The strategic use of life insurance can help you leave a legacy to your family, continue a business you have built or make a significant philanthropic impact.
Insurance can play a critical role in helping protect your family from the unexpected. However, this understates the power insurance can play as part of your larger financial plan. It can also help you protect your family and legacy as well as your retirement income and overall wealth.
You and your Merrill Private Wealth Advisor can work with our Insurance Specialists to review your overall financial plan and evaluate how insurance, including annuities and long-term care policies, can complement your investment strategy and help protect what you’ve worked so hard to build.
Life Insurance
You may already own life insurance or be aware of its primary use — providing money to your family or other beneficiaries when you are no longer here. You may even wonder if you still need life insurance at this time in your life. Yet, the value that life insurance can bring to a comprehensive, integrated legacy plan goes far beyond providing cash liquidity through the payment of death benefits. Life insurance, when used strategically, can help you address your goals and take care of what’s most important to you, including:
- Helping you care for your family with a guaranteed sum that can help cover lifetime expenses or even help assure the welfare of generations of your family in the future.
- Passing on your business, helping family members who are active in the business successfully take over after you are gone, or even help equalize your estate between your beneficiaries.
- Wealth transfer with charitable giving, giving you a way to give a guaranteed amount to the charity of your choice, while offering tax benefits to your estate and heirs.
Annuities
Whether you are still saving for retirement or shifting your focus from building wealth to generating retirement income, it’s important to think about how much your chosen retirement lifestyle will cost and ultimately how you will fund that lifestyle — including securing dependable income to cover your essential day-to-day expenses.
An annuity is a contract with an insurance company that is specifically designed for retirement purposes. When you purchase an annuity, you make a payment to an insurance company that, in turn, agrees to pay out an income stream or a lump-sum amount at a future date. When used as part of your retirement portfolio, an annuity may provide you:
- A predictable income stream that you can use to help cover your essential living expenses.
- Protection from down markets with full or partial guarantees on your principal, backed by the issuing insurance company.
- The ability to accumulate assets that can grow in a tax-deferred manner, potentially helping you accumulate more assets to fund your retirement lifestyle.
Long-Term Care Insurance
Increasing longevity has resulted in longer, more fulfilling retirements, but has also led to more complications from unexpected health costs that can derail even the most well thought out plans. Developing a plan to address this risk can be an important part of your overall financial strategy.
Long-term care insurance can help you protect your wealth while also reducing the potential burden you place on your family. When structured properly, long-term care insurance can help ensure that you’ll have access to high-quality care should you ever need it, without having to spend your life’s savings to pay for it.
Connect with a Merrill Private Wealth Advisor.
Insurance and annuity products are offered through Merrill Lynch Life Agency Inc., a licensed insurance agency and wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation.
All annuity contract or rider guarantees, including any fixed crediting rates or annuity payout rates and all guarantees and benefits of a life insurance policy are backed by the claims paying ability of the issuing insurance company. They are not backed by Merrill or its affiliates, nor does Merrill or its affiliates make any representations or guarantees regarding the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company.
Annuities are long-term insurance products designed for retirement. Variable annuities are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal. The contract, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than the total amount invested. Early withdrawals may be subject to withdrawal charges. Partial withdrawals reduce the contract value and may also reduce certain benefits under the contract, such as the death benefit and the amount available upon a full surrender. Withdrawals of taxable amounts are subject to ordinary income tax and, if taken prior to age 59½, an additional 10% federal tax may apply. Optional benefits may be irrevocable and are available for an additional cost.
Long-term care insurance coverage contains benefits, exclusions, limitations, eligibility requirements and specific terms and conditions under which the insurance coverage may be continued in force or discontinued. Not all insurance policies and types of coverage may be available in your state.