1. Advanced Estate Planning with Guaranteed Universal Life Insurance.  We broker through the largest General Agent in the nation to submit our cases.  Therefore we get preferential underwriting, in addition to the most competitive pricing.  We specialize in concierge case design and management with large cases.  Our commitment to you is to deliver top notch customer service that we know your clients demand.

2. Given a client is in good health we can potentially offer substantial decreases in premiums and or increases in death benefit with a review of policies that were put inforce prior to 2001.  For example an insured with 1MM in Death Benefit may get 2MM of coverage for the same premiums.  IRR’s for insured’s in good health can be quite good in many cases.

3. Clients in high tax brackets may be able to take advantage of 412 I Fixed Defined Benefit plans that allow the MAXIMUM PRETAX CONTRIBUTIONS of any qualified plan, potentially as large as $300,000 per yr, in contrast to an IRA maximum of $6000.

4. Clients that have maxed out contributions to qualified plans or who have employees may be able to use other insured products to great advantage as well.

5. Key Man, Buy Sell, Split Dollar and “Golden Handcuff” Agreements.

6. Planned Giving, Planned Gifting and Charitable Annuities.

7. Fixed and Indexed annuities which can offer the peace of mind of a guaranteed income stream.

Let us know how we can help with your case design or any other questions about life insurance you may have.

Call Drew Kitchell, – Devlin Financial Services  Ph # 970-925-9090

Advanced Estate Planning – Life Brokerage – Insurance Solutions in Aspen Colorado

Treasuries at 2%? Do you want to investing in an entity (the government) that is overburdened, overleveraged, printing money at an absurd pace, miss-stepping, and frankly I believe posses significant credit risk ? If I ran my personal financial situation (or yours) like they do I most likely would be put in Jail.

CD’s at the bank? Again 2% to maybe 4% at best if you give them a lot of money and they like you (IE you give them a lot of money.)

Savings or money markets? Same deal at 2% plus these are starting to have credit risk as well, not to mention that you only have a 250K guarantee.

Munis ? Laddered munis can be attractive especially for the high tax bracket investor, but credit risk is seeping in there as well, tax equivalent yields can be OK here, but many of us are a bit light on the income currently thus in a tax bracket that does not indicate the use of Muni’s. I belive interest rates are going to go up, and that they are being held artificially low. Demand destruction in Treasuries from lack of Chinese and international purchasers will eventually take its toll. Muni’s carry both interest rate risk as well as credit risk currently.

So what is the solution for the Aspenite on the go without time to be constantly glued to the depression channel (CNBC)?

For many a good solution to consider may come in the form of Annuities, or for those of us still lucky enough to be in a high income tax bracket, Fixed Defined Benefit plans.

I know, I know, some annuities blew up in the 80’s. Well so did Ford Pintos and you probably own a car now, correct? The contracts that we have today generally offer several types of guarantees, most of which can be combined in one fashion or another, this is in addition to the intrinsically attractive tax deferred nature of annuities.

Three of which are the most common, Living benefit or income guarantee, Death benefit guarantee, or what is called a step up.

With a living benefit the annuitant (you) gets a guaranteed rate of return for some period of years, usually 10. Some of these can guarantee up to 7% simple interest, net of fees. The flip side of this is you are required to give them your money for a period of several years, if you take your money out there will be penalties and fees, also note the IRS will asses a 10% penalty if you remove this money before age 59 ½. So they are not short term or liquid investments and the primary risk is the insurance company going out of business. You can take this money out for your use during retirement or use as a Living Benefit.

The death benefit is structured very similar however the guarantee goes towards a death benefit as opposed to an income benefit. People who choose this option are attempting to maximize death benefit and are less concerned with income.

How a step up works is like a floor under your investment. IE if you put in 1M and your account goes to 1.5 that is your guaranteed withdraw benefit. If it goes down to 900k 1.5 is your guaranteed withdraw benefit.

I will cover Fixed Defined benefit programs in a later submission, but for now what they buy the high tax bracket investor is guaranteed returns with maximum tax deductions, some times as high a 200-300K.

The primary knock against Annuities is their fees which can be up to 3% depending on how many bells and whistles you put on them, however most guarantees are net of fees, so you really only get dinged in years where you make more than the guarantee. Also they can be complex and do have risk as aforementioned, but all in all I believe that they are suitable for many investors who want a decent rate of return with a guarantee on the downside.

Drew Kitchell is an Aspen Local Financial Advisor and can be reached at dkitchell at FPaspen.com or his blog about things Aspen and things financial is at http://www.resorttownblog.com/

Twitter: resorttown

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