Here are some of Windsor's best conversation starters, marketing strategies and sales ideas that you can use right now and well into 2021!
As advisors to our clients, we can start a conversation with 60-page product illustrations or we can focus on something simpler and closer to home: Caring for our families by leveraging low interest rates, securing fully guaranteed life insurance benefits, supplementing retirement income, protecting valuable assets, saving money on taxes, and finding easier ways for clients to get the insurance they want and need. Even in these difficult times, we can do our best to stay calm and communicate clearly. Here are some ideas from Windsor on how we can begin a conversation with what's important today.
The Clock is Ticking on Estate and Gift Tax Limits
Currently the all-time high estate and gift tax exemption limits are scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025 — and with a new election cycle just completed, now is the time to put flexible plans in place. The IRS has clarified that there will be no "claw back" of gifts made prior to the sunset.
Clients have an abundance of estate planning tools that are available to minimize wealth transfer taxes, but they all begin with taking advantage of the seven year window that can be closed by new legislation at any time with little to no warning. Some key questions you might ask that can guide your client into exploring those options include:
"Assuming you made tax-exempt gifts to an irrevocable trust, how important is it that you or your spouse retain access to some of the income generated by that trust?" You can accomplish that with a spousal lifetime access trust (SLAT).
"Assuming you made gift-tax-exempt transfers to an irrevocable trust, and you could personally pay the trust's income taxes without having it counted as an additional gift, would that be attractive?" The solution is an irrevocable trust that is defective for income tax purposes (IDIT).
"Assuming you could supplement the money gifted to the trust with loans at below market rates with the loan interest not taxable to you, would that be attractive?" That's called a gift and loan to an IDIT.
And finally, how important is it that some of the assets in the trust have guaranteed future returns at competitive interest rates?
Doing nothing can ultimately cost clients 40¢ on every $1 that is not transferred and removed from the taxable estate.
Doing nothing keeps the next 20, 30, 40 years of appreciation on the assets retained in the estate, costing heirs even more.
So let the conversation with your client begin.
- See the Windsor Blog: Today There's a $22 Million Lifetime Gift Tax Exclusion – Your Clients Can Use It or Lose It
- See the Lincoln Financial Discussion by Dean Chatlain, J.D. – Estate Planning During Times of Uncertainty
Historically Low Interest Rates
With Applicable Federal Rates so low for so long (mid-term below 50 basis points and long term under 1.4 percent), now is the time to implement planning techniques that take advantage of these extremely low rates.
Your wealthy clients still have an opportunity to complete their wealth transfer planning and purchase the right amounts of life insurance. Using Intra-Family Loans, they can make loans of cash or assets to their heirs, or to a family trust for the heirs' benefit. Your clients have tremendous flexibility because the loan can be repaid, refinanced or forgiven later, depending on circumstances and tax law at the time. An intra-family loan approach offers families the luxury of time to decide when and if to make permanent gifts, without having to delay planning.
Where does life insurance fit in? With historically low rates, there can be more available from the trust's rate of return to fund the life insurance. See our Windsor Sales Idea for an example of how the numbers work. It's all a matter of planning at the right time – and the right time is now.
- See the Windsor Sales Idea : An Extraordinary Opportunity for Your Clients:Intra-Family Loans
- See the Global Atlantic Discussion: Low Rates and Intra-Family Loans
Life Insurance Retirement Plan
For life insurance industry veterans, using cash value life insurance to supplement retirement savings is as old as the rate book. Overfunding premiums and enjoying the advantages of both insurance protection and tax-free accumulation (without the burden of qualified plan rules) is what makes our products so unique. And with the potential for tax-free income down the road, we really have an unmatched solution for clients wanting to enhance their retirement in a very tax-efficient way. For the right high net worth client, a LIRP provides a compelling solution for those wanting to supplement their retirement and/or reposition taxable assets into tax-advantaged investments designed to provide both insurance and income.
The LIRP opportunity is now better than ever - but why?
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)
Because of the TCJA, many of your clients are enjoying the impact of lower taxes and increased disposable income. For those looking to park this "found money," a LIRP can provide an ideal planning strategy. This approach is even more powerful for clients who are concerned that tax rates may soon return to pre-TCJA levels or higher, making a LIRP an even more attractive hedge against future taxes. Regardless, it's a rare client who enjoys paying taxes whether the rate is low, high, fair or otherwise. And reducing the tax burden after retirement is a goal that all of your clients can relate to.
Products
The ideal LIRP product requires a combination of flexibility, along with the ability to participate in market gains and to mitigate market downturns. Since its introduction, Indexed Universal Life (IUL) has proven to be the industry's cash value workhorse. With a compelling consumer story, IUL sales have consistently stimulated industry-wide competition resulting in rapid product innovation. Today, every major carrier has developed products that are more efficient, effective and customizable than ever before, offering a host of features, riders, indexing strategies and benefits to enhance the client's retirement income goals -- while offering protection if they die or get sick along the way.
Putting it all together, today's financial environment is perfect for the products you know and sell. At Windsor, we know the products, the features, the companies and the underwriting that will fit your clients' needs and provide solutions and security for their future. The time is now.
- See the Windsor blog: A Great Idea That's Only Getting Better – Life Insurance Retirement Plan
A Product That You (and Your Clients) Have Been Waiting For!
NFP Windsor and Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company now offer NFP Windsor advisors access to Equitable's "COIL Institutional Series" life insurance contract. Access to this unique product and platform designed for the professional and business market is being made available to a limited number of Equitable's distribution partners and Windsor is excited to be one of the first.
COIL Institutional Series (COIL IS) is the only institutionally priced variable universal life (VUL) product that can be individually owned and individually funded. The COIL IS platform includes full service support including post-issue policy management and a policy owner website.
COIL IS is for the professional client who wants day one liquidity, contingent capital available for any choice of end uses, tax efficiency, and no prepayment penalty when money is accessed for any purpose. High income earners and high net worth clients looking to build an effective zero tax bucket for supplemental retirement income or efficient contingency capital will be interested in learning more from you about COIL IS.
- See the Windsor Sales Idea: A Product That You (And Your Clients) Have Been Waiting For!
Policy Review with CLEAR
Trust is at the heart of every life insurance purchase. Your clients trust in your integrity, knowledge and care in recommending the most suitable products, strategies and carriers for their individual needs. And both you and your clients trust that the carriers you choose will always honor the promise of the contracts they issue. So clients today expect several key qualities in your practice: expertise, transparency, disclosure, objectivity, leverage and an attentive, proactive service relationship. Windsor's CLEAR (Confidential Life Insurance Evaluation & Recommendation) is designed to ensure that you stand out from your competitors and deliver the highest level of professional services to your clients.
How will CLEAR enhance your practice?You will -
- secure and expand relationships with existing clients
- develop multigenerational client relationships
- cultivate valuable referrals from professional advisors
CLEAR helps you determine what kind of corrective action should be taken in the event that current policy performance or features no longer suit the client's plans.
- Should the client keep the existing coverage?
- Should you recommend a policy course correction?
- Should the client exit life insurance ownership entirely?
- Should the client replace the policy with another that's better suited to current needs?
So stay calm and communicate. This is a great time to review your in force book and reach out to clients. Using data aggregation tools like NIC (Network Insured Connect) you can quickly and easily segment your book of business and export the data for use in email communications. During your conversation, gather updated information on clients' life insurance and planning needs and reinforce the positive planning that you helped them implement. Start the conversation now!
See the Windsor Blog: Turnkey Digital Communications and Marketing Tools
Visit the Windsor CLEAR microsite: CLEAR Overview