This page makes no assessment of you. It is general information and a private worksheet.
The worksheet below subtracts one number you type from another, in your own browser. Nothing you type is sent, saved, stored, transmitted or seen by anyone. There is no form, no submission, no account, no tracking and no mechanism by which your figures could reach the author or any other person. Close the page and nothing remains.
It is not advice of any kind, financial, insurance, investment, tax or legal. It is not a needs analysis, not a suitability assessment, not an application, not an approval, not a recommendation and not an offer. No one is evaluating you, no determination is being made about you, and nothing is being sold to you on this page.
Nothing here creates a professional-client relationship. The figures are yours, are not verified, and the result is simply your own arithmetic returned to you. It indicates nothing whatsoever about whether this or any strategy is appropriate for your circumstances.
Participating whole life insurance is an insurance product, not an investment. Dividends are not guaranteed. Guarantees are contractual obligations of an insurer, not of any government. This strategy is not suitable for everyone. The author is a licensed insurance professional and receives commissions from insurers when a client purchases a policy, including the products this strategy uses. He is therefore not a neutral party; read accordingly and verify with advisors you choose yourself. Before acting on anything, consult a licensed Financial Security Advisor of your own choosing, an accountant and a legal advisor.
The author accepts no responsibility for any decision made on the basis of anything on this page.
Why funding is the real constraint
A system of this kind is funded by insurance premiums, and premiums are a long-term commitment. What stops most people is not interest or understanding. It is surplus. The money has to exist, month after month, after everything else is paid, for a very long time.
The range in practice is wide. Some people sustain a few hundred dollars a month and build a modest system slowly. Others contribute twelve thousand a month or more and build a substantial one considerably faster. Both are legitimate uses of the same idea. Neither is possible without the surplus existing first.
What the arithmetic of the contract requires
The book explains that a properly designed policy generally needs a sustained monthly contribution in the hundreds of dollars rather than the tens, because a contract carries fixed costs: the cost of insurance, policy fees, administration. Below a certain level those fixed costs consume too much of each contribution for the structure to do the work it is meant to do.
That is a property of the contract, not a rule imposed by anyone. It is also why an honest answer for many people is that this is not the right time, and that a different use of the same money would serve them better.
Capacity is not the same as suitability
This is the distinction that matters most on this page. Being able to fund something says nothing about whether you should. Many people who can comfortably afford the contribution should still not proceed, because their horizon is short, because their circumstances are about to change, because they will not use the system once it exists, or simply because a different instrument suits their goals better.
Suitability depends on goals, temperament, tax position, family circumstances and plans. None of that can be worked out by a calculator, and nothing on this page attempts to. Chapter 8 of the book is devoted to helping a reader rule the strategy out, and reading it is a more useful next step than any number.
What people commonly address first
Written as general information, not as an evaluation of anyone. Financial advisers commonly suggest that certain things deserve attention before a decades-long accumulation commitment: an emergency reserve sufficient to absorb a shock; high-interest consumer debt, since eliminating a balance at nineteen per cent is difficult for any long-horizon strategy to beat; adequate term insurance where dependants would otherwise be exposed; and employer-matched retirement contributions that are being left unclaimed.
Whether any of that applies to you is a matter for you and your own advisers. This page has no view on it and collects nothing that would allow anyone to form one.
A private worksheet
This subtracts one number from another, in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere. It performs no assessment and reaches no conclusion about you.
Your own arithmetic
That is the figure you entered, subtracted. It is not an assessment, it is not a result, and it says nothing about whether this or any strategy is appropriate for you. What to do with it is entirely your own judgment, best formed with advisers you choose yourself.
Is this for you?: the honest filter
Nothing you entered left your browser.
This page makes no assessment of you. It is general information and a private worksheet.
The worksheet below subtracts one number you type from another, in your own browser. Nothing you type is sent, saved, stored, transmitted or seen by anyone. There is no form, no submission, no account, no tracking and no mechanism by which your figures could reach the author or any other person. Close the page and nothing remains.
It is not advice of any kind, financial, insurance, investment, tax or legal. It is not a needs analysis, not a suitability assessment, not an application, not an approval, not a recommendation and not an offer. No one is evaluating you, no determination is being made about you, and nothing is being sold to you on this page.
Nothing here creates a professional-client relationship. The figures are yours, are not verified, and the result is simply your own arithmetic returned to you. It indicates nothing whatsoever about whether this or any strategy is appropriate for your circumstances.
Participating whole life insurance is an insurance product, not an investment. Dividends are not guaranteed. Guarantees are contractual obligations of an insurer, not of any government. This strategy is not suitable for everyone. Before acting on anything, consult a licensed Financial Security Advisor of your own choosing, an accountant and a legal advisor.
The author accepts no responsibility for any decision made on the basis of anything on this page.