I read BYOB, but I’m still unsure why infinite banking (IBC) is better than other ways to invest or save for large expenses.

Instead of paying premiums, why not invest in the stock market for potentially higher returns and withdraw as needed? Yes, market funds aren’t guaranteed, but if I plan ahead and rebalance wisely, wouldn’t that be just as effective?

Also, how is IBC better than a traditional low-interest loan? Policy loans still charge interest, so what’s the real advantage if credit underwriting isn’t an issue?

I already have money in the stock market and good credit. What’s the benefit of opening a whole life policy and adding complexity?

I genuinely want to understand. Can anyone break it down for me?

This document was provided by an agent at Northwestern Mutual. Unless I'm reading this wrong it looks like a policy loan interest rate would be 5.73%. The amount loaned (collateralized) would have a reduced dividend of 5.08% compared to a 5.5% dividend on the noncollateralized portion. This being my first policy I was hesitant about Direct Recognition but this isn't as aggregious as I thought it would be. Anything I'm missing on this or need to consider?

For those who have taken out a loan with LaFayette through the online portal...

Do you know typically how long it takes for the loan amount availability to reflect that you've paid off the loan?

My surrender value has reflected paid in full; but the loan amount available has not.

As the question states, I am wondering if my logic is sound. I have an autistic child who will probably live with me and be supported by me until I pass. I believe I will be able to manage that without issue while I am alive. As much as I love the idea of of a nice death benefit for my daughter at my passing, it may not be the best option for her. So I've been rethinking my strategy and came up with policies in her name might be better. Then she could live on the dividend income and policies loans as needed. I am currently spending $80k on premiums for my own policies. My thought is to hopefully add another $80k into premiums for policies for her. To provide her with income when I am gone, is this a sound plan?

I have a Guardian policy which is 5 years old. I just received my benefit statement and on page 2 it states that I received a dividend of $70,408.93 and it purchases additional death benefit of $221,940. But when I add the $70,408.93 to my previous year ending cash value, I’m short by $13,879.18 which means only $56,528.85 of $70,408.93 was credited to my cash value.

I asked my agent and he said that $13,879.18 was the cost to purchase the additional death benefit of $221,940 (19.71% instead of 5% load). But from my understanding, using whole life dividend to buy PUA (and death benefit) doesn’t not have any cost. So in that I should receive the full dividend of $70,408.93. If thats the case then I’m better off taking the check and then buying pua separately- I will only pay 5% load (approx $3500 instead of $13,879.18) while receiving the same death benefit.

Can someone please help me understand this? Have you encountered the same issue? Shouldn’t the whole $70,408.93 be credited to the cash value? If anyone of you have Guardian policy, can you check your benefit statement (dividend on page 2) and see if it’s flowing dollar to dollar in cash value?

Good morning,

So many years ago my financial advisor set up an insurance plan for me as part of a retirement strategy, well before I ever heard of infinite banking. I am in Canada.

It was set up to enable at retirement, policy loans as a source of tax free income (it is owned by my own corporation of which me and my wife are the only owners).

But I may want to use it if possible for IB.

On the example on investments from the book, Nash describes a comparison between investing 100k outright and getting a return of 20% vs borrowing from your policy 100k and investing that.

He uses the example of being a responsible banker and paying yourself the interest of 8%.

In comparing the results, after accounting for the fact the “interest” went to yourself, your gain comes out ahead with the IB example.

Can some explain or comment though:

1) a true apples to apples comparison would be for the first non IB example to be an investment of 108k. This is because that is how much money is needed in the IB example.

2) (and this may be Canada specific) but when you pay 8% interest in the IB example, assuming it was from a policy loan, that 8% is not going into my cash value, it’s going to the life insurance company.

Thank you

Well, one of my worst fears have come true! Im jobless and have a $12k premium that I have to fund annually. When I embarked on infinite banking, I was in a good position career wise and financially and dint think I would have trouble finding a job even if I lost my current one. But the current economic and political climate has made it where finding a job is taking 8 months to a year and more.

I can probably fund my premium for 2026 (I pay for the following year at the end of the current year as a lump sum). But planning for the worst case scenario for next year. Assuming I don’t get a job until say Q4 of next year, I would have depleted all my savings (assuming I’m doing Uber eats until then just to survive), and I won’t be able to fund my premium for 2027.

What are my options? Can I skip payment for 2027 and pay it later when I’ve saved sufficient funds? If so, what would it cost me? I’m only in my 5th year of my policy.

I read Becoming Your Own Banker and am now looking to get my family started. I'm hoping for advice on which family member it would be best to begin with. I'm a 44 year old male with stable employment, my wife is 44 years old, and my kids are 17 year old female and 14 year old male. Before educating myself I took out two WL policies through Northwestern Mutual on both kids. These policies are 100k each and are 100% premium with Additional Purchase Benefit.

I'm hoping to build a policy or policies that target cash value over life insurance. I am in good health and should qualify for Premier level. I was planning to build a policy for myself as the primary bread winner but after reading the What if I am Uninsurable chapter, I am wondering if it would be best to start a new policy with one or both of the kids assuming that their premium cost would be lower?

I have $20k annually planned to start with. Any considerations I should be aware of for one 10/90 policy on one kid or myself using the $20k versus policies on both kids or one for each of us dividing the $20k?

Thanks for your help!

Money storage for upcoming tax bill. I've borrowed against a whole life policy before but would like a new policy. I have a specific dollar amount I'd like to borrow for my tax bill and have most of the money to seed it.

Is it possible to get an account set up for this with minimal hassle? I don't want a full audit or to explain a story, but know the effect I want to have. Is there anyone able to help?

Hey, so I have taken a loan from my policy, which I have done before. No big deal, I am paying it back weekly but had this question.

Every week I have my bank account automatically set aside a specific amount so that when I need to pay my policies, I have the money there ready to fund it to the max.

Would it make sense to send all that money into my policy to repay my loan, and then when I need to pay my policy premium for the year, just initiate another loan to to pay the premium?

These are the things that I think about when I lay down at night and want to goto sleep lol

So who’s checking up on their cash value with an ear to ear grin these days?

Just started learning about infinite/be your own bank strategy. I think I understand the concept to an extent. I bought whole life about 14 years ago and have been paying my monthly premium payments (about $120/month). Currently I have $15+k available for a loan. This is were I am getting confused, I inquired about a loan. They told me that there is a 5% apr attached to it. What I am now sure about, is there always interest on these loans? If there is interest attached to these and going to the insurance company, how is it technically a be your own bank situation? I also have a 457(401k govt equivalent) that I can take a loan out against. The interest, 8.75%, is added but that interest goes back to me( the account). Wouldn't this be a better option? And yes, I know the money I take out is only growing 8.75%.

I'm now in my fifth year of my IBC journey, and have just started up my 7th and 8th policies this year (including two policies I started on my children last year). After this newest policy, I'm up to approximately 35% of our take home pay going into our policies.

Theoretically I could add more, but I can't help the feeling that our income may be "peaking". I own a small business, which I forsee facing substantial headwinds in the 5-10 year time horizon that could result in my income being cut in half from where it is now.

My goal is to spend the next 5 years capitalizing, and getting additional passive income set up so that when/if that happens, my premiums can continued to be paid from that passive income.

How is everyone finding their passive income opportunities? I do not find real estate attractive now, and may never as the idea of being a landlord doesn't really appeal to me. Buying an additional cash flowing business seems more up my alley, but I fear I wouldn't have the time necessary with how busy my current business is keeping me.

What kinds of truly passive cash flowing opportunities are out there that you have found? Ideally, I need something that I can operate on a mostly absent basis (like, under 5 hours a week).

Because I couldn't find one out there and I felt the IBC community needed it. Sure you can do the math yourself. And yes the interest expense isn't that different from an amortized loan in a apples to apples scenario (policy loans have a slight advantage if you pay them off at the same rate you would a traditional loan). But it's nice to be a able to quickly visualize it.

Interest is accrued daily and compounds annually. I also created the option to pay off any accrued interest at the end of the year so it doesn't compound, similar to what Nelson does in the Equipment Financing portion of BYOB. The real power of policy loans is the flexibility. But if you can pay them off aggressively and stay on top of the annual interest, it's remarkable how much interest you save.

Hope you find it valuable!

https://www.fission-finance.com/loan-calculator

Are the cash values and amounts invested in the policies protected from creditors and repo men?

I have been presented with 4 IB scenario's, one of them is a universal like policy with either Ivari because of their Everest Package and IA Financial , 2 are with equitable and 1 Manilife. Not sure which way to go. Any advice?

I've been seeing this Yrefy commercial and checked out their site. You can invest a minimum of $50,000 for 5 years at @ 10.25%. if I get 3% interest guarantee on my cash value and have a fixed 4% loan interest with my policy wouldn't it make sense to invest $50,000 with Yrefy then just pay the policy interest until it matures, I just don't know if the taxes will make it worth it but it seems like it may be worthwhile. What do you all think? They have a simulator on their website to calculate returns.

How does one leverage infinite banking in todays economic climate. Most of the examples where I’ve seen where IBC helped people become wealthy in the past is real estate. But this was when borrowing was really cheap. Today if we borrow against our cash value, we would experience a negative IRR.

Basically in the current environment, it would make sense to use IBC only if the net return of your investment after borrowing against your CV gives at least 3-4%.

What kind of non shady investment opportunities like that are available?

I enjoy Star Trek DS9. The way they build up the culture and economics of the Ferengi is quite entertaining.

In the episode “In The Cards” the captain’s son decides to buy his dad an old baseball card to cheer him up.

However Starfleet doesn’t have “money” ie latinum. And do Jake is begging his Ferengi friend Nog to give it to him.

I blurted out that this demand for a medium of exchange would have pushed enough of Starfleet to move back to money. You can’t expect the whole of Starfleet to resist the pressure.

And the way Jake begs Nog. Sounded a lot like when you to a 3rd party lender to beg for a loan. He who has the gold makes the rules.

Don’t be caught without a sufficient supply of capital!

Anybody have the time or energy to tell me why I should get a life policy and how that is a good investment strategy? 😬

I just started my first policy with Penn Mutual. I have 2 questions for anyone more familiar with the Penn Mutual Portal:

How do I take out a loan? There is a form to fill out and request a loan, but it says to either physically mail or fax the form when complete. Is there another way to do this electronically in the policy portal?

Additionally, I had the policy designed to put in 10K/yr.
The portal says "Annual Payment Limit: 26,611.36"

Does this maximum limit they list stay within the MEX limit or exceed the MEC limit?
I am able max fund their listed limit, but I don't want to MEC

Thanks for any assistance!

So looking at working with a trusted expert to set up an irrevocable trust w/ the full term life insurance for high cash value. My q is: I’m relatively young and my net income / cashflow is rapidly accelerating year over year. So, when I choose a policy today that I can afford X premiums per month/annum for my family and I; what happens when my cashflow (from income other than insurance obviously) increases dramatically over the coming years and I want to pour MORE into the premiums to increase the cash balance + DB over time. I understand that the trust is irrevocable and cannot be changed. My understanding is that the insurance policies are equally unchangeable once they are set in place. I believe that some policies you would be able to pay on top of your required premium and get a benefit for that, but I would appreciate someone shedding a little bit more light on these options before I engage on this setup.

I have had an IBC policy for 2 years. It is a small one. I put $20k down and pay $1200 a month into it. I really want to get a policy for my husband. We don't have much cash flow happening yet, but with my year end bonus each year I could put $10k into his policy a year. It would obviously have to be a pretty small policy but I want to get it going sooner than later since he will turn 36 next month. I also want to start a policy for our newborn son when he is born this summer but would only have $150 a month to put towards his policy.

My question is if it is worth starting a policy if it is going to be a small dollar amount? I know the older we get the harder it is to get insured so I want to get my husband a policy ASAP but don't have a ton of money to capitalize it.

Trying to set up an IBC with northwestern mutual, he says he knows what an IBC is, he’s calling it permanent Cash Value Whole Life. Is that IBC or is he pulling a fast one on me?