Life insurance, Financial planning Advanced Planning: Understanding Life Insurance

The purpose of this guide is to summarize some key aspects of life insurance and how to incorporate it into your overall plan. In this guide, we start with a high-level discussion of the various uses of life insurance, from income replacement to helping business owners prepare for future events. We then explore how each type of life insurance works and their different features.

We go into more depth in our discussion of planning with life insurance. We cover a range of topics from estate planning and wealth transfer strategies that encompass both the estate and gift tax issues, as well as income tax considerations and the appropriate structures to hold life insurance. We then focus on the unique aspects of life insurance as it relates to business owners and the fulfillment of philanthropic goals. Finally, we discuss the life cycle of the policy and the importance of periodic reviews.

The goal of this guide is to help you better understand this well-known but misunderstood planning tool. We hope you find this guide useful in your planning.

View the guide on our public website or download the full report.

Ann Bjerke

Head of Advanced Planning

The Advanced Planning Group consists of former practicing estate planning and tax attorneys with extensive private practice experience and diverse areas of specialization, including estate planning strategies, income and transfer tax planning, family office structuring, business succession planning, charitable planning and family governance.

The Advanced Planning Group provides comprehensive planning and sophisticated advice and education to ultra high net worth (UHNW) clients of the firm. The Advanced Planning Group also serves as a think tank for the firm, providing thought leadership and creating a robust intellectual capital library on estate planning, tax and related topics of interest to UHNW families.