In 2018, our firm did something different. We surveyed our clients with net worths in excess of $75 million. We asked many questions in the survey but the most important question I want to share with you today is, "Why did you make a significant allocation to life insurance?" Or better said, "Why did you buy?" Many of the answers given we're predictable, and we heard many of our talking points returned to us. However, some of the answers were surprising and we've integrated all of this into our new presentation, and our results have improved.

The following is why our clients told me they made a decision to allocate to life insurance.

One, "It's another tax-efficient bucket.” “I pay enough in taxes and I don't want to pay any more," they said. We had many responses to this efficiency.

Two, "The policy has strong cash value growth. It has low costs and fees." That was interesting, because how often do we think that our costs and fees are too high, that our clients will be concerned about this? This client, a major fund manager, did her due diligence and found the costs and fees were low, the policy was efficient. She clearly saw value.

Three, "I could guarantee an arbitrage between the policy and IRR and the AFR rate, and that means my children win." When children win, it's best and clients buy.

Four, "I like the additional asset protection." This shocked me because, for this individual, I never thought it was going to be asset protection that made them buy. The individual was retired. He had no debt, so why would he want asset protection? But when you have asset protection on the mind it's the most important thing, and we have to add that to our presentations to talk to clients about it.

Five, "Everyone should have a lot of life insurance. My family is better off because I own it." Remember, we buy life insurance, or people buy life insurance, because they owe someone, or they love someone. In this case they clearly love someone.

Six, "It's predictable. I know my beneficiaries are going to get $45 million. I don't know what the rest of my assets are going to be worth, and I like predictable."

Seven, "My dad didn't have any life insurance when I was 10 and he died. This really stunk for my mother, my four sisters, and me." This was the most interesting comment to me because I never knew his father passed, which means I didn't ask the question, and I spent a lot of time with this client. This client is a billionaire many times over. He has lots of liquidity and he's well-planned, but he thought that this early life event he thought made him have a need for life insurance for his family. It was important to him, he loved someone.

In the following grouping of answers we received often in our survey. One, "It's good for my family and that's important to me." Two, "It's predictable and tax free. It's non-correlated. It will help me pay my estate taxes. It will help me retire. It's a magical product that does exactly what I want it to do." All these good qualities had to be integrated into our presentations and in our discussions with our clients.

Oh, I almost forgot my favorite one. "I bought it because Howard told me to." It's always nice to be listened to and remember your voice matters, but people are paying for your advice. Please give it to them.

When we're not surveying our clients our firm is active in many charitable causes. One of the programs we're involved in is the Life Lesson Scholarship Program at Life Happens. The program awards scholarships to college students who have lost a parent or guardian. During the process we reviewed many qualified applicants. Each and every one is heartbreaking. After our review we decided to award our firm's scholarship to a young woman who lost her mother to cancer. Soon after her mother passed her father, an ex-policeman, took his own life in suicide. The story is tragic, it's heartbreaking, but the line in the application that had me was, and she said, "If my parents would've had cared enough to have life insurance my sister and I would have had time to grieve. They didn't and thus we didn't. I am sure this choice will affect us forever."

Wow. Just think about that for a moment. Time to grieve. I'd never thought about that reason. I could rattle off from dozens of reasons why people should buy life insurance, but I have never thought of time to grieve. This statement shook me to the core and was the reason why we awarded the scholarship to this brave young woman. Our clients understand the implication of not having life insurance and they act on a recommendation because they don't want to be that person. They don't want to be that person who had the chance to buy and protect their family and didn't.

So remember, every one of you do amazing, important work. You could change lives with your action. Make sure you give your client's family liquidity, make sure you give them security, and then also make sure you give them time to grieve. Thank you.