An Analysis of Infinite Banking / Bank on Yourself

~2800 words, ~15 min reading time

In my previous post, I explained a bit about how whole life insurance works – in particular trying to explain the idea of “cash value” and where it actually comes from. (Something that both the industry and critics get wrong, with just one exception that I’ve found.) This explanation was sought out and brought on by interest in the Infinite Banking Concept (IBC) or Bank on Yourself (BOY).

The basic idea: when structured carefully, a whole life insurance policy can be used as a savings instrument that can replace your need to take loans from banks. It’s really that simple. Now, let’s get into the “how” and “should I”?

How Does It Work?

As I previously explained, whole life insurance policies build up a cash value – which is basically a buyout offer from the insurance company to get you to cancel your policy so they can avoid paying the large death benefit. In order to maximize that buyout offer, you need to carefully structure your life insurance policy so that it’s worthwhile to buy you out quickly. How you do that: structure things so that you pay the premiums early in the policy.

At the extreme end, you would buy a “paid up” policy where you only pay once. And, this policy DOES build up cash value fastest. If you wanted to invest, say, $1000 per year, buying a paid up policy each year would build up cash value MUCH faster than getting a basic whole life insurance policy with a $1000/yr annual premium. But, there’s a catch: taxes.

For whatever reason, the government has decided that earnings in life insurance policies shouldn’t be taxed as long as you don’t access them until late in life (or after death…). This is a handy benefit. HOWEVER, the government has also decided that paid-up insurance isn’t REALLY insurance. It’s just an investment – called a “modified endowment contract” or MEC.