In Part 1 of this article, published in the December 2011 issue of Trusts & Estates, I examined a lawyer's duty of care to trust beneficiaries and the current product considerations facing policyholders and carriers. Now, I turn my...
In a January 2010 Trusts & Estates article entitled The Estate Planner's Guide to Product Suitability,1 I suggested that it's imperative to have a process for determining the characteristics of a life insurance policy that's well...
On Dec. 1, 2011, the Internal Revenue Service issued Revenue Ruling 2011-28,1 which finally clarified that a life insurance policy in an irrevocable trust isn't included in the grantor's estate if the grantor retains the right to...
Life insurance is a confusing topic in and of itself. Start a conversation about life insurance at your next cocktail party and see what happens. The subject is guaranteed to cause eyes to glaze over, even among many professionals. To rid some of...
A client's lack of sophistication and guidance regarding trust-owned life insurance (TOLI) can put estate-planning lawyers in the hot seat. Most states have now enacted the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (UPIA), which imposes a higher standard...
Long-term care (LTC) insurance can be an attractive investment alternative for high-net-worth individuals for two reasons: (1) It has a multi-million dollar upside if extended health care is needed, and (2) there's little or no cost if care...
A great deal has been written in the last decade about trust-owned life insurance (TOLI) and the responsibilities and obligations of trustees/fiduciaries of irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs). Although descriptions of a TOLI may be...
A client who has a personally owned life insurance policy comes to you. You convince her to either sell or gift the policy to an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT). You need to get the value of the policy, so you call the insurance company...
The Dec. 17, 2010 enactment of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (2010 Tax Act) added the concept of portability and dramatically increased the gift tax exemption to $5 million per individual ($10...
Among other perplexing issues facing clients these days is what to do with life insurance policies that are calling out for attention, sometimes very loudly. Clients might be hearing that they need to increase their premiums to support the death...
