“He who gives to the poor will lack nothing,
but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.” (Prov. 28:27)
We looked at the typical retirement plan yesterday. What if you took a different path? What if you had put in place a guaranteed death benefit that would last as long as you do? And instead of living off the scraps, you allowed yourself to spend the money that you’ve spent a lifetime earning?
Let’s look at this scenario.
You still have the same $1,000,000 earning 8% per year, but instead of simply living off this $80,000, you decide to live off of $100,000/year. This means you have extra money to give to the causes the Lord puts on your heart.
You have more freedom to live as He’s calling you to live.
Would you enjoy this life more? Do you think you could fulfill your life’s purpose with more ease? What if you died at 80? You’ve been able to spend far more money during your lifetime on yourself and others and you have more to give away because you have the insurance and whatever is leftover of your original $1M. Of course this is better, right?
The question becomes, what happens when you get to age 85 and you’ve spent every penny of your original $1M? Are you broke?
Remember, in this example, we’re not considering the cash value of your life insurance, but are focusing only on its guaranteed death benefit. It’s there when you die, but you’re still alive. Is it any good to you? The death benefit in a normal whole life policy would have grown substantially over the years, and the number would be different in each case, but let’s say you now have a $2M death benefit.
What could you do with that?
There are actually many ways that this could help you that are more practical than this one, but let’s use the simplest for this illustration. If you walked into your bank, and spoke to the CEO and offered to sell them your life insurance policy, do you think he’d buy it? Absolutely. Financial institutions would line up to bid on your policy. The older you are, the more they’re willing to pay. We’ve heard of young people leveraging their death benefit, in order to collateralize financial transactions, but what we’re talking about here is a benefit to you in your old age. The bank doesn’t know when you’re going to die, so they wouldn’t give you the full $2M, but if they gave you 70%, would you be happy? Don’t you now have more money ($1.4M>$1M) than you did the other way, even though you’ve spent a huge sum over the last 25 years?
This is just one example of the many ways that your death benefit can be a living value to you in your old age. It gives you permission to spend the money that you otherwise were scared to spend. We talk a lot about hoarding throughout this course in part because the scriptures teach us that it is the wrong way to go about life.
And yet, isn’t this what every American is taught to do?
While you might never sell your death benefit, this illustration shows just one of the many ways that having a death benefit gives you more options in your financial future. More freedom to follow the Spirit as He leads you with your money, rather than feeling trapped with a shrinking pot of hoarded wealth.
The beautiful thing about this insurance compared to all the others is that you can have this coverage without any cost to you by simply making it fit more efficiently within your overall plan. In this section, we are speaking only about the death benefit of Life Insurance, not the cash value.
We will discuss that when we get into the Trunk of your Fruitful Tree soon.
This post is _Part 13_ in the series The Rock. To continue with this series, click on Pt 14. To use this as a growth tool, you might start by reading Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 3, Pt 4, Pt 5, Pt 6, Pt 7, Pt 8, Pt 9, Pt 10, Pt 11 and Pt 12.
Photo credit: hyg-27