Let’s Get Focused

You are visiting our website to find better and safer returns. Good choice… you’ve found it. Now let’s get focused.

First, let’s eliminate some of your worries:

1. Stop worrying about which stocks and mutual funds to be invested in.
2. Stop worrying about shifting your investments in reaction to politics and changes/risks in the global economy.
3. Stop gathering tax data and forms, filling out tax forms every year in support of 1 and 2.
4. Stop making investment decisions that you don’t want to make, or paying people to make decisions for you who may cause you to lose money.

Instead, you can select highly rated Insurance Companies to manage a portion of your money.  Many of these Insurance Companies have survived and flourished for over a century… since before and during two World Wars and the Great Depression. Insurance Companies are experts in investing their pools of capital in safe long-term investments. Contract premiums provide them with additional capital for those pools, and they then offer contracts guaranteeing a return back to annuity or life policyholders. All Insurance Company investment activities are closely regulated and audited by each state where they offer contracts.  That’s the business model. You can use Intelligent Directions to help find you the annuity and insurance contracts that map to your needs and timeline. It’s really that simple.

Contracts with Insurance Companies really do provide a different safe asset class.  Think about 40% Stocks, 40% Bonds, 20% Annuities

Next, a quick overview of how to focus on the information that will be relative to you. Which annuity and/or insurance contracts (listed above) are a good fit for your needs? Here is a list of starting points for you to consider:

Age 25+ :

• Depending on your marginal tax rates, and any employer “401K Match Rate” that you receive,  it’s almost always smart to max out your IRA and 401K contributions first. Lean towards “Roth” if you’re able to do so.
• Consider purchasing (or transferring funds to) a Roth-IRA FIA. With currently low tax-rates, accumulating and positioning for Life-Time Tax-Free Income inside a Roth-IRA right now is as easy as it gets.
• Consider FIAs for long-term tax-deferred savings and accumulation. FIA’s have virtually no Contribution Limits (many have $1M contract limits), and no earned income requirements (you could earn $0 in a given year and potentially still purchase an annuity if you have the resources). Avoid RMDs later in retirement.
• Study and understand Intelligent Directions Point-to-Point ZeroFloor CAP Index Education Tool.

Young Families:

• Regularly Review your LTC and Life Insurance Coverages and Benefits. Depending on your budgets, you can blend the savings accumulation benefits of FIA’s in with Life Insurance needs using IULs, SPLs, Term Life and Whole Life.

Age 45+ :

• Time to REALLY Focus (if you haven’t already!) on Full-Retirement and Early Retirement. Continue to consider FIA’s and IUL, but also look at SPL contracts which provide an immediate enhanced Tax-Free Estate, and generally have less-rigorous health underwriting requirements.  In addition to FIAs and IULs, certain SPL contracts can also provide future income streams.
• Review business plans and financing, and if funding is required, consider potential loans against the equity in life and annuity contracts.

Age 50+ :

• Look at FIA’s not just for accumulation, but for enhanced full-life income streams.
• For better returns, look at MYGA’s over CD’s.
• Start looking seriously at LTC. Our favorite is the LTC Annuity….one premium and you can be covered. The younger and healthier you are, the lower the premium and easier to qualify for…and you can purchase using qualified IRA money.  With an LTCA if you never apply for long-term care benefits, and depending on your age when purchased, the underlying annuity structure could provide a remaining account balance, possibly some growth, and maybe some funds available for income. It all depends on age and health when the contract is purchased.

Age 55-85+ :

• Take a closer look at the projected longevity of your retirement income streams, and think about filling in gaps using FIA’s, IUL, SPLs.
• Again, study and understand Intelligent Direction’s Point-to-Point ZeroFloor CAP Index Education Tool.  At this age the “power” of ZeroFloor also becomes the safety of ZeroFloor.
• Examine and regularly review planning for wealth transfer, charity gifting, etc., using IUL, SPL (and Whole Life).
• Finalize your plans for your Long-Term Care coverage or establish your self-funding methods.  Consider LTC Policy, or a LTCA used to Self-fund.
• Look at a QLACs for your qualified retirement accounts where Required Minimum Distributions are a concern. Look at other strategies to help with excessive RMDs.
• Look at all of the above for your children and grandchildren…looking at their accounts going forward and consider annual gifting if appropriate.

The key difference between an Insurance Company contract, and any Brokerage or Mutual Fund Account contract, is that one guarantees a return while the other one guarantees to try to earn a return. Which sounds better?

Basic Strategies that Intelligent Directions can facilitate using Annuities and Insurance:

• Pure Long-Term Wealth Accumulation (Maximize Accumulation with Minimal Risk)
• Mitigate Personal, Family and Business Risks (Safe Wealth Accumulation, Health Issues, Premature Death, Taxes)
• Retirement Income (Longevity and Duration/Amount of Retirement Income, Taxes, and RMD Avoidance)
• Estate Planning (Maximize Wealth Transfer, Charitable Gifting, Taxes)
• Business Planning (Succession Planning, Business Financing, Retirement, Taxes)

Farmers have used insurance companies as their “bank” for decades. Highly-paid athletes (including Babe Ruth) and performers who had high earnings windows have known for over a century that Insurance Companies are a safer and more worry-free place to store and grow money.  Investigate highly rated insurance companies, and you’ll find that their capital requirements are regulated to be much higher than banks and that they have historically far fewer failures than banks.

The financial press has been complicit in letting people forget the facts about Annuities and Insurance.  Intelligent Directions wants to teach the past and bring it all back to the present.

The SECURE Act of 2019, promoting the use of annuities more in retirement planning, was just signed into law for a reason.

All Annuity contract types are described on the Insurance Based Annuities page (link below or on the main menu).

All Life and LTC contract types are described on the Life Insurance and LTC page (link below or on the main menu).

A limited few non-client specific Carrier Product Illustrations are posted as examples under the Contract News on this Home Page (below).

Better yet, give Intelligent Directions a call to answer any of your questions. We like questions and we’re easy to talk to.