems to think Buy Term and Invest the Difference is a brilliant financial move for all American households.  Here's how Bank on Yourself compares to Dave Ramsey's recommended strategy.  What do you think?


If you'd like to hear Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman discuss their strategies, watch the humorous video below.