Services

Insurance Planning & Exit Strategies Designed for Lasting Peace of Mind

Insurance Planning

Our comprehensive insurance and financial planning services help individuals, families, and business owners safeguard their assets, maximize retirement income, and ensure long-term financial stability.

Todd Shelbaugh

Founder, Insurance Insights

You buy insurance because you love someone or you owe someone

Insight-driven strategic planning with a holistic approach to your unique circumstances.

Planning for Retirement

Long-Term Care Insurance

Disability Income Insurance

Life Insurance for Business Owners

Life Insurance
Exit Strategies

Planning for Retirement

Life Insurance Retirement Plan (LIRP)

When used for retirement planning, life insurance is often referred to as a LIRP (Life Insurance Retirement Plan). While its primary purpose is a death benefit, its “cash value” component can act as a powerful, tax-advantaged supplemental income stream.

Life Insurance In Retirement Strategy:

Tax-Free Income Stream

The most popular use is as a “tax-free bucket.” Because of how the IRS treats life insurance, you can access your money in retirement with little to no tax hit:

Withdrawals up to Basis: You can withdraw cash up to the total amount of premiums you’ve paid (your “basis”) tax-free.

Policy Loans: Once you’ve withdrawn your basis, you can borrow against the remaining cash value. These loans are generally not considered taxable income, even if the money comes from investment gains.

Why it helps: If tax rates rise in the future, having a source of income that doesn’t count toward your taxable bracket can save you thousands.
"Volatility Buffer" (Market Protection)

Stock market downturns are dangerous in early retirement because selling stocks while they are “down” can deplete your portfolio quickly.

The Strategy: In years when the stock market is down, you leave your 401(k) or IRA alone to recover. Instead, you draw your retirement income from your life insurance cash value, which is usually protected from market losses (depending on the policy type).

The Result: Your stock portfolio has time to bounce back, extending the overall life of your savings.
No Contribution or Income Limits

Standard retirement accounts like IRAs and 401(k)s have strict annual contribution limits (e.g., $7,000 for IRAs in 2024/2025). High earners may also be “phased out” of Roth IRAs.

The Life Insurance Advantage: There are no IRS “income caps” for buying a policy, and you can often put much larger sums of money into a life insurance policy (up to certain limits to avoid it becoming a “Modified Endowment Contract”). This makes it a popular “overflow” vehicle for high-income earners who have already maxed out their traditional accounts.
Long-Term Care (LTC) Riders

Many modern policies include a “Living Benefits” or “Long-Term Care” rider.

The Use: If you develop a chronic illness or need home health care in retirement, you can “accelerate” your death benefit. This means the insurance company pays you a portion of your own death benefit while you are still alive to cover medical bills, protecting your other retirement assets.

secure your future by planning for retirement today.

Annuities with Guaranteed Income Riders

While life insurance is typically purchased to protect against “dying too soon,” annuities are designed to protect against “living too long.” Retirees use annuities to create a “personal pension,” where a lump sum of cash is traded for a guaranteed income stream.

Annuities In Retirement Strategy:

Guaranteed Income Riders

Annuitization means converting your lump sum into a series of regular payments. Unlike traditional annuitization—where you exchange your lump sum for a promise of ongoing income—a rider is an optional feature you can add to your annuity contract for extra benefits. The Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefit (GLWB) is a specific type of rider that guarantees you a minimum income stream for life, regardless of your account balance.
Guaranteed Minimum Annual Withdrawal

With a GLWB rider, you keep control of your account balance while receiving a guaranteed minimum withdrawal each year, even if your account eventually reaches zero. For instance, if you invest $100,000 in an annuity with a GLWB rider, you might receive $5,000 per year for life—even if your account balance eventually runs out due to withdrawals or market downturns.
When is the Best Time to Purchase a GLWB?

Maximize your Retirement Income

Start planning

Long-Term Care Insurance

Long-term care (LTC) insurance helps protect your retirement savings by paying for custodial care—assistance for people who have chronic illnesses, disabilities, or cognitive impairments. It’s designed to shift some or all of the financial burden for future care needs from you to the insurance provider, helping preserve your hard-earned assets.

Preserve Your Assets with LTC Insurance

Start planning

Frequently Asked LTC Questions

When is the policy triggered?
The policy is generally “triggered” when you can no longer perform at least two of the six Activities of Daily Living (ADLs):

Bathing

Dressing

EatingTransferring (getting in/out of bed or a chair)

Toileting

Continence
What are the primary policy types?
Why do people buy LTC Insurance?

Asset Protection: Professional care is expensive—the median cost for a private room in a nursing home currently exceeds $116,000 per year. Without insurance, these costs can quickly deplete a lifetime of savings.

Independence: It allows you to choose where you receive care (such as staying in your own home) rather than being limited to facilities that accept Medicaid.

Relieving Family Burden: It provides funds to hire professional help so that family members aren’t forced into full-time caregiving roles.
When is a good time to buy LTC Insurance?

Disability Income Insurance

Disability income insurance (DI) is often called “paycheck protection.” While health insurance pays your doctor, disability insurance pays you, replacing a portion of your income if you become unable to work due to an illness or injury. Most people have access to two types of coverage (Short-Term and Long-Term), often through their employer or by purchasing a private policy.

Protect Your income with DI Insurance

Start planning

Frequently Asked DI Questions

How does Disability Income Insurance work?
How is “disability” defined in a policy?

“Disability” is often defined in the fine print with the following:

Own-Occupation: Pays benefits if you cannot perform the duties of your specific job, even if you could technically work in a different field. (Highly recommended for specialized professionals like doctors or engineers).

Any-Occupation: Only pays if you are unable to work at any job for which you are reasonably qualified by education or experience. This is a stricter standard and harder to qualify for.

Elimination Period: The “waiting period” between the onset of disability and when payments begin. Choosing a longer period (e.g., 90 days instead of 30) can significantly lower your premiums.

Residual/Partial Benefit: Pays a portion of the benefit if you can still work part-time but are earning significantly less due to your condition.
Why do people buy DI Insurance?

Statistically, 1 in 4 of today’s 20-year-olds will experience a disability that lasts a year or more before they reach retirement. While many assume disabilities are caused by freak accidents, the vast majority (about 90%) are actually caused by common illnesses like heart disease, cancer, and arthritis.

Insurance Planning for Business Owners

For business owners, life insurance is often more of a strategic business tool than just a personal safety net. It can protect the company’s value, ensure a smooth transition of power, and even serve as a tax-advantaged asset.

Protect Your Business with  Life Insurance

Start planning

Primary Ways Business Owners Use Life Insurance:

Buy-Sell Agreements (Succession Planning)

If a co-owner dies, their share of the business usually passes to their heirs (like a spouse), who may not know how to run the business or may simply want to cash out.

The Solution: Partners take out life insurance policies on each other.

The Result: When one partner dies, the death benefit provides the surviving partners with the cash needed to buy out the deceased partner’s heirs at a fair price. The business stays with the experts, and the family gets immediate liquidity.
Key Person Insurance

Most businesses have one or two “irreplaceable” people—perhaps a lead developer, a top salesperson, or the founder—whose sudden absence would cause a massive financial hit.

The Solution: The business owns and pays for a policy on that key individual.

The Result: If that person passes away, the business receives a payout to cover the costs of finding a replacement, paying off business debts, or cushioning the lost revenue during the transition.
Executive Benefits (Retention)

To attract and keep high-level talent, owners often offer “Executive Bonus Plans” (also known as Section 162 plans).

The Solution: The company pays the premiums on a permanent life insurance policy for a key executive.

The Result: The executive gets a valuable life insurance policy and potentially a growing cash value asset they can use for retirement. The business usually gets to deduct the bonus as a business expense.
Collateral for Business Loans

Lenders often require “collateral assignment” of a life insurance policy before approving a large business loan.

The Goal: It ensures that if the owner (the primary “engine” of the business) dies, the loan will be repaid by the insurance company rather than defaulting or burdening the estate.
Estate Equalization

If you have multiple children but only one is active in the business, you might want to leave the company to the “active” child without unfairly leaving the others with nothing.

The Solution: You leave the business to the child working there and use a life insurance payout to provide an equivalent inheritance to your other children.

Life Insurance Exit Strategies

Life insurance exit strategies allow policyholders to monetize, transfer, or terminate coverage no longer needed, with options including selling the policy via a life settlement for more than surrender value, surrendering for cash, donating to charity, or using it for business succession. These strategies help recover premium costs or provide liquidity, particularly for seniors or in business contexts.

Life Settlements

A life settlement is the sale of an existing life insurance policy to a third party (usually an institutional investor) for a one-time cash payment. Think of it as selling a piece of property, except the asset being sold is an insurance policy. Once the sale is complete, the buyer becomes the new owner, pays all future premiums, and collects the death benefit when you pass away.

How the Value is Determined

A life settlement occupies the “middle ground” of a policy’s value:

More than the “Cash Surrender Value” (the amount the insurance company would give you to cancel the policy).

Less than the total “Death Benefit” (the full payout your heirs would have received).

Typically, a settlement pays out anywhere from 10% to 35% of the policy’s face value, though this varies significantly based on your health and age.
Eligibility Criteria

While requirements vary by provider, a “typical” candidate for a life settlement usually meets these markers:

Age: Generally 69 or older (often 75+ for the best offers).

Policy Size: A face value (death benefit) of at least $100,000.

Policy Type: Most types qualify, including Universal Life, Whole Life, and even some Convertible Term policies.

Health Change: Often, the policy is more valuable if the insured’s health has declined since the policy was first issued.
Why People Choose a Life Settlement

Eliminating Premiums: If the policy has become too expensive to maintain, selling it stops the “drain” on your bank account.

Immediate Liquidity: You can use the cash for medical bills, long-term care, or to fund your retirement while you are still alive.

No Further Need: Perhaps your children are grown and financially independent, or your estate is no longer large enough to trigger taxes, making the original reason for the insurance obsolete.
Key Differences to Note

Life Settlement vs. Viatical Settlement: A viatical settlement is a specific type of life settlement for someone who is terminally or chronically ill (usually with a life expectancy of less than two years). These often have different tax treatments.

Tax Implications: Unlike a death benefit (which is usually tax-free), a life settlement can be taxable. You generally pay no tax up to the amount of premiums you’ve paid into the policy, but amounts above that may be taxed as ordinary income or capital gains.

Impact on Benefits: Receiving a large lump sum could disqualify you from certain government programs like Medicaid.

SMART PLANNING IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “I WISH  I HAD” AND “I’M GLAD I DID”

Loan for Life Program

We offer a brand new financial instrument that can help clients with excessive cash value or burdensome loans – Loan for Life™.

This program is designed for clients with Whole Life or Indexed Universal Life policies who:

Have a large policy loan through the carrier
Need access to their cash value without taking out a tradition bank loan or a carrier loan
Have a premium financed loan that doesn’t make sense anymore
Are experiencing collateral fatigue

There are no limits for health or age and it’s built for whole life and indexed universal life policies with at least $150,000 in cash value or loans. This program offers clients loan relief and keep residual death benefit with no additional premiums. There are no credit checks, collateral other than the policy, or variable interest rates.

Recover Costs with Thoughtful Exit Strategies

Start planning

With over 28 years experience in life insurance and estate planning, we take a holistic approach to every person’s unique circumstances and goals. We’d love to get to know you and help plan for your future.

Services

Insurance Planning

Todd Shelbaugh

Planning for Retirement

Life Insurance Retirement Plan (LIRP)

Life Insurance In Retirement Strategy:

Annuities with Guaranteed Income Riders

Annuities In Retirement Strategy:

Long-Term Care Insurance

Frequently Asked LTC Questions

Disability Income Insurance

Frequently Asked DI Questions

Insurance Planning for Business Owners

Primary Ways Business Owners Use Life Insurance:

Life Insurance Exit Strategies

Life Settlements

Loan for Life Program

Ready to Secure Your Future?

Insurance Planning for Business Owners