ILITs: Not So Simple

Marty Shenkman shows there's more to think about than you might think when planning based on a "plain old" Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust in this article he wrote in 2009. Among the issues he raises:

• Trustee Selection
• Trust Situs
• Reciprocal Trust Doctrine
• GST Exemption
• Divorce Risk
• Crummey Powers

ASPEN member exclusive resource: ALIRT Insurance Research

Ash Brokerage has negotiated an arrangement with ALIRT Insurance Research L.L.C. to make it's core offering available to producers affiliated with Ash Brokerage. ALIRT Research specializes in the analysis of insurance company financial performance trends. Its proprietary model provides a detailed look at an insurer’s statutory and GAAP financial results on a quarterly basis. This on-going insight into underlying financial trends allows distributors and buyers of insurance products to anticipate financial stress and/or rating downgrades of insurance partners before they happen.  The ALIRT Service alerts clients to the development of positive and negative trends impacting financial performance of insurance companies relative to specific competitors and insurance industry market sectors. The ALIRT service consists of quarterly customized reports on a client universe of carriers and includes the following: Quantitative and qualitative ALIRT model relative analyses on any insurance company issuing statutory financials in the U.S. Five-year trends in ALIRT scores, flags, and ratings for a client’s group of insurers and industry composites Executive summaries of financial results for “outliers” based on customized criteria for due diligence financial performance screens Development of additional customized screens for client’s proprietary use Access to ALIRT Research staff for credit committee conference calls, informational requests, special projects, etc. Series of white papers on insurance industry sectors, line of business performance, investment performance, and/or exposures, credit issues and risks related to specific insurers/markets. In addition, Ash Brokerage has negotiated exclusive access for ASPEN Group producers to the following: Two-page analyses on scores of selected insurance companies issuing statutory financials in the U.S. Summary pages detailing five-year trends in ALIRT scores, ratings, and a wide range of financial metrics and benchmarks for a defined group of insurers and industry composites. Access to ALIRT Research staff for presentations to COIs, HNW clients and their advisors, etc. To learn more about the value of independent, arms-length due diligence and monitoring of the underlying financial strength of insurance carriers, please contact the ASPEN Group at 888-553-5563.

ASPEN member Dan Nigito published online

ASPEN member Dan Nigito  was recently published on the National Underwriter’s website LifeandHealthInsuranceNews.com.

His article, Charitable Leverage: A New Paradigm For Life Insurance and Charitable Remainder Trusts, outlines Dan’s strategy for changing the traditional paradigm of using a CRT and insurance as an estate planning tool to one of using the CRT and insurance as a retirement planning tool.

Congratulations, Dan!