Auditing & Repositioning Life Insurance

We can also help you discover ways to make your coverage more efficient. So how do you know if you need an audit and potential repositioning of your life policy or policies? Does any of this apply to you:

• Do you have an existing permanent/cash value life insurance policy that hasn’t been reviewed in years?
• Were you financially impacted by the recent pandemic and are wondering how you can ease premium fatigue?
• Are you unsure if you should even keep your old life insurance policy?
• Have other needs, such as how to address future health concerns, since surfaced?

Your Life Changes Through the Years

As life’s priorities change, a previously-well funded life insurance policy whose original intent may have been to provide catastrophic coverage to a young family or provide for a means to build tax-advantaged cash value for liquidity or to supplement future retirement, may no longer apply. By having a comprehensive evaluation and audit of your current life insurance, you can help ensure that your current insurance coverage will adequately meet your family’s needs. This may require more or less coverage than you originally set up and will help address changes to your family’s situation, financial status or even your ability to continue to fund your policy.

Premium Fatigue

For those who have been funding permanent policies like whole life or universal life, some may have experienced premium fatigue as their priorities have changed or for reasons related to an uncontrolled event, like the financial strains resulting from the impact of COVID-19. Usually in situations like this, there are a few options available:

• Stop paying premiums
• Surrender the policy
• Keep the policy as-is
• Reposition or exchange the policy to fund other future needs, such as around long-term care

Having a life insurance audit performed allows our team to determine your best course of action because every decision comes with its own set of implications, whether that’s a policy lapse and potentially losing coverage that would have otherwise fulfilled a family’s long term financial goals, or the potential negative tax impact of surrendering a policy outright if there are gains present. There are many factors to consider. On the positive side, you could potentially reduce some premium fatigue and possibly repurpose your coverage for something you may need going forward.

So, before you decide to do anything with your policy, contact us to see if we can help. The process is simple. What we delight in the most—and we are proud about this process—is the opportunity to educate you about what you have and whether or not there might be something better for you. Here’s the best part:

Even Trustees Should Move Forward with An Audit

Even for trustees representing clients, 83% of fiduciaries do not have a formal review process in place to make sure existing policies are suitable and performing properly. A life insurance audit is a way to ensure they’re doing their part as fiduciaries. If you are—or you work with—CPAs or estate planning attorneys, this is one way to demonstrate your diligence as a fiduciary to make sure policies inside of trusts are performing properly.

Through our partnership with Ash Brokerage, our team obtains what’s called an In-force Authorization Form, which allows us to request all pertinent information about your existing policy from your current provider without you having to be involved, keeping the process as simple for you. With your input during our initial conversation, the outcome for our detailed analysis then focuses on determining ways to achieve the objectives that are important to you.