Insights
Independent Insight for Defensible Decision-Making
The Questions No One Asks About Life Insurance in a SERP
Life insurance is a common tool for funding SERPs, but success depends on more than the product. Many issues stem from untested assumptions, unclear costs, and lack of scrutiny. This article highlights the key questions decision makers should ask to evaluate performance, risk, and long term viability, helping organizations make more informed financial commitments.
Whole Life Is Not Whole Life – Why Policy Design Matters in Executive Benefit Funding
Whole life insurance is often treated as a uniform product—but in executive benefit funding, outcomes are shaped by design. Two policies with the same premium and carrier can produce materially different results based on how premium is allocated, how funding is structured, and how flexibility is built in. These structural choices directly impact early cash value, risk, and long-term performance—making policy design, not just product selection, the critical variable.
The Hidden Variable in Executive Benefit Plan Design – How Incentives Shape Executive Benefit Plans
The most consequential decision in many executive benefit plans isn’t the product, carrier, or benefit type. It’s how compensation is embedded in the structure — and whether anyone independent of the provider evaluated it.
Who Bears the Risk – A Framework for Evaluating Split Dollar Structures
Collateral assignment split dollar has become one of the most widely used executive retention tools in credit unions and nonprofits. The accounting treatment (a loan receivable rather than compensation expense) is a genuine structural advantage. But it has also become a distraction from a more important question.
