Accessing $400,000 through existing policy loans

The situation

After watching client money drop by half in 2002 and again in 2008, Scott stopped accepting that market risk was the price of growth. Most advisors sell whole life for the death benefit and design it that way. He noticed the opposite design was available: push the coverage down to the minimum and push the cash contribution up to the CRA exempt limit, and the same contract becomes a place to keep cash you can reach. So he funded four of them on himself for about 15 years and got to $523,000. Then in 2022 his daughter was diagnosed with chordoma at the base of her skull, and after surgeries in Halifax and a failed radiation attempt they found the best surgeon for it in Pittsburgh, who needed $275,000 US paid in full before he would schedule anything.

What the advisor describes

• $523,000 of cash value across four participating whole life policies, built over about 15 years.
• $400,000 ordered, not applied for. No forms, no credit check, nobody to approve it.
• $290,000 in his account in 3 days, the rest by day 5, and surgery booked inside a month.
• The cash value kept growing with the loan outstanding, because the insurer lends against the policy.

Where it left them

His daughter had surgery within a month, finished radiation in October 2023, and is thriving almost three years out. Scott never refinanced the house, never touched the cottage and never sold the business, and the money inside the policies kept growing while the $400,000 was outstanding. This only worked because the money was already there: he had funded those policies for about 15 years before he needed a dollar of it, so a policy in year two or three has almost nothing to order against and this does nothing for anyone who needs cash this year.

Scott Gannon

Magnify Wealth

Nova Scotia · Preserve Wealth Group network