At Last, You Can Earn 15.83% Average Annual Rate of Return Without "Wall Street" Risks

Earlier this year I wrote an article with a similar title.

One reader asked: "How can this be possible, because it sounds too good to be true."

Both the "'too-good-to-be-true" quote and the "How" question deserve answers. So, here goes.

Let's start by explaining the TIP investment.Chances are you have never heard of this investment. What is the investment? Life Settlements (LS) --- Also called Transferable Insurance Policy or TIP(s). The best way to understand how a TIP (TIPs is plural) works is by an example, which follows:

EXAMPLE: Joe, age 67, owns a life insurance policy with a 0,000 death benefit and a ,000 cash surrender value (CSV). Joe would like to stop paying premiums. Of course, he can cancel the policy and get the ,000 CSV from the insurance company. An investor (really a group of investors) buys Joe's policy for 0,000, paid in cash to Joe immediately. The investors now own the policy. The group of investors will receive the 0,000 death benefit when Joe dies. This transaction (Joe selling the policy and the investors buying it) is called LS. A TIP is a fractional interest in a LS. Let's say Rick is one of the investors. Say Rick invests 0,000. He will wind up with a diversified portfolio of TIPs (about 5 to 10). Each one of the TIPs will be a fractional interest in Joe's 0,000 policy, say 3 percent or ,000. This TIP (Joe's) will pay Rick exactly ,000 when Joe dies.

A public company (trades on the NASDAQ) invented TIPs. Twice a year the company publishes its average rate of return for the years (now 16) it has been in business.

A common question is, "What are the tax consequences of a TIP?" All taxes are deferred until the TIP is paid. In the above example, Rick would not have any taxable income. A TIP is always ordinary income. It is not payable until he receives the ,000. If Rick had invested his 0,000 from a qualified plan (401(k), profit-sharing, IRA or the like) the income would stay in the plan (like all other investments) and all income taxes deferred until funds are distributed to Rick.

First, a little background about the life insurance industry. There are basically two types of life insurance: permanent [has cash surrender value (CSV)] and term (no CSV). According to Milliman and Robertson, an international actuarial firm, 89.5% of Universal Life policies never result in a death claim. The policies are either surrendered, or worse, allowed to lapse. Note: Universal life is the most common type of permanent life insurance sold in the United States.

And what about term insurances? These facts are, although true, almost unbelievable: According to Tax Planning With Life Insurance, authored by Zaristky and Leimberger, Ten years after issue, there is only a 15 percent probability that at term policy will be in force at the insured's death. There is less than a 2 percent probability that term insurance bought twenty years before an insured's death will be in force. So, on average 93% of all life insurance policies sold never pay even in death benefits.

Amazing! Think about it, life insurance companies deposit premium dollars year after year and about 93% of the time keep all of the dollars, while the insured or his heirs get nothing in return. One exception, the policy owner terminates a policy by getting back the CSV. Long story short, LSs to the rescue. However, before the invention of TIPs, LSs were the sole profit playground of institutional investors: large companies with deep-cash pockets, like giant insurance companies (such as AIG and CNA).

Even Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway has been in the LS game for about 15 years and recently announced a 0 million loan to a new wholly owned subsidiary to invest in LSs. TIPs are the bridge that allows the little guy to get into the LS profit game.

Go back to Joe's LS/TIP example. If Joe had cashed in his policy for the ,000 CSV, the life insurance company would have been off of a 0,000 death benefit hook. It's easy to see why Joe is delighted with his 0,000 LS. Of course, the insurance company is anything but delighted and would like to keep LSs secret.

The pure economic fact is that the investor stands tall in the profit shoes of the insurance company. The investor stands to profit with a gross of 0,000 (0,000 death benefit less an acquisition cost of 0,000), reduced by future premiums (until Joe passes on). The LS side of the transaction with Joe is handled by the NASDAQ company, which then arranges for little-guy investors to purchase TIPs. The potential profit percentage calculated on each TIP investment is based on the projected life expectancy of each LS policy seller at about 16% plus.

Generally, the NASDAQ company only completes LSs where the insured's life expectancy is actuarially five years or less. The result of how a TIP transaction is structured allows the TIP investor to earn an average annual historic rate of return of 15.83%.

No worrying about "Wall Street" volatility or whether "The Market" goes up, sideways, or down.

Now you know how it's done.

You also know because of the strange economics (no death benefit are paid about 93% of the time) of the insurance industry and the ingenious way TIPs are structured that a 15.83% average annual rate of return is indeed, not too good to be true.

Advantages of Housing Loans Using SIBOR Rate

Advantages of Housing Loans Using SIBOR Rate

Home loans are some of the most common types of loans people apply for in order to purchase another property or to refinance a home renovation or rehabilitation project. There are many factors to consider before choosing a housing loan such as the amount of loan, which bank or institution to apply and the interest rates available. Choosing the interest rate for your home loan is very important since this factor will determine how much you are going to pay every month to pay off your loan. That is why many home buyers and investors prefer the lowest interest rate as possible in order to obtain lower monthly payment costs. One of the most common interest rates used as benchmark by various banks in Asia is the SIBOR rate or the Singapore Interbank Offered Rate.

Aside from Singapore, many countries in Asia also use SIBOR for their home loans. The Association of Banks in Singapore or the ABS is the main institution that sets the SIBOR rate every day. Since it is one of the most common benchmarks in the industry, it is important that people especially home buyers and borrowers have sufficient knowledge about this type of interest rate. Banks and lending companies use SIBOR rate because of its good qualities. One advantage of SIBOR against other types of variable interest rates is that it is more stable compared to the SOR which is another type of benchmark used by banks and lending institutions in Asia. SOR are only ideal for short term interest rates while SIBOR rate is more ideal for long term home loans. This is because SOR pegged home loans have lower initial interest rates but are very volatile and always fluctuating while SIBOR starts a little higher but do not fluctuate rapidly.

If you don't want to take risks with home loans pegged on variable interest rates, you can consider home loans based on fixed rates. Fixed interest rates are higher than variable rates since banks and lending companies are profit-driven institutions and they operate by securing their profits and reducing possible losses. With higher fixed rates, banks can minimize risk of losing money no matter what the economic condition and performance will be. Aside from being relatively high, fixed rates are also used by banks as promotional rates which are only applied at the initial years of the housing loan. After the initial years, the interest rate will be changed to the main benchmarks such as the SIBOR rate. Using fixed rates are only ideal if you want to have better comparison among home loan options and deals available to you.

Aside from the common benchmarks and fixed rates, some banks and lending institutions offer housing loans pegged on their own derived interest rate. Banks using these kinds of interest rates usually make changes on the rates if the factors affecting the rates also changes such as the supply and demand, real estate performance and other economic factors affecting their self-determined interest rate. Compared to SIBOR rate which is publicly available and can be easily monitored every day, changes to the interest rates determined by banks are only announced by giving notice to its clients.