This Little-Known Retirement Savings Strategy Beats The Pants Off
Your 401(k) or IRA… Both For Tax Savings AND Eliminating Market Risk.

By Rich Harshaw

Every single one of the 10,000+ companies I’ve ever helped with their marketing in the last 20+ years thinks that their company is pretty much the GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD.

I’m serious—all of them. From manufacturers to consultants to health care professionals… and any kind of company you can think of. They all think they’re fantastic. And remodelers are certainly no exception.

Truth be told, while most of the companies I have dealt with are really good at what they do, they’re not all that spectacularly different than some of their higher-caliber competitors. Hear me loud and clear: I’ve worked with a ton of really great companies. But even those great companies usually have at least a few competitors who are in their same ballpark.

But every once in awhile I find that true diamond in the rough—a company that offers products or services that are orders of magnitude better than anything else on the planet. The true “Best Kept Secret.”

In 2007, one of those companies found me.

At first I was disinclined to take the meeting. The guy was selling insurance. BOOOOOORING!

But he insisted on seeing me… to the point that he got on a plane and flew from his office in Sacramento to meet me personally in Texas.

The first thing he insisted when we sat down was that “this was about much more than insurance.” I was hoping he was telling the truth, because honestly, I really don’t like marketing insurance (Except Al Boenker).

Seven hours and twenty-plus pages of notes later, I was stunned.

If what this dude from Sacramento was telling me was true, the entire RETIREMENT SAVINGS INDUSTRY—ALL OF IT—ALL OF IT—ALL OF IT—WAS RIPPING PEOPLE OFF.

The con game, it seems, starts with the US Government encouraging people to “save” their money in IRAs and 401(k)s (known as “qualified plans”) so that they (Uncle Sam) will have a gargantuan tax windfall when people retire and start to dip into those savings. Think about it: you retire at age seventy and take a $100,000 withdrawal from your IRA… and Uncle Sam automatically gets (at least) A THIRD OF THE MONEY RIGHT OFF THE BAT!!!

Not to mention when people die and their heirs are crushed with the so-called “death tax.” The IRS loves your retirement savings. It’s how they plan on paying for all the debt they continue to pile up.

Right behind Washington in this scam are the investment companies that host these qualified plans because, well, they make boatloads of cash when people deposit their life savings with them. I’m talking about Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, and 1,000 other similar companies. Hosting people’s’ retirement savings accounts doesn’t sound like an evil plot, you might say. But what if there were a vastly superior way… a way that is 1,000X more favorable to regular investors (YOU AND ME!), and they ignore that way and pretend like it didn’t even exist. Then, in my mind, they are complicit in the government’s scam to hijack your savings.

They’re driving the getaway car.

Look, I’m not a conspiracy theory nut job. And while I think we can all agree the government is less than efficient, I’m not one of those anti-government wingnuts either.

I just discovered that there is a way to save for retirement that is infinitely better than the status quo. And that’s why I’m writing this blog posting: to alert you, dear reader, so you can investigate it yourself and decide if there might be a better way to plan for your retirement.

I work with remodelers all over the country, and I know what a struggle it is to run a successful company. You’ve got to master sales, finance, operations, production—and contractor marketing. The last thing you need is the next big stock market crash (history says it’s only a matter of time) to instantly wipe out half of everything you’ve worked so hard for… or for the government to confiscate 20% to 50% of the money that you need to retire on—right when you need the money the most.

So let me introduce you to the Best Retirement Vehicle You’ve Never Heard Of.

Here’s the short version:

• Regular savings accounts (stock investing accounts) are taxed on growth, and are subject to market losses during downturns.
• Qualified plans accumulate tax free, but are taxed at withdrawal and at inheritance. They are also subject to market downturns.
• An Indexed Universal Life Policy (IUL) is a de facto retirement savings program that is approved by the IRS (i.e., it’s legal!), and has been around and proven itself for years.
• While the policy does offer a life insurance death benefit, its main objective is to allow you to save money for retirement in a tax-advantaged, volatility-protected way.
• Money that is invested in an IUL must be done so on an after-tax basis—in other words, the contributions are not deductible (in that sense, it’s like a Roth IRA).
• The money accumulates tax free like a 401(k) or IRA… this allows your money to compound FASTER
• When you retire, instead of withdrawing money from the account, the policy issues you loans against its value that are received 100% tax free. This is completely legal and everything is documented and structured within the policy.
• When you die, the policy itself pays the loan interest (to yourself!) along with the principal amounts borrowed.
• Since money in your account when you die is an insurance policy, it is considered a death benefit, and is passed to your heirs tax free.
• The policy is indexed to the S&P 500 which has averaged about 8% annual returns… BUT….
• It has a 0% floor, which means that if the S&P 500 loses money, your loss is limited to 0%. In other words, you won’t lose money.
• The flip side of that is that the policy caps your annual returns at 10% to 13% (depending on the issuing company); that seems like a major disadvantage (especially if the market goes up by 15% or 20% in a year), but realize, it is the 20% and 30% annual LOSSES that absolutely KILL your savings.
• The final result is a savings plan that grows steadily over time, won’t lose principle ever, and pays you all your money upon retirement without taxes.
• The investment community won’t tell you about IUL because they are not licensed to sell insurance products (a small percentage are, but most aren’t); if you ask an investment professional about this, they’ll tell you it’s garbage because they can’t make any money on it. Their self interest works against you.
• The reason you have never heard of this is that these programs are administered by giant, 100-year old insurance companies that are the definition of stodginess. They suck at marketing, so they have no idea how to present the IUL to the public in a way that makes sense. That’s a fact.
• The good news is that because these big, old insurance companies are so, well… big and old… they have a tremendous stronghold on the government entities that regulate investments. The insurance lobby in congress is one of the most powerful in the world because they have the most money. The chance of this program going away is practically zero.
• Similarly, the safety of any investment is only as strong as the company that is holding your money. Because IULs are issued by behemoth life insurance companies, your money, generally speaking, is extraordinarily secure. Like anything else, do your homework. But most of these insurance companies are the definition of rock solid.

I liked the program so much that I not only bought myself an IUL policy, I also developed marketing programs for the industry that have worked very, very well.

I’ve actually developed a video that explains it in detail—and in my opinion, is a great piece of marketing.

You can watch it here.

(This link will take you to a site we developed years ago to sell our IUL lead generating program to insurance agents.)

I don’t have a pony in this race. I’m simply giving you this information as a public service announcement; it’s something that has worked well for me. As with any investment advice, you should seek counsel of a trusted advisor of you choosing, and I assume no responsibility for your investment choices. I just want to point out something that’s interesting and possibly useful for you.

If you want more information after watching the video, I’d be happy to have my personal insurance agent—the guy I bought my policy from—contact you to explain more. His name is Steve Johnson (not the same as the guy from Sacramento), and in my opinion, he represents insurance companies that have the best IUL policies right now.

You work too hard for your money to not at least check this out.

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