Premium Financing
Alternative Funding to Help Meet Your Life Insurance Needs
64168 MK3373(0209) TC45365(0209)
Simply put, premium financing is a strategy for paying for life insurance. It allows high net-worth individuals who need a large amount of life insurance to use an alternative method for paying premiums – rather than using your current cash flow or liquidating assets to pay premiums, you obtain the funds needed by borrowing from a third party lender.
If you have the means to purchase the insurance, why would you want to finance the premiums?
• Your current cash flow may already be committed to other expenses.
• Financing reduces your liquidity needs, which is especially helpful if your assets are not readily convertible to cash.
• You may not want to move assets that are working for you in the market to another use, especially if the return on assets in your current portfolio exceeds the cost of borrowing.
• Financing can provide gift-tax leverage, as loans made to your Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) to pay premiums are not subject to gift tax. Capitalizing (or accruing) interest as part of the loan will increase the gifting leverage – in that case, there is no need to gift premium or loan interest.
What is Premium Financing?
Potential Benefits of Financing
Your attorney drafts an Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) and the ILIT purchases a policy on your life. Because you don’t own the policy, the proceeds will not be included in your estate for estate tax purposes. A third party lender loans funds to the trust each year to pay the annual premiums on the policy. You may choose to finance a portion of the premium, all of the premium, or the premiums plus accrued interest and other costs.
Ideally, the loan will be fully repaid during your lifetime, at which time, your ILIT will own the policy outright. If not, any unpaid loan or loan interest is paid back to the lender from the policy proceeds at your death. Any remaining death benefit is paid to your ILIT for the benefit of your beneficiaries.
How it Works
Rather than using your cash flow or liquidating
assets, to pay premiums you obtain the funds
needed by borrowing from a third party lender.
Premium finance loans are 100% collateralized at all times. The policy’s cash surrender value serves as the primary source of collateral. However, additional collateral will most likely need to be pledged – especially in the early years of the contract, when the amount of the loan and accumulated interest exceed the cash surrender value.
Acceptable forms of additional collateral include:
• Marketable securities
• Cash surrender value of other life insurance policies
• Letter of credit (from a bank with AA- or better rating)
Assets that cannot be easily converted to cash, such as real estate, artwork or collectibles, may not be viewed as acceptable forms of collateral. However, these assets may be considered by the bank when obtaining a letter of credit.
A lifetime exit strategy from the loan is preferred and should generally happen within 10-15 years from the loan inception.
Depending on your personal financial situation, the loan may be repaid in a variety of ways:
• From the policy’s cash value (in the form of a policy loan1);
• From outside funds (such as an inheritance or proceeds from the sale of a business or other asset) gifted to the trust to repay the loan; or
• From a combination of policy loans and outside assets.
Any outstanding loan principal and/or interest is paid from the policy proceeds at the time of death.
Collateral
Exit Strategies
Your agent will refer you to a financing company that will facilitate the loan and be responsible for the following details:
• Determine the loan rate. This will vary depending on the size and length of the anticipated loan, but usually is 1.5% - 2% over the current 1-year London Interbank Offering Rate (LIBOR) rate.
• Case design. The financing company will work with your life insurance agent to design a loan using conservative assumptions with a focus on meeting your objectives and controlling risk.
• Evaluation of collateral needs. In addition to original collateral requirements at the loan’s inception, the financing company will assess any increases or decreases in collateral needs in future years of the loan. • Manage loan renewals. You will be alerted when the end of the term of
your loan is approaching and if action needs to be taken for renewal. • Monitor loan exit strategies. Possible exit strategies will be examined on
a year by year basis until the loan is retired.
1 Policy loans and withdrawals reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit and may result in a taxable event.
Working with the
Financing Company
A lifetime exit strategy from the loan is preferred
and should generally happen within 10-15 years
from the loan inception.
As there are various risks associated with premium financing, careful consideration should be made to determine if this concept is suitable for you. Interest Rate Risk – The interest rate charged on the premium finance loan is tied to the one year London Interbank Offering Rate (LIBOR). Increases in this rate can increase your loan rate.
Crediting Rate Risk – The amounts credited to the life insurance policy cash value each year may be less than projected.
Collateral Call Risk – In the event of a loan default, any supplemental collateral you pledge to secure the loan (in addition to the policy’s cash value) may be called and possibly lost.
Potential consequences should be discussed and determined to be within your risk tolerance before proceeding with any financing strategy.
Risks
• Interest on a loan to acquire a life insurance policy is generally considered personal interest and is not deductible for income tax purposes.
• Since loans to a trust for premium payments are not taxable gifts, gift taxes can be minimized.
• Providing a personal guarantee or collateral on a loan doesn’t cause incidents of ownership in the policy. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that the IRS would consider a personal guarantee on the loan a completed gift until/unless a payment is made.
• Life insurance proceeds are included in the insured’s estate only if the insured owns the policy or has any incidents of ownership. Since the financed policy is owned by an ILIT, the proceeds will not be included in your estate.
Income, Gift and Estate
Tax Considerations
Premium financing transactions can be
complex. Before entering into a financing
agreement, make sure you involve your
professional advisors to determine if this strategy,
and associated risks, are appropriate for you.
National Life Insurance Company Home Office: One National Life Drive, Montpelier, VT 05604 • (888)297-3990 • www.nationallife.com. Life Insurance Company of the Southwest (LSW) Home Office: 1300 West Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, TX 75247 (800)579-2878 • www.lifeofsouthwest.com.
National Life Group® is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company and its affiliates. Each company of National Life Group is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. LSW is not authorized to sell insurance in New York and does not do any insurance business in New York. NLIC and LSW are bound only by the terms of the life insurance contacts they issue.
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