关于H1B入关时候I94的时间问题# Visa - 签证
s*d
1 楼
正在amazon上看，想买了送给抽烟的男亲戚和老公的同学，不知道合适不？要不要同时
买lighter fluid？这飞机上该怎么带？必须要托运吗？
买lighter fluid？这飞机上该怎么带？必须要托运吗？
a*o
2 楼
我看了下,觉得是个不错的产品呀,是因为太简单,还是里面有什么trick?很少有人讨论?
r*n
3 楼
是不是应该是按照I797上的时间?
万一我的护照是在这个日期之前过期呢(当然超过了6个月有效期)?
是不是这个日期经常搞错,要特别注意?
万一我的护照是在这个日期之前过期呢(当然超过了6个月有效期)?
是不是这个日期经常搞错,要特别注意?
s*z
4 楼
whole life insurance is bad for 99.9% of people!
get term!
论?
get term!
论?
r*n
5 楼
upup
【在 r********n 的大作中提到】
: 是不是应该是按照I797上的时间?
: 万一我的护照是在这个日期之前过期呢(当然超过了6个月有效期)?
: 是不是这个日期经常搞错,要特别注意?
【在 r********n 的大作中提到】
: 是不是应该是按照I797上的时间?
: 万一我的护照是在这个日期之前过期呢(当然超过了6个月有效期)?
: 是不是这个日期经常搞错,要特别注意?
a*o
6 楼
能详细说下bad是在哪吗？
【在 s********z 的大作中提到】
: whole life insurance is bad for 99.9% of people!
: get term!
:
: 论?
【在 s********z 的大作中提到】
: whole life insurance is bad for 99.9% of people!
: get term!
:
: 论?
O*e
7 楼
Your passport expiration date trumps the H-1B end
date.
【在 r********n 的大作中提到】
: 是不是应该是按照I797上的时间?
: 万一我的护照是在这个日期之前过期呢(当然超过了6个月有效期)?
: 是不是这个日期经常搞错,要特别注意?
date.
【在 r********n 的大作中提到】
: 是不是应该是按照I797上的时间?
: 万一我的护照是在这个日期之前过期呢(当然超过了6个月有效期)?
: 是不是这个日期经常搞错,要特别注意?
d*g
8 楼
作为whole life,是需要一直交premium,直到pass away或98/99岁policy mature.
premium是fixed. 它有cash value,但从里面loan 出来的利息比较高,用起来不大灵活
。好处是肯定有拿到钱的那一天，家人有个保障。现在whole life 基本是已经过时。
如果寻求终身保护，有别的产品可以选择，比如VUL, IUL/GIUL, GDBUL，同样的投入可
以获得更大的产出，具体看你的目的是什么。
Good luck
【在 a******o 的大作中提到】
: 能详细说下bad是在哪吗？
premium是fixed. 它有cash value,但从里面loan 出来的利息比较高,用起来不大灵活
。好处是肯定有拿到钱的那一天，家人有个保障。现在whole life 基本是已经过时。
如果寻求终身保护，有别的产品可以选择，比如VUL, IUL/GIUL, GDBUL，同样的投入可
以获得更大的产出，具体看你的目的是什么。
Good luck
【在 a******o 的大作中提到】
: 能详细说下bad是在哪吗？
j*y
9 楼
don't mix insurance and investment
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/dont-mix-insurance-and-investing/
A wise physician will have a solid insurance plan and a solid investing plan
. But she shouldn’t mix the two. Remember the combination TV/VCRs?
Seemed like a great idea initially. But then you ended up with the worst of
both worlds, and when one of them broke, the other became useless. It’s
the same with investing. Instead of providing some kind of synergy by
mixing the two, you end up with the worst of both worlds.
These “products” go by different names- cash value life insurance, whole
life insurance, universal life insurance, variable life insurance, variable
universal life insurance, variable annuities, equity-indexed annuities,
deferred fixed annuities…the list goes on and on. A large percentage of
doctors (including myself) have been suckered into one or more of these at
one point or another. Why does that happen? I think there are a number of
reasons:
Lack of financial sophistication – As we’ve discussed previously, doctors
aren’t exactly in the same category as accountants when it comes to
knowledge of the financial world. This knowledge gap handicaps them when
they go to make financial decisions. They are too trusting, too naive, too
worried about things that don’t matter, and not worried enough about things
that do. Even simple financial cliches that most investors know (such as
“Don’t Mix Insurance and Investing” and “Buy Term and Invest the
Difference”) can be profound revelations to a doctor who just spent a
decade worth of 80 hour weeks inside the hospital walls. These products are
purposely made to be very complex. They are NOT simple to understand, and
when an investor points out issues with it, the salesman will quickly move
on to another feature of the product. The complexity always favors the
issuer, not the buyer.
Mistaking an insurance salesman for a qualified investment adviser –
Everyone markets themselves as a financial advisor or a financial planner
these days, no matter what their qualifications. Insurance salesmen, stock
brokers, and mutual fund salesmen like to take advantage of the fact that
they know just a little more than you. Unfortunately, most of their
training is in sales, which means they can make whatever product they happen
to profit from look extremely attractive to you. Learn more about
selecting and checking up on your advisor here.
Belief that doctors need to invest differently than everyone else – We like
to think we’re special, and in some ways we are. We have highly
specialized skills allowing for relatively high salaries with
correspondingly high tax burdens, we have high debt burdens, we have a
significant delay to the start of our earnings, and we are big targets for
litigation, both malpractice and non-malpractice. When financial
salespeople tell us we’re different and special, that makes us feel special
(and better). But you know what, 95% of what we need to do financially is
no different from any other middle class investor. And for nearly all
physicians, the additional benefits of a mixed insurance/investment are not
worth their costs. Most of the benefits are either unnecessary or available
in a less expensive manner.
Belief that insurance products provide asset protection benefits not
available in other ways – Advisors are quick to point out that the cash
value of a life insurance policy or the value of an annuity is protected
from malpractice and other litigation. What they usually fail to point out
is that so are your 401Ks, IRAs, and sometimes a great deal of your home
equity.
Belief that insurance products provide estate planning benefits not
available in other ways – The salesman also love to illustrate how life
insurance proceeds are estate tax-free. Of course, hardly any Americans (
including physicians) pay estate taxes at all. A typical married physician
has to leave behind more than $10 Million at his death to pay ANY estate tax
. Most doctors will never have that amount of assets. Estate tax law can
change at any time, of course. It wasn’t that long ago that the exempt
amount was only $1 Million. But through gifting and trusts there are ways
to eliminate or minimize that burden without paying for overly expensive
insurance.
Belief that insurance products provide tax benefits not available in other
ways – I am appalled at how many physicians don’t max out retirement
accounts such as 401Ks and IRAs before “investing” in life insurance. The
tax benefits of a 401K exceed those of cash value life insurance. Not only
do you get the tax-free growth over the years, but you also get an upfront
tax deduction. Cash value life insurance doesn’t offer that. Don’t
expect to learn that from someone who sells it though. Even fully taxable
investment accounts provide some tax benefits not available in an insurance
product.
Misunderstanding the value of a guarantee – Most of these products come
with some kind of a guarantee. It might be a certain amount of guaranteed
value at some point down the road, some kind of guaranteed minimum growth
rate, or a guaranteed amount payable at death, but I can assure you there
will be some kind of guaranteed benefit. Is there a value to that guarantee
? Of course, and it seems especially valuable in times of high market
volatility or political uncertainty. However, in nearly every case the
buyer is overpaying for that guarantee. The complexity favors the seller,
not the buyer.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping insurance costs down – As
these products become more and more complex, they become less and less like
commodities. Commodities are all the same and are sold based on price. If
a company sells a variable annuity that is different from every other
variable annuity on the market, it becomes very difficult, bordering on
impossible, to compare competing products and the investor usually ends up
with the one that pays the biggest commission to the salesman. Each of these
products have some type of an insurance component. The insurance company
can charge whatever it wants for that. If you have no way of determining
what the insurance cost should be, how will you know if you’re being ripped
off? You won’t, and you are.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping investment costs down – To
make matters worse, the investment component is also often overpriced.
Variable life insurance and variable annuities in particular place your
money into the equivalent of mutual funds, except they are managed by the
insurance company. The company not only doesn’t hire very good managers (
why would it, no one buying the fund is looking very closely at them), but
it also overcharges for them. The expense ratios on these variable annuity
“funds” are some of the highest I’ve seen. They can range from 1.5% to 3
% or even higher. That’s 10 times what you’d pay for a mutual fund at
Vanguard, even an actively-managed one.
Misunderstanding of the value of liquidity – One of the biggest downsides
of these insurance products is the lack of liquidity. A pretty good rule of
thumb in investing is to never buy something that you can’t look the price
up in the Wall Street Journal every day. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
can generally be sold any day the market is open. You can “go to cash”
any time you want. This allows you access to your money to invest it
elsewhere, spend it, or give it away. Insurance products always limit your
liquidity. In fact, the only ways you can access your cash in most products
is to “borrow” from your policy (which has its downsides, including
sometimes causing the policy to fail) or to surrender it completely, often
for much less than what the “cash value” is supposed to be. Liquidity has
a value, and far too often insurance product investors give it away for
nothing.
In future posts I’ll discuss each of these products individually including
their origin, how they’re sold to unsuspecting (and sometimes quite
sophisticated) investors, the benefits of each (there are benefits, believe
it or not) and the downsides.
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/dont-mix-insurance-and-investing/
A wise physician will have a solid insurance plan and a solid investing plan
. But she shouldn’t mix the two. Remember the combination TV/VCRs?
Seemed like a great idea initially. But then you ended up with the worst of
both worlds, and when one of them broke, the other became useless. It’s
the same with investing. Instead of providing some kind of synergy by
mixing the two, you end up with the worst of both worlds.
These “products” go by different names- cash value life insurance, whole
life insurance, universal life insurance, variable life insurance, variable
universal life insurance, variable annuities, equity-indexed annuities,
deferred fixed annuities…the list goes on and on. A large percentage of
doctors (including myself) have been suckered into one or more of these at
one point or another. Why does that happen? I think there are a number of
reasons:
Lack of financial sophistication – As we’ve discussed previously, doctors
aren’t exactly in the same category as accountants when it comes to
knowledge of the financial world. This knowledge gap handicaps them when
they go to make financial decisions. They are too trusting, too naive, too
worried about things that don’t matter, and not worried enough about things
that do. Even simple financial cliches that most investors know (such as
“Don’t Mix Insurance and Investing” and “Buy Term and Invest the
Difference”) can be profound revelations to a doctor who just spent a
decade worth of 80 hour weeks inside the hospital walls. These products are
purposely made to be very complex. They are NOT simple to understand, and
when an investor points out issues with it, the salesman will quickly move
on to another feature of the product. The complexity always favors the
issuer, not the buyer.
Mistaking an insurance salesman for a qualified investment adviser –
Everyone markets themselves as a financial advisor or a financial planner
these days, no matter what their qualifications. Insurance salesmen, stock
brokers, and mutual fund salesmen like to take advantage of the fact that
they know just a little more than you. Unfortunately, most of their
training is in sales, which means they can make whatever product they happen
to profit from look extremely attractive to you. Learn more about
selecting and checking up on your advisor here.
Belief that doctors need to invest differently than everyone else – We like
to think we’re special, and in some ways we are. We have highly
specialized skills allowing for relatively high salaries with
correspondingly high tax burdens, we have high debt burdens, we have a
significant delay to the start of our earnings, and we are big targets for
litigation, both malpractice and non-malpractice. When financial
salespeople tell us we’re different and special, that makes us feel special
(and better). But you know what, 95% of what we need to do financially is
no different from any other middle class investor. And for nearly all
physicians, the additional benefits of a mixed insurance/investment are not
worth their costs. Most of the benefits are either unnecessary or available
in a less expensive manner.
Belief that insurance products provide asset protection benefits not
available in other ways – Advisors are quick to point out that the cash
value of a life insurance policy or the value of an annuity is protected
from malpractice and other litigation. What they usually fail to point out
is that so are your 401Ks, IRAs, and sometimes a great deal of your home
equity.
Belief that insurance products provide estate planning benefits not
available in other ways – The salesman also love to illustrate how life
insurance proceeds are estate tax-free. Of course, hardly any Americans (
including physicians) pay estate taxes at all. A typical married physician
has to leave behind more than $10 Million at his death to pay ANY estate tax
. Most doctors will never have that amount of assets. Estate tax law can
change at any time, of course. It wasn’t that long ago that the exempt
amount was only $1 Million. But through gifting and trusts there are ways
to eliminate or minimize that burden without paying for overly expensive
insurance.
Belief that insurance products provide tax benefits not available in other
ways – I am appalled at how many physicians don’t max out retirement
accounts such as 401Ks and IRAs before “investing” in life insurance. The
tax benefits of a 401K exceed those of cash value life insurance. Not only
do you get the tax-free growth over the years, but you also get an upfront
tax deduction. Cash value life insurance doesn’t offer that. Don’t
expect to learn that from someone who sells it though. Even fully taxable
investment accounts provide some tax benefits not available in an insurance
product.
Misunderstanding the value of a guarantee – Most of these products come
with some kind of a guarantee. It might be a certain amount of guaranteed
value at some point down the road, some kind of guaranteed minimum growth
rate, or a guaranteed amount payable at death, but I can assure you there
will be some kind of guaranteed benefit. Is there a value to that guarantee
? Of course, and it seems especially valuable in times of high market
volatility or political uncertainty. However, in nearly every case the
buyer is overpaying for that guarantee. The complexity favors the seller,
not the buyer.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping insurance costs down – As
these products become more and more complex, they become less and less like
commodities. Commodities are all the same and are sold based on price. If
a company sells a variable annuity that is different from every other
variable annuity on the market, it becomes very difficult, bordering on
impossible, to compare competing products and the investor usually ends up
with the one that pays the biggest commission to the salesman. Each of these
products have some type of an insurance component. The insurance company
can charge whatever it wants for that. If you have no way of determining
what the insurance cost should be, how will you know if you’re being ripped
off? You won’t, and you are.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping investment costs down – To
make matters worse, the investment component is also often overpriced.
Variable life insurance and variable annuities in particular place your
money into the equivalent of mutual funds, except they are managed by the
insurance company. The company not only doesn’t hire very good managers (
why would it, no one buying the fund is looking very closely at them), but
it also overcharges for them. The expense ratios on these variable annuity
“funds” are some of the highest I’ve seen. They can range from 1.5% to 3
% or even higher. That’s 10 times what you’d pay for a mutual fund at
Vanguard, even an actively-managed one.
Misunderstanding of the value of liquidity – One of the biggest downsides
of these insurance products is the lack of liquidity. A pretty good rule of
thumb in investing is to never buy something that you can’t look the price
up in the Wall Street Journal every day. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
can generally be sold any day the market is open. You can “go to cash”
any time you want. This allows you access to your money to invest it
elsewhere, spend it, or give it away. Insurance products always limit your
liquidity. In fact, the only ways you can access your cash in most products
is to “borrow” from your policy (which has its downsides, including
sometimes causing the policy to fail) or to surrender it completely, often
for much less than what the “cash value” is supposed to be. Liquidity has
a value, and far too often insurance product investors give it away for
nothing.
In future posts I’ll discuss each of these products individually including
their origin, how they’re sold to unsuspecting (and sometimes quite
sophisticated) investors, the benefits of each (there are benefits, believe
it or not) and the downsides.
H*t
10 楼
whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
l*x
11 楼
whole life 好象在遗产税上有很大的优势。
【在 H******t 的大作中提到】
: whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
: MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
【在 H******t 的大作中提到】
: whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
: MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
a*o
12 楼
我看了下,觉得是个不错的产品呀,是因为太简单,还是里面有什么trick?很少有人讨论?
s*z
13 楼
whole life insurance is bad for 99.9% of people!
get term!
论?
get term!
论?
a*o
14 楼
能详细说下bad是在哪吗？
【在 s********z 的大作中提到】
: whole life insurance is bad for 99.9% of people!
: get term!
:
: 论?
【在 s********z 的大作中提到】
: whole life insurance is bad for 99.9% of people!
: get term!
:
: 论?
d*g
15 楼
作为whole life,是需要一直交premium,直到pass away或98/99岁policy mature.
premium是fixed. 它有cash value,但从里面loan 出来的利息比较高,用起来不大灵活
。好处是肯定有拿到钱的那一天，家人有个保障。现在whole life 基本是已经过时。
如果寻求终身保护，有别的产品可以选择，比如VUL, IUL/GIUL, GDBUL，同样的投入可
以获得更大的产出，具体看你的目的是什么。
Good luck
【在 a******o 的大作中提到】
: 能详细说下bad是在哪吗？
premium是fixed. 它有cash value,但从里面loan 出来的利息比较高,用起来不大灵活
。好处是肯定有拿到钱的那一天，家人有个保障。现在whole life 基本是已经过时。
如果寻求终身保护，有别的产品可以选择，比如VUL, IUL/GIUL, GDBUL，同样的投入可
以获得更大的产出，具体看你的目的是什么。
Good luck
【在 a******o 的大作中提到】
: 能详细说下bad是在哪吗？
j*y
16 楼
don't mix insurance and investment
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/dont-mix-insurance-and-investing/
A wise physician will have a solid insurance plan and a solid investing plan
. But she shouldn’t mix the two. Remember the combination TV/VCRs?
Seemed like a great idea initially. But then you ended up with the worst of
both worlds, and when one of them broke, the other became useless. It’s
the same with investing. Instead of providing some kind of synergy by
mixing the two, you end up with the worst of both worlds.
These “products” go by different names- cash value life insurance, whole
life insurance, universal life insurance, variable life insurance, variable
universal life insurance, variable annuities, equity-indexed annuities,
deferred fixed annuities…the list goes on and on. A large percentage of
doctors (including myself) have been suckered into one or more of these at
one point or another. Why does that happen? I think there are a number of
reasons:
Lack of financial sophistication – As we’ve discussed previously, doctors
aren’t exactly in the same category as accountants when it comes to
knowledge of the financial world. This knowledge gap handicaps them when
they go to make financial decisions. They are too trusting, too naive, too
worried about things that don’t matter, and not worried enough about things
that do. Even simple financial cliches that most investors know (such as
“Don’t Mix Insurance and Investing” and “Buy Term and Invest the
Difference”) can be profound revelations to a doctor who just spent a
decade worth of 80 hour weeks inside the hospital walls. These products are
purposely made to be very complex. They are NOT simple to understand, and
when an investor points out issues with it, the salesman will quickly move
on to another feature of the product. The complexity always favors the
issuer, not the buyer.
Mistaking an insurance salesman for a qualified investment adviser –
Everyone markets themselves as a financial advisor or a financial planner
these days, no matter what their qualifications. Insurance salesmen, stock
brokers, and mutual fund salesmen like to take advantage of the fact that
they know just a little more than you. Unfortunately, most of their
training is in sales, which means they can make whatever product they happen
to profit from look extremely attractive to you. Learn more about
selecting and checking up on your advisor here.
Belief that doctors need to invest differently than everyone else – We like
to think we’re special, and in some ways we are. We have highly
specialized skills allowing for relatively high salaries with
correspondingly high tax burdens, we have high debt burdens, we have a
significant delay to the start of our earnings, and we are big targets for
litigation, both malpractice and non-malpractice. When financial
salespeople tell us we’re different and special, that makes us feel special
(and better). But you know what, 95% of what we need to do financially is
no different from any other middle class investor. And for nearly all
physicians, the additional benefits of a mixed insurance/investment are not
worth their costs. Most of the benefits are either unnecessary or available
in a less expensive manner.
Belief that insurance products provide asset protection benefits not
available in other ways – Advisors are quick to point out that the cash
value of a life insurance policy or the value of an annuity is protected
from malpractice and other litigation. What they usually fail to point out
is that so are your 401Ks, IRAs, and sometimes a great deal of your home
equity.
Belief that insurance products provide estate planning benefits not
available in other ways – The salesman also love to illustrate how life
insurance proceeds are estate tax-free. Of course, hardly any Americans (
including physicians) pay estate taxes at all. A typical married physician
has to leave behind more than $10 Million at his death to pay ANY estate tax
. Most doctors will never have that amount of assets. Estate tax law can
change at any time, of course. It wasn’t that long ago that the exempt
amount was only $1 Million. But through gifting and trusts there are ways
to eliminate or minimize that burden without paying for overly expensive
insurance.
Belief that insurance products provide tax benefits not available in other
ways – I am appalled at how many physicians don’t max out retirement
accounts such as 401Ks and IRAs before “investing” in life insurance. The
tax benefits of a 401K exceed those of cash value life insurance. Not only
do you get the tax-free growth over the years, but you also get an upfront
tax deduction. Cash value life insurance doesn’t offer that. Don’t
expect to learn that from someone who sells it though. Even fully taxable
investment accounts provide some tax benefits not available in an insurance
product.
Misunderstanding the value of a guarantee – Most of these products come
with some kind of a guarantee. It might be a certain amount of guaranteed
value at some point down the road, some kind of guaranteed minimum growth
rate, or a guaranteed amount payable at death, but I can assure you there
will be some kind of guaranteed benefit. Is there a value to that guarantee
? Of course, and it seems especially valuable in times of high market
volatility or political uncertainty. However, in nearly every case the
buyer is overpaying for that guarantee. The complexity favors the seller,
not the buyer.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping insurance costs down – As
these products become more and more complex, they become less and less like
commodities. Commodities are all the same and are sold based on price. If
a company sells a variable annuity that is different from every other
variable annuity on the market, it becomes very difficult, bordering on
impossible, to compare competing products and the investor usually ends up
with the one that pays the biggest commission to the salesman. Each of these
products have some type of an insurance component. The insurance company
can charge whatever it wants for that. If you have no way of determining
what the insurance cost should be, how will you know if you’re being ripped
off? You won’t, and you are.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping investment costs down – To
make matters worse, the investment component is also often overpriced.
Variable life insurance and variable annuities in particular place your
money into the equivalent of mutual funds, except they are managed by the
insurance company. The company not only doesn’t hire very good managers (
why would it, no one buying the fund is looking very closely at them), but
it also overcharges for them. The expense ratios on these variable annuity
“funds” are some of the highest I’ve seen. They can range from 1.5% to 3
% or even higher. That’s 10 times what you’d pay for a mutual fund at
Vanguard, even an actively-managed one.
Misunderstanding of the value of liquidity – One of the biggest downsides
of these insurance products is the lack of liquidity. A pretty good rule of
thumb in investing is to never buy something that you can’t look the price
up in the Wall Street Journal every day. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
can generally be sold any day the market is open. You can “go to cash”
any time you want. This allows you access to your money to invest it
elsewhere, spend it, or give it away. Insurance products always limit your
liquidity. In fact, the only ways you can access your cash in most products
is to “borrow” from your policy (which has its downsides, including
sometimes causing the policy to fail) or to surrender it completely, often
for much less than what the “cash value” is supposed to be. Liquidity has
a value, and far too often insurance product investors give it away for
nothing.
In future posts I’ll discuss each of these products individually including
their origin, how they’re sold to unsuspecting (and sometimes quite
sophisticated) investors, the benefits of each (there are benefits, believe
it or not) and the downsides.
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/dont-mix-insurance-and-investing/
A wise physician will have a solid insurance plan and a solid investing plan
. But she shouldn’t mix the two. Remember the combination TV/VCRs?
Seemed like a great idea initially. But then you ended up with the worst of
both worlds, and when one of them broke, the other became useless. It’s
the same with investing. Instead of providing some kind of synergy by
mixing the two, you end up with the worst of both worlds.
These “products” go by different names- cash value life insurance, whole
life insurance, universal life insurance, variable life insurance, variable
universal life insurance, variable annuities, equity-indexed annuities,
deferred fixed annuities…the list goes on and on. A large percentage of
doctors (including myself) have been suckered into one or more of these at
one point or another. Why does that happen? I think there are a number of
reasons:
Lack of financial sophistication – As we’ve discussed previously, doctors
aren’t exactly in the same category as accountants when it comes to
knowledge of the financial world. This knowledge gap handicaps them when
they go to make financial decisions. They are too trusting, too naive, too
worried about things that don’t matter, and not worried enough about things
that do. Even simple financial cliches that most investors know (such as
“Don’t Mix Insurance and Investing” and “Buy Term and Invest the
Difference”) can be profound revelations to a doctor who just spent a
decade worth of 80 hour weeks inside the hospital walls. These products are
purposely made to be very complex. They are NOT simple to understand, and
when an investor points out issues with it, the salesman will quickly move
on to another feature of the product. The complexity always favors the
issuer, not the buyer.
Mistaking an insurance salesman for a qualified investment adviser –
Everyone markets themselves as a financial advisor or a financial planner
these days, no matter what their qualifications. Insurance salesmen, stock
brokers, and mutual fund salesmen like to take advantage of the fact that
they know just a little more than you. Unfortunately, most of their
training is in sales, which means they can make whatever product they happen
to profit from look extremely attractive to you. Learn more about
selecting and checking up on your advisor here.
Belief that doctors need to invest differently than everyone else – We like
to think we’re special, and in some ways we are. We have highly
specialized skills allowing for relatively high salaries with
correspondingly high tax burdens, we have high debt burdens, we have a
significant delay to the start of our earnings, and we are big targets for
litigation, both malpractice and non-malpractice. When financial
salespeople tell us we’re different and special, that makes us feel special
(and better). But you know what, 95% of what we need to do financially is
no different from any other middle class investor. And for nearly all
physicians, the additional benefits of a mixed insurance/investment are not
worth their costs. Most of the benefits are either unnecessary or available
in a less expensive manner.
Belief that insurance products provide asset protection benefits not
available in other ways – Advisors are quick to point out that the cash
value of a life insurance policy or the value of an annuity is protected
from malpractice and other litigation. What they usually fail to point out
is that so are your 401Ks, IRAs, and sometimes a great deal of your home
equity.
Belief that insurance products provide estate planning benefits not
available in other ways – The salesman also love to illustrate how life
insurance proceeds are estate tax-free. Of course, hardly any Americans (
including physicians) pay estate taxes at all. A typical married physician
has to leave behind more than $10 Million at his death to pay ANY estate tax
. Most doctors will never have that amount of assets. Estate tax law can
change at any time, of course. It wasn’t that long ago that the exempt
amount was only $1 Million. But through gifting and trusts there are ways
to eliminate or minimize that burden without paying for overly expensive
insurance.
Belief that insurance products provide tax benefits not available in other
ways – I am appalled at how many physicians don’t max out retirement
accounts such as 401Ks and IRAs before “investing” in life insurance. The
tax benefits of a 401K exceed those of cash value life insurance. Not only
do you get the tax-free growth over the years, but you also get an upfront
tax deduction. Cash value life insurance doesn’t offer that. Don’t
expect to learn that from someone who sells it though. Even fully taxable
investment accounts provide some tax benefits not available in an insurance
product.
Misunderstanding the value of a guarantee – Most of these products come
with some kind of a guarantee. It might be a certain amount of guaranteed
value at some point down the road, some kind of guaranteed minimum growth
rate, or a guaranteed amount payable at death, but I can assure you there
will be some kind of guaranteed benefit. Is there a value to that guarantee
? Of course, and it seems especially valuable in times of high market
volatility or political uncertainty. However, in nearly every case the
buyer is overpaying for that guarantee. The complexity favors the seller,
not the buyer.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping insurance costs down – As
these products become more and more complex, they become less and less like
commodities. Commodities are all the same and are sold based on price. If
a company sells a variable annuity that is different from every other
variable annuity on the market, it becomes very difficult, bordering on
impossible, to compare competing products and the investor usually ends up
with the one that pays the biggest commission to the salesman. Each of these
products have some type of an insurance component. The insurance company
can charge whatever it wants for that. If you have no way of determining
what the insurance cost should be, how will you know if you’re being ripped
off? You won’t, and you are.
Misunderstanding of the importance of keeping investment costs down – To
make matters worse, the investment component is also often overpriced.
Variable life insurance and variable annuities in particular place your
money into the equivalent of mutual funds, except they are managed by the
insurance company. The company not only doesn’t hire very good managers (
why would it, no one buying the fund is looking very closely at them), but
it also overcharges for them. The expense ratios on these variable annuity
“funds” are some of the highest I’ve seen. They can range from 1.5% to 3
% or even higher. That’s 10 times what you’d pay for a mutual fund at
Vanguard, even an actively-managed one.
Misunderstanding of the value of liquidity – One of the biggest downsides
of these insurance products is the lack of liquidity. A pretty good rule of
thumb in investing is to never buy something that you can’t look the price
up in the Wall Street Journal every day. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
can generally be sold any day the market is open. You can “go to cash”
any time you want. This allows you access to your money to invest it
elsewhere, spend it, or give it away. Insurance products always limit your
liquidity. In fact, the only ways you can access your cash in most products
is to “borrow” from your policy (which has its downsides, including
sometimes causing the policy to fail) or to surrender it completely, often
for much less than what the “cash value” is supposed to be. Liquidity has
a value, and far too often insurance product investors give it away for
nothing.
In future posts I’ll discuss each of these products individually including
their origin, how they’re sold to unsuspecting (and sometimes quite
sophisticated) investors, the benefits of each (there are benefits, believe
it or not) and the downsides.
H*t
17 楼
whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
l*x
18 楼
whole life 好象在遗产税上有很大的优势。
【在 H******t 的大作中提到】
: whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
: MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
【在 H******t 的大作中提到】
: whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
: MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
l*r
19 楼
MEC是什么？
【在 H******t 的大作中提到】
: whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
: MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
【在 H******t 的大作中提到】
: whole life有dividend, tax-free, whole life 可以loan, 可以withdraw，只要不是
: MEC, 就可以tax-free。楼主应该再研究研究 我个人觉得whole life 还是很不错的。
S*s
20 楼
国会限制买太多， 因为它是一大避税壳。一旦买太多， 国会就把它算作变相的赠与合
同。楼上有的人显然不太明白这个东西。
不懂别买， 不需要别买， 没钱别买， 要和家庭其它财政状况结合起来计算分析之后
才能买（别单独买它）。
真正要买， 找我， 我用软件计算， 有NY 牌照。
【在 l**********r 的大作中提到】
: MEC是什么？
同。楼上有的人显然不太明白这个东西。
不懂别买， 不需要别买， 没钱别买， 要和家庭其它财政状况结合起来计算分析之后
才能买（别单独买它）。
真正要买， 找我， 我用软件计算， 有NY 牌照。
【在 l**********r 的大作中提到】
: MEC是什么？
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