Who’s Really Calling About Infinite Banking? Real Meetings, Real People (Ep. 364)

"I might one day have somebody that's farming 5,000 acres, and the next day I have somebody that their dream is just to have 10 acres with three cows or something of that nature. It's so diverse. Agriculture is agriculture. It doesn't matter what side of the spectrum we're on. We in this industry like to judge people. We like to talk about how hard it is to get started and how hard it is to take over, and it is hard. But guess what? There are people out there that don't care about the hard. All they care about is, 'How can I get it done?'"

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you very much for being here. Today, I thought it'd be fun to go over, once in a while, to just go over some meetings I'm having so you guys can kinda get an idea of what's going on, or just even the kind of people I talk to. I used to do these on Facebook Lives every week, and people loved them. So we'll try it here and see what you guys think.

I have had a lot of emails from people that I've never spoke to before. But those of you that listen, thank you very much for listening. You guys are telling me that you have been loving the interviews that I've been doing because, you know, you're kinda sick of hearing just me. That's not what you're saying, but I get it. I'm kinda tired of hearing just me, too. So if there's, like, a topic or something you guys want to hear and I think that it's a fit, then I would be happy to have that conversation. Not everything do I think is a fit.

And it's been interesting that I did the virtual fence stuff, and then all of the virtual fence people, like Nofence people, reached out to me. So just a little FYI, I'm going to do… Like I might do a podcast and say, "Hey, you know what? Here's some information on this." That doesn't mean that I'm backing a product. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna share more information on it. What you get is what you get. That is not my lane. I'm gonna try to stay as close to my lane as I possibly can. I just want to share good information with you guys. It's your job to do your due diligence after that.

So let's get started with who I've met in the last, I don't know, I just picked a few meetings out, and I would say this is probably the last three weeks maybe, two to three weeks. I didn't look back at dates.

The last two weeks have been interesting because I have met with two bankers. So a lot of you might think that bankers don't like this idea, and in fact, I talked to quite a few bankers, more bankers than one would think. Interesting, they both thought that it was either not understandable, or one of them thought that, "Hey, this is only good for people with a lot of money."

So here's the thing, I believe both of them had clients that brought the book in. I know the one that I talked to last week did. Client threw the book down on his desk and said, "Have you heard anything about it?" He said, "No," but he read the book.

So here's the thing, both of these clients read the book to do the due diligence they needed to do for their customers. So you have a banker, and if they are not going to read the book, then you probably should be alarmed by that. Because why are they not educating themself on this?

Neither one of them 100% agreed with infinite banking, but now they need life insurance themselves. And in that process, they were like, "You know what? I want life insurance that's gonna work for me, and I'm gonna set up an appointment so I can be more educated on it." And it does sound like both of them are going to buy some life insurance, but we'll see what happens. A lot of things can happen.

In the meantime of that, one of these guys had a policy on his dad, and, you know, kudos to him. He was doing probably what he preaches to his clients — have a policy on your parents so when something happens, you have the ability to buy them out. That was the intent with this life insurance policy.

So he sent me an in-force illustration, and I just want to go over a little bit of it with you. I may add it to a later podcast, but I found this very interesting.

So there are deductions for premiums. There's a column that says deduction for premium, which is $8,210 a year. That is… Or I'm sorry, deductions for premiums, meaning how much are they gonna take from cash value? Then it has a whole column, Deductions from the Contract Fund. So they have administration and transaction charges, cost of insurance.

Okay. So this year, administration and transaction charges and cost of insurance was $4,229. His premium — now keep in mind, his premium is $8,210 a year. So we're good, right? His premium is covering those charges. At this point, Dad is 75 years old.

Next year, obviously, Dad's gonna be 76. Premium is still $8,210. Total sum of deductions is $11,304. His premium, $8,210. So now the deductions from premiums is that extra two thousand-ish dollars.

The following year, dad is 77, $12,000. Then $13,000, $14,000, $16,000, $17,000, $19,000, $21,000. When he's 84, deductions, expenses are going to be 20 — almost $24,000.

And this is the guaranteed side, so it shows that we're not gonna have a policy after 79. Probably going to be better than that, but they didn't send him anything better than that. So that's all I've got to look at. Will that change the deductions and the expenses? No, absolutely not.

If dad lives to 94 — which dad is healthy, he had some stents or bypass or something, so now he's good. So let's say dad lives to 90. At 90 years old, our expenses are $50,000 a year. $50,000 a year. This policy runs out of cash value. Even if they give him a non-guaranteed illustration, say, at four percent every single year, year over year, you're not gonna cover a $50,000 expense.

They do have a death benefit rider on here, and that rider is called the no lapse guarantee rider with this particular company. $250,000 every single year is going to get paid. His death benefit is not gonna go up. It's just gonna stay level.

Here is the thing. His cash value is at zero. Death benefit goes to $250,000. Listen to this. These no lapse guaranteed riders or guaranteed death benefit rider, whatever they wanna call it, these are the things that you need to be concerned about.

"This provides lapse protection during the lifetime of the insured. The protection may be in effect if the conditions and requirements in the policy are met." The conditions are: "It is very important that planned premiums are paid when due. Missing planned premium payments, paying late, and/or taking loans or withdrawals can limit the length of your guarantee and cause your guarantee to end."

So if you make a late payment because, you know, life gets in the way — if you make a late payment, they could say, "You know what? Nope, that policy's gonna lapse," and we can reinstate it, but it's going to be very expensive to do so.

Interesting. Unfortunate it happened. Kind of fortunate that it happened to a banker, because he is the one with the clients coming in, and his customers are going to most likely have this kind of stuff. And now, because he called and this other banker called, they are going to be far more educated than any other banker that has not talked to me, because he did not know the difference between a universal life and a whole life, and now he has a point of contact that can help look at those things. Your banker should be looking at this stuff.

I talked to another guy that does some financial stuff for an equipment dealer. He wants to do some sell-buy marketing, so they are looking at buying more property so that he has room to do some sell-buy marketing stuff. Kind of funny, I laughed at him because he works for an equipment dealer, but he doesn't like farming. But he does not sell equipment. He works on the back end of the company.

In the last couple of months I have talked to two mobile vet clinics as well. I have a lot of veterinarians. I end up talking to a lot of vets. These guys run a feedlot and they have some pairs. This was a fun conversation because the husband is all about running the feedlot, doing a lot of sell-buy type marketing stuff. I'll just call it that. He's not doing strictly that. He's just buying and selling feedlot stuff. She doesn't like any of it because she's looking at the health side of it, and she doesn't want disease brought into her ranch cattle, I think is what they call them, is they're ranch cattle or pairs or whatever.

What was interesting about them is they have an LLC, so the cattle and the equipment are owned by the LLC and the land is owned personally. So the land is leased back to the LLC and they are taking payroll from the ranch LLC. Of course, they have their own LLC for the vet clinic, but the LLC for everything in the ranch was run very much like a business, which was super nice to see. Now, he bought out his dad from the LLC just recently, and so it was set up prior to that, but now he owns 100% of it and they are running it like a legit business, taking payroll.

I talked to a veteran and his wife. They have nothing to do with farming. So a lot of people think, "Oh, all you're talking to are people that farm." Nope. Not in reality. I talk to a lot of people that want to farm. And you'll see — I'm gonna continue to do these if you guys like them, but you'll see that I talk to a lot of people that don't have anything to do with farming.

So I talked to this veteran, and the reason I'm bringing this one up is because they're buying land, and they're subdividing some land, or they're just maybe using it for hunting. Just kind of deciding what to do. But he's looking for land. He found a good deal on land, which is fantastic. He's being super smart, right? Well, of course, everybody that talks to me I think is smart, but very, very smart guy with just the fact that land is gonna go up in value all the time.

The challenge here is going to be that he is a veteran, and the very first thing, if I ever hear that someone's a veteran, the very first question I have after that is any PTSD or TBI, traumatic brain injury. He has both. She has health trouble. They have one child that does not have health trouble. Parents have health trouble. So they're going to be a challenge to insure because now we have to find insurable interest.

I said, "Do you have a partnership? Are you a partner in any kind of business?" Because the guy is very business-orientated, we may have some options there because he does have some businesses that he just started, a veteran-owned clothing line, and he's like, "Just for hunters. You know, it's a hunting line." But he's like, "It's basically just to reconnect," and they just started it. So we'll see what that looks like.

But if you are in the military, if you know somebody in the military, if somebody is going to the military, if there is anything to do with military, get that whole life insurance now before you get out, before you join, before there's any PTSD, TBI.

If you're leaving the military, and when you leave the military, a lot of times they have your final health exam. They're gonna see if there's any disability that they can get you is kind of what I've noticed. If that's the case, then you need to get your life insurance before they start diagnosing you with all this stuff to give you some sort of disability. We have to have insurable interest over here. So if PTSD is not — you know, if it's under control, if it's not a big deal, that's fine. But there are some people that have excessive PTSD that the insurance company's gonna look at that and say, "Oh, we have risk of suicide." It definitely matters, okay? Anybody that you know associated with the military before, after, during, I don't care, please let them know that they need to get life insurance before, now, before there's any type of crazy diagnosis.

I talked to another gentleman that lives in the Northeast, and holy bejeezus, do they have taxes over there. Oh, my-lanta. So he is wanting to move to Tennessee. I've talked to a couple of guys just recently that wanna move to Tennessee. One of them is an electrician. They also wanna move to Tennessee, and I can understand why this guy wants to move. When I heard what his property taxes were and the amount of money that they make, and he's like, "I can make the same amount of money in Tennessee and not have property taxes like that."

So he's been doing his due diligence, which is cool. They wanna buy some small acreage so they can do some homesteading type stuff. I talk to a lot of people that want to do that, that want to have some small acreage, do some — not homesteading in the sense of, like, what you're seeing on TV, but, you know, have a couple of cows, maybe do some direct to consumer or something of that nature.

I also talked to another gentleman recently. This was a super fun conversation, super fun guy. He has a mobile home repair business, and this was such a testament to somebody that can be very, very successful staying in their lane. That's all this guy does is fix mobile homes. He owns a mobile home park. He rents out mobile homes. He also has cattle. He has downsized his cattle herd 'cause he lost some pasture, so he did have a lot of cattle at one point, and now he just has a small herd, trying to figure out how he's gonna grow that, what he's gonna do.

Sounds like he'll probably be going to one of the sell-buy marketing schools just because he would really rather not fix mobile homes anymore and just run cattle, but he's gotta figure out how to do that with his son and all this stuff. But it was a very fun conversation. That's all this guy does, and he is in four states. He is so busy, and there's nobody doing it, that he is running a four-state area. Crazy, but hey, you know what? I always talk about niches and stay in your niche and go do your thing, and people think I'm an idiot, but every single time I see somebody doing it, it proves that, you know, who's the idiot.

Talked to another gentleman that works for a farmer, and he runs feeders with him. So this particular farmer has a feedlot, and this guy is able to run feeders with them or to run some cows and feed 'em out. And, you know, if the guy that owns a feedlot brings in a pot load, he can buy into a percentage of the pot load. So he's not buying a number of cattle, he's just buying a percentage of that pot load. I really liked that idea. Of course, you need to know whoever you're working for is honest, and in this scenario, he knows that.

But I really liked that idea. And I have another client that runs a feedlot, and they let their hired men buy cattle and run 'em in the feedlot, and they have to pay, and they act like just a regular customer. But it is a really good opportunity for a hired man to be able to kinda get his feet under him and start moving forward.

I talked to an existing client last week. She works for a rancher, and she's looking for different work, so we talked about that and kind of what she can do, but they allowed her to start buying cattle and running some cattle. And so she's got some pairs that she's run, and it just really built her portfolio, and she's got a lot of money, which is going to allow her a lot of opportunity. Some of that money is sitting in equity in those cows, but you know what? If she wants to buy her own ranch, she can sell those cows, and she can buy her own ranch, and then she can run somebody else's cattle for a while if she needs to. It just gives her possibilities. It doesn't mean that's what she has to do, and that's obviously not what she wants to do. But if she wants to have her own place and to be able to build up, that's awesome.

I see a lot of hired men who are just kinda stuck because, A, they're not getting paid enough or they're not allowed to run cattle, which is always kind of amazing to me. If you have a hired man, why are you not allowing them to run some cows and giving them a leg up? Instead, you're just kinda keeping 'em down. Not ideal.

So that was fun. And then I have another guy who is a nurse, and he's done hospice forever. So he wants to buy some land, and he wants to build a hospice center on that land, which I thought… I had a lot of questions about that because I've not ever known anybody in hospice. But I said, "So the person that's dying, we want to give them, like, a good surrounding. Like, you wanna bring them back out to nature and, you know, have them in farming or not farming, but just have them in a more peaceful environment than in a hospital to die."

And he made a really interesting comment, and he said, "It's not necessarily about the person that's passing, it's about the family and giving them a more peaceful environment." And I thought, "Wow, that's awesome." I have not been in that situation to even think about what that would be like. We'll see. He's got a long road to get himself there, but very cool concept. I thought it was a very cool concept. Obviously, he knows that industry. That's what he's worked in for 30, 40 years, something like that.

And then I talked to another gentleman and his wife that he's a lineman. I have a lot of clients that are linemen. He's a lineman, and he's doing some sell-buy marketing. So this one is fun because he has started 100% from scratch. He was a city kid. He didn't know anything about farming and ranching. So when people say you can't start from scratch, it's such a lie. It is such an absolute annoying lie to me, because you can start from scratch.

And then I talked to another guy that is a lineman, and he is such a good testament to exactly what people say can't be done, and I see it all the time. He was just another notch on the wall of, "Yep, you can start from scratch." He was a city kid. He just wanted to be a rancher. He helped the neighbors when he was in high school, I believe was his story. So he had a little exposure to the lifestyle, and that's what he wanted to do, so he made it happen. And so people will say all the time, "You can't start from scratch. I'm an idiot." Well, really, who's the idiot here? Because it happens time and time and time and time again, and I talk to all these people.

So this kid worked his butt off, went and bought, I think it was like 130 acres or something, teamed up with one of his friends. And his friend bought some cattle, ran it on his pasture. In the meantime, he was learning from his friend about cattle. He is learning from somebody, okay? And now he bought a half a pot load. First, he bought just a couple. Now he's up to a half a pot load, and they feed them out, and they sell them. And he is hoping that soon he'll be able to buy the whole pot load.

Here's another thing. The land right next to him — it sounds like he was leasing that land. He told the guy, "I would like to buy it, so if you ever sell it, you let me know." The guy decided and said, "Hey, I'm not gonna be selling it for a long time." It was like five to 10 years. And they said, "Okay, awesome." Right? Gives them time to plan.

Well, it was just a matter of weeks. The guy put the land on the — listed it with an auctioneer. He called them and said, "Hey, I listed that with an auctioneer." Was not gonna sell it direct, was not gonna do any off-the-market stuff. So this guy called the neighbor, who was also young, and said, "Hey, did you know our neighbor is selling?" And he said, "Yeah, he's not gonna divide it, nothing." But it met both of their properties.

The neighbor guy went to his dad and said, "Dad, will you buy this at auction, and then we can subdivide it, and then we will buy each parcel from you?" So they had worked out a whole plan, and they got the land.

Here's a point of that story, is where there's a will, there's a way. They did not just automatically back down and go, "Oh, I'm not gonna be able to afford that. Poor me." No, that is not at all what happened. He called his neighbor. They figured it out. This guy is not lazy. Absolutely not one single bit lazy. There are people that I can just tell they are go-getters, and they are going to make it happen. This guy is going to make it happen.

Now, sometimes these people you do have to pull back by the reins just a hair, right? 'Cause they are excited about everything, and I get that, 'cause I am also like that. And so we have to have some stability. But he thinks about it. He makes smart decisions. He's not gonna let this land just go. This is proof, absolute proof, that you can start from scratch without knowing anything, find a mentor, build your operation, and hopefully at some point he is making enough money that he can quit his lineman position.

It's very interesting to me. Like, I have met two people in the last two weeks that basically went to what I would call cowboy school. One of them was called cowboy school. The other guy's doing an intern on a ranch so they can learn to cowboy, right? They can learn to ranch. Instead of laughing at them, which is what most people would do — most of us that grew up in this industry would laugh at those people. Instead, I think, how genius of the guy putting on cowboy school. Like, there are people out there that want to learn how to do it.

Was it Yellowstone? No. It was them having exposure to agriculture while they were kids, and they loved that lifestyle. And they loved being out in nature, right? Most of these people are very blue-collar individuals, they want to work. They just need to be moved off the farm. I talk to a lot of those people.

So when I say we — you know, John and I talk to a range of people. I might one day have somebody that's farming 5,000 acres, and the next day I have somebody that their dream is just to have 10 acres with three cows or something of that nature. It's so diverse. Agriculture is agriculture. It doesn't matter what side of the spectrum we're on. We in this industry like to judge people. We like to talk about how hard it is to get started and how hard it is to take over, and it is hard. But guess what? There are people out there that don't care about the hard. All they care about is, "How can I get it done?"

So anyhoo, that is the information from the meetings that I've had in the last couple of weeks. I believe it was probably the last two to three weeks. I'm not gonna tell you people's income. I'm not gonna tell you people's acreages that they own. I'm not gonna tell you personal information. However, I do wanna give you kind of a glimpse of who I'm talking to and some fun conversations that I've had.

So let me know if you like this, hate this, whatever. I can only talk about infinite banking so much, and I can talk about what people are doing with their policies. Maybe I'll add that in in the future as well.

So let me know if you guys have comments, questions, concerns. maryjo@withoutthebank.com. Otherwise, you have a fantastic rest of your day.