Why Real Estate Investors Should Stop Parking Cash and Use Whole Life Insurance Strategically

Tom Laune (00:00)
Because really the three places that you’re using your money is number one, it’s growing in the policy. Number two, you were able to use it for the same money as collateral. You’re able to pledge and use a borrowed funds from the life insurance company for your investments.

And as long as you’re making more money on your investment, then you’re paying an interest to the life insurance company, then you’re making a really high rate of return. And I can show people how to make 200 % rate of return on their capital if they know what they’re doing.

Michelle Tack (02:04)
Hi, welcome to Real Estate Investors fueled by investorfuel.com. We’re psyched to have another great operator with us today, and that is Tom Laune who has particular subject matter expertise of how to use capital by insurance while you’re awaiting to purchase additional real estate or

commercial or residential. So Tom, I was really impressed by your knowledge of, obviously, three key items in terms of how you can invest that money. But I want to hear from you. Maybe you could tell us what you really believe your biggest strength is, as you explained it to me previous to us getting on today.

Tom Laune (02:54)
Sure. Well, thank you so much, Michelle, for having me on your show today. I’m really excited to be able to talk to you and go over all this stuff. There’s there’s a lot going on right now in the world today, and people have to be trying to figure out ways to use their capital as efficiently as possible. And that’s what I try to teach real estate investors is just leaving money sitting in a bank account, waiting for a deal to come along is not going to cut it anymore because

Michelle Tack (03:22)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Laune (03:23)
You just are not using your money in a way that gives you the most benefit. And I try to teach people how to use money at three places at the same time. And I want to go all through that with you and explain to you what those three places are. But one of the things I think it would be important to do is to explain how in the world I got into this thing because

It is definitely a roundabout path. And the name of my company is called Bulletproof Wealth. And so I call it Bulletproof Wealth, right? Because I started 29 years in the music industry. Okay. So I was in music as a mix engineer and producer working with, and I know this is going to be like a wild, like what the heck, but I was working with some of the largest names in the music industry. And I’m talking Bruce Springsteen.

Michelle Tack (03:53)
Police!

Tom Laune (04:18)
I’m talking REM, ⁓ I’m just Stevie Ray Vaughan, some of the really, really big names. And after 29 years, I started losing hearing in one ear. And I literally, I was a mix engineer and could not do my job. And so I was like, well, now what am I gonna do? And about 10 or 15 years prior to that happening,

Michelle Tack (04:20)
huh.

my gosh.

Tom Laune (04:42)
I had somebody recommend me getting long-term disability insurance. And what that does is it pays you income if you’re unable to work at your primary occupation. That’s what the writer called an own occupation policy writer. So I had that and I had five years to figure out what I was going to do. And I decided to go back to school and really try to figure out how to help people protect their wealth.

that is how.

I ended up getting a, got four financial designations, a chartered financial consultant right now. I’m a chartered life underwriter, a chartered special needs consultant and a retirement income planning specialist. So in terms of credentials, I’ve spent years and years and years educating myself to really knowing what is all out there. And when I’m, when I came across this strategy of utilizing your money three places at once, I was absolutely blown away.

that what I thought at the time, not that many people were doing. And then I found out later, ⁓ yeah, a lot of people are doing it, but they’re all just really wealthy people. So I’m trying to bring some of these wealthy people concepts through going through all those years of education down to the average real estate investor that might be listening to this show.

Michelle Tack (06:38)
Yeah

So that’s your main focus and we’ll unpack those items of how you do it, the investment vehicles. Do you operate all across the United States or are you more regionally based?

Tom Laune (06:59)
So yeah, all across the United States, the only state I don’t really operate in much and it’s just because of the crazy regulations is the state of New York, but every other 49 states, I’m all about it. Yes.

Michelle Tack (07:12)
So let me ask ⁓ you, what’s kept your business running smoothly? Talk us through these investment vehicles, how you’re able to convince folks that this is great asset.

Tom Laune (07:29)
Yeah.

So I go all over the country and speak at real estate investment conferences. last this last weekend, I spoke, spoke for a really amazing group of people who specialize in note investing, which is one of the more niche nuanced areas of the real estate investing world is, buying and selling notes and partial notes and note portfolios and

Michelle Tack (07:35)
awesome.

Tom Laune (07:55)
non-performing notes, performing loads, notes. mean, just, I learned so much because I like to go to the conference while I’m speaking at it and take in as much information as possible. So a couple of weeks before that, was speaking to a group of, multifamily investors. And then, you know, just recently I spent a week in Mexico speaking to a mastermind group that has, ⁓

Michelle Tack (08:04)
Sure.

great.

Tom Laune (08:22)
They do fix and flipping mostly and wholesaling. So really I work in all the different investment, real estate investment markets. And one of the unique things about real estate investors that I love, okay, this is why I’m in the real estate investment market is that they typically want to have control of their money. They don’t want somebody else managing it for them because they’re interested in how to invest themselves, right?

Michelle Tack (08:24)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Tom Laune (08:51)
And that’s what differentiates them. And that’s where I have found my niche in working with people. And so that is how come my business has worked so smoothly. That was the answer to your question is because I found who needs my help. And then I do everything I can to help them as much as I possibly can.

Michelle Tack (09:09)
Okay, I’m gonna ask you another question and then maybe you wanna talk after that. We’ll bring up the details of the three areas that you helped folks in. But before we do that, can you talk about a time that, know, no business is perfect, right? If it was, know, even Elon Musk has problems. And Jeff Bezos, maybe more than we wanna talk about on this call. But.

Tom Laune (09:18)
Sure. Yeah.

Elon Musk has plenty of problems.

He just

doesn’t get daunted by them. That’s the thing, man. Whatever it is, he just overcomes it.

Michelle Tack (09:38)
That’s it. Yeah, just keep on plowing ahead. But one of

the things I wanted to if you could give an example to some of the folks that you know would like to learn from you and then also investors, some of the things that you’ve done, one example is fine, of where things got a little tough, but you’re able to pivot quick enough in how you addressed a situation that was a challenge.

Tom Laune (10:37)
Okay. So the things that the times for me, when things get tough is when somebody is going through the process of trying to get onboarded and then something comes up to snag it, which that just happened last week, by the way. And what I do is I work extremely closely, ⁓ with the companies that I do business, a lot of business with. So I was able to literally pull some strings, call the company.

Michelle Tack (10:53)
well.

Tom Laune (11:06)
talk to the people in charge and say, look, this is the problem, let’s get through it. And that really is what differentiates me from a lot of people doing what I do, is that I have relationships with the top management of these companies that they listen and they are responsive and they do try to help me out if at all possible. And in this case, they were able to make an exception, which was really, really great.

Michelle Tack (11:09)
Mm-hmm.

That’s excellent.

Tom Laune (11:32)
So that is

something that happens and that is what differentiates somebody who does this day in and day out at a really high level versus somebody who dabbles in what I do. Does that make sense?

Michelle Tack (11:42)
Yeah, you’re willing to,

absolutely, you’re willing to get in there with your proverbial, you know, long sleeves rolled up and, you know, make things happen because, you know, you know, there’s a reason, right, that we need to, you know, rely on others that we don’t necessarily have that expertise or that contact. Before I ask you the last question, I have a,

Tom Laune (12:04)
Yes.

Michelle Tack (12:07)
question in between is, can you discuss for and educate those that are listening that have interest ⁓ about the vehicles that you use, those three vehicles that you had mentioned to me earlier in our pre podcast.

Tom Laune (12:17)
Sure. Yeah. So honestly,

it’s one vehicle and that is whole life insurance. And it is accomplishes three uses for your money at the same time. And it is absolutely incredible what it can do. And I know the minute somebody hears whole life insurance, a lot of times there’s an initial negative connotation because they have heard certain popular, ⁓

Michelle Tack (12:28)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Tom Laune (12:45)
you know, radio talk show hosts say it’s a terrible investment, blah, blah, blah. The reality is, is that it’s not an investment at all. And I don’t position it as an investment. I position it as an alternative to where you save money while you’re waiting for your investment opportunity to come along. OK. And just so you know, wealthy people put lots of money into life insurance. In fact, one of the things we were discussing on the call.

was that Trump’s nomination for incoming sec chairman, Paul Atkins turns out he’s got 54 life insurance policies, right? So it is crazy. It is unbelievable. And I was like, my gosh, this guy obviously extremely financially sophisticated. They know that this is a great place to save money. It’s a great place to store your wealth.

Michelle Tack (13:20)
That’s crazy, right? ⁓

Tom Laune (13:38)
because of all of the amazing benefits you get when it’s properly designed and structured. So just to give you an idea, you have tax advantaged growth inside the policy, both guaranteed and non-guaranteed. And the non-guaranteed portion comes through dividends. But the dividends, for example, the main company that I work with was started in 1847, and they’ve never…

failed to pay a dividend since then. So I’m talking about through the Civil War, World War I, World War II, never missed a dividend ever. And they’ve been around for, you know, 180 years almost. It’s just unbelievable. So you’re going to have this dividend growth, you’re going to have guaranteed growth on your money, and that money is not going to be charged taxes on the gains if you do it correctly, which if you listen to the way I teach people,

they are doing it correctly, which is you distribute your basis or the money you put into it in retirement first, then you build up collateralized loans and you pay off the loans with the life insurance at the end of your life. And then you never pay tax on it if you do it that way. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah.

Michelle Tack (14:52)
That’s interesting. That makes a lot of sense. ⁓

What would you say as we wrap up here, what’s the next real goal for yourself in the business? You know, as you think about, I don’t know, six months or a year from now?

Tom Laune (15:04)
Well, I’m

My goal is always to try to help as many people as possible really understand this because I really do love teaching this and I love helping people get it in place and and really understanding these financial concepts and they are a little bit challenging for people who’ve never heard them for the first time. So I have a lot of education that I’ve created and curated myself from speaking at conferences and I usually have those conferences recorded.

So I have the ability, I’ve built up a library of educational videos to be able to train people on how to actually do this. Okay. And what are all the components of it?

Michelle Tack (16:26)
That’s good.

Tom Laune (16:28)
Because really the three places that you’re using your money is number one, it’s growing in the policy. Number two, you were able to use it for the same money as collateral. You’re able to pledge and use a borrowed funds from the life insurance company for your investments.

And as long as you’re making more money on your investment, then you’re paying an interest to the life insurance company, then you’re making a really high rate of return. And I can show people how to make 200 % rate of return on their capital if they know what they’re doing.

And the third place is, is you don’t have to buy term insurance. So that’s the third use of the capital. So it’s using your money three places at once. It’s simple. My goal is to help as many people as possible. I try.

to limit that to about a hundred per year is my capacity. So I, it’s not like I can help, you know, thousand people. Yeah, I can’t do everyone, but I do want to make sure that I can at least get to those 100 and build that. And I think that if I can do that, I would have met my goal.

Michelle Tack (17:19)
Mm-hmm.

everyone. Yep.

Well, you’ve been very clear. ⁓ Before we go, how are you using or leveraging any ⁓ networking or building relationships out there that have helped you grow your business?

Tom Laune (17:48)
my goodness. The most important thing I would say as a piece of advice is basically this little statement. Nothing good happens in the office. Okay. Get you, you have to get out and meet people. just have to. And for example, last weekend at this conference, I met so many amazing, you know, attorneys and investors and people.

Michelle Tack (18:02)
Yeah, yep

Tom Laune (18:13)
that we’re coming to this conference that we’re flying in from all different parts of the country, I cannot understate the value of finding a good conference of like-minded people and going to the same one every year because you develop long-term relationships as well. you know, and meeting people in person, it’s just a totally different thing than just doing all these virtual online events. So, I mean…

Michelle Tack (18:37)
Absolutely.

Tom Laune (18:40)
The more virtual we go, think the more real life contact means something to somebody, you know?

Michelle Tack (18:48)
Tom, I 100 % agree with that. mean, you know, it’s changed over a period of time with COVID. And as I mentioned to you, had a 25 year career in high tech prior to really getting to my love here, which I had done some before. But I went from going to flying to places and meeting people to Zoom calls during COVID, which created actually more work because there was no, you know, in between time.

Tom Laune (19:03)
Yes.

Michelle Tack (19:15)
You know, the one thing is you well know in your business, people have to trust you and the best way for someone to trust you is look you in the eye and hear what you have to say and have you listen to them. So look, we, I’m really, ⁓ psyched that you were here today. Before we go, can you give the team that will, the folks that come and listen to our podcasts, your information, should they want to contact you?

Tom Laune (19:20)
Yeah.

100%.

Sure. So my website is bulletproofwealth.info bulletproofwealth.info and you can sign up there and get access to those free videos. Okay. It doesn’t cost anything and you can watch videos till you really feel like you have an understanding. And then on that free video page, you can then click a button and book a time to talk with me.

Michelle Tack (19:54)
Awesome.

Tom Laune (20:06)
So once you feel like you have questions built up, then I will get on the phone with you and answer all your questions. And that’s the best way to get me is go to BulletproofWealth.info and just basically sign up for the videos and then book a call. And I love talking with people. So, and there’s no cost to do any of this.

Michelle Tack (20:26)
That’s great. Tom Laune, I really appreciate your time. And for those that join the podcast, please make sure that you subscribe to Real Estate Pros via investorfuel.com to continue to avail yourself with great content. Tom, many thanks. Bye bye. Take care.

Tom Laune (20:44)
Thank you, Michelle. Take care.