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Show Summary
In this episode, Dylan Silver welcomes Reuben Lowing, the VP of All Into Life Financial and a Navy SEAL veteran, to discuss the intersection of real estate and financial services. Reuben shares his journey from the mortgage industry to financial services, highlighting the challenges he faced during the 2008 housing crisis. He emphasizes the importance of understanding financial products and strategies, particularly the ‘Bank on Life’ concept, which utilizes whole life insurance policies to create a personal banking system. This strategy allows individuals to leverage their life insurance for loans, providing a tax-free income stream in retirement while simultaneously building wealth through investments.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Reuben.lowing (00:00)
I had a client, the one guy who liquidated all of his real estate at the right time, like right before it crashed. I helped him buy 14 properties in 14 months.you know, he had, he ended up pocketing like 2 million in equity.
everybody else,
And I watched like $4 million in equity just evaporate, you know, because of the market.
Dylan Silver (02:03)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Reuben Lowing out of Houston, Texas is the VP of All Into Life Financial where they provide life insurance, mortgage protection, Medicare plans, and their powerful bank on life concept. has a background in mortgages and he also is a Navy SEAL veteran having served in the 80s and 90s, graduating in Bud’s class 141 and then serving in SEAL team four and SEAL team one. Reuben, thank you for taking the time today.Reuben.lowing (02:32)
Yeah, this is going to be interesting. Thanks for having me on.Dylan Silver (02:36)
When we talk about the intersection of real estate and financial services, you have an interesting background for this because you came from the mortgage realm prior to getting into financial services.Reuben.lowing (02:54)
Well…I first came into financial services in 2006 and I was heavy with construction lending because I didn’t like the no income, no asset verification loans that they were coming out with, the option arms. I’m like, that’s just trouble waiting to happen. So I switched to current construction lending just because I was getting construction loans coming at me from all different directions. ⁓ Comes to find out that civil engineers, land surveyors, general contractors,
like shooting and shootings were my hobby, right? And so that’s where I was getting it from. And that took the hit in 2006 when the housing market took, started taking the dive. And so where everybody else had 2008 was the big hiccup. For me, it started earlier. I started looking at, actually I got a call out of the blue and I’m seeing this presentation.
And they’re saying, okay, the baseline is, you know, that I’m eating my deli sandwich and drinking a soda and I’m eating chips and they’re showing baseline protection. I’m like, that’s a good idea. Next was, you know, debt management. had that under control. And then emergency fund. I’m like, that’s a good idea. And then the investments, I’m like, started thinking all these people that I’d helped get into houses. And I knew they were never going to have enough say to pay up that mortgage.
or they would get out of debt so they could have enough to be able to retire. And so I’m like, that’s what got me going right there. I already had a database of people to talk to. And then when I started, I worked a lot with real estate investors. And I didn’t cheat. I had this, my one…
I had a client, the one guy who liquidated all of his real estate at the right time, like right before it crashed.
I helped him buy 14 properties in 14 months. And he, you know, he had, he ended up pocketing like 2 million in equity.
And, ⁓ and he still had his, he had a single family and, ⁓ a four unit and a two unit, but they were free and clear. Right. So now, you he was the one guy, right? That he had a crystal ball or something that knew when to let it go. But everybody else, I saw them, I saw like one person had like 10 properties in California and 10 in Hawaii.
And I watched like $4 million in equity just evaporate, you know, because of the market.
Dylan Silver (06:39)
Now,when that was all going on, the global housing crisis, know from so many guests of this show, there was basically blood in the water in the mortgage space. had people prior to that, you know, making money, hand over fist, and then everything that is gone, businesses shutter, know, ⁓ brokerages close. What was that period of time like from someone in this space? ⁓ What was it a lot of, you know, people having to find new new
Reuben.lowing (06:52)
Yeah.Dylan Silver (07:09)
careers even and what was your experience going through that?Reuben.lowing (07:12)
Well, yeah. ⁓ so I was, God. So I was just transitioning to the financial services. Okay. You know, and of course, you know, have to, you know, they had to get your life and health series six 63. I haven’t passed the series 65 exam and, right November, 2007. So right before it all crashes is, you know,I’m locked and cocked, but things went crazy. was wild. ⁓ What was going on is they started really getting tight on the guidelines. You’d submit somebody for underage, take forever for them to give you an approval. They have to get a research for the appraisal because property values are just tanking, dropping like a stone. The programs would go away.
⁓ I had a whole bunch of files that all of sudden, and I pre-underwrite them before I even sent them in. I know I’m going to get the deal closed usually because I make sure that I’m not wasting my time. I don’t just throw mud on the wall. ⁓ they were like gone. They were all just, know, decline, decline, decline. But it wouldn’t even be that. The company would go out of business.
The company would just go away. started with the new century was the first one. And then, ⁓ world savings and then, ⁓
And then,
⁓ gosh, can’t remember the names. but they just started closing down. mean, it’s like then you had nobody talk to. You had nobody, because everybody, they’re all gone. They’re leaving, right? So that was, yeah, it’s like rats from a sinking ship.
Dylan Silver (09:09)
Wow.This is a good segue to this bank on life concept. And we were chatting before the show, Reuben, and I was mentioning this infinite banking concept. I’ve never heard of a bank on life concept. Can you break that down for us?
Reuben.lowing (09:34)
Well, yeah, okay, so I was telling you that I was like, so here’s what happens, and I wish I had a graphic to show you on here, but they’re on my website. MyBusinessIsYourBusiness.info. They’re all over that, okay? So what happens is you open up a whole life policy that’s big enough to overfund by the amount of debt servicewhether it’s their mortgage, their car payment, their lines of credit, credit cards, whatever, all right, and you have them overfund that policy. So you have what’s called the scheduled premium or target premium. That’s the least amount of premium you can pay to keep that policy alive. Then you add to it your debt service. So you can have a big enough policy that’ll let
that you can overfund it by that much. You pay your premium every month and then you borrow out of the policy, what’s called a wash. Okay, what that is, that’s how you get tax-free money in retirement is…
you take a policy loan. So what happens, you got a million dollars in your policy, you’re like, okay, I’m done working. I want $60,000 a year just to make the numbers easy. The insurance company, okay, so they take $5,000 a month out of your policy and they give you a credit of 5%. And then they put that money in the general fund of the insurance company. And when they pay you out of that, they pay you out as a loan charging you 5%. So that’s why you don’t pay taxes on loan proceeds, right?
And there’s no bill to pay because your death benefit will pay off the balance when you die.
Dylan Silver (12:00)
Now,I’ve got a question about this. At what point can you take a loan from this policy? I’m imagining there’s like a seasoning period once you’ve paid into it a certain amount. How many years in can you take out a loan?
Reuben.lowing (12:12)
It all depends on how you fund it. If you’re just funding it monthly, and you’re starting to build up after the first year, but if you’re front loading it, if you’re gonna pay, you you’re gonna put, you’re overfund it to the max, it’s called the seven pay limit, you can take money like right away.Dylan Silver (12:31)
Now, is this?Reuben.lowing (12:31)
You can’t getit all. You can’t get it all. They’re going to keep some of it back, right? But you can have access to what you overfund. They’ll have that. You’ll have access to that that you can borrow back.
Dylan Silver (12:46)
You’re essentially borrowing from the amount that you’ve put in, Not the value of the death benefit of the policy, right?Reuben.lowing (12:56)
That’s correct.Dylan Silver (12:57)
Okay, okay. And so when people talk about being able to secure themselves, oftentimes people think, well, I’m not really going to be able to take advantage of this because, you know, it’s a little bit morbid, but I’ve got to pass away for this, you know, financial windfall to happen. But in this bank on life concept, you’re able to actively benefit through securing, you know, your family’s financial future.Reuben.lowing (13:25)
That’s correct. I mean, so what happens, so I’m educating myself about this, right? And I stumble on a video of a guy, another veteran, Navy veteran, an officer, used his VA loan to buy his house. And he learned about this strategy. So he did the strategy to pay off his house, right? And then…Dylan Silver (13:28)
Yeah, and I want to.Reuben.lowing (13:52)
he ended up buying into a fitness franchise using the same strategy. Then he’s got like four fitness strategies and using, so he’s got like five whole life policies that he used to pay off his parents and pay off his businesses faster. these, and so I started like, started to see how, and this is like ideal for real estate investors. I got a video that,There’s a house, you know, the mortgage is $338,400 at 5%. $1,886 a month is the payment, okay? So if you were to use the PIL method, $500 a month of that $1,886 a month goes toward principal. That’s why it takes 30 years to pay up that mortgage, okay? But you get full credit for that $1,886.
into the whole life policy. All right, so it takes 9.2 years where you have enough money in that policy to completely pay off that mortgage. Then you borrow that money out of that policy
and you put it in and you pay off your mortgage. Now you’re paying yourself back. You still would have been paying that same amount of money to the mortgage. Now you’re paying, you got your mortgage paid off and you’re now you’re you’re loading up. And this is this is what the kicker is.
And I never knew this for 20 years, but the reason this works is because only in whole life do you get that guaranteed 5.125 % interest on the borrowed money. Now, once you paid it off, once you put back into the policy, now you have access to dividends. So these companies are called mutual companies. Every policy owner is a shareholder of the company.
Dylan Silver (16:16)
Hmm.Reuben.lowing (16:29)
and they share dividends. So the better the company does, the better they do. They’re averaging about 12%, let’s just under 12%, okay? Which, you you use the rule of 72, right? That’s, you know, then you’re realizing that that’s getting you down the road a lot faster, right? So then you take that equity out of the house, and I found a four unit in the same neighborhood, a little over a million. Borrow the money on the policy for the down payment. You set up another whole life policy.You can rent the four unit for enough to cover the mortgage and the mortgage, the new mortgage on the primary residence. All right. And now your quadruplex is paid for your primary residence and funding your future. At the same time, you have two policies, you have one for the house, for the primary resident and one for the quadruplex.
right? And it’s just building up cash for you. You’ll have both properties paid off in like less than 20 years and have a million dollars set aside in your infinite bank, in the whole life policies with all these tax advantages.
Dylan Silver (17:47)
Now in these whole life policies, if you outlive the term of the policy, are you then receiving some type of benefit I’m imagining at the end of that time period?Reuben.lowing (17:57)
So you just confused something. You just said whole life and term in the same, like you’re talking about the same thing.Dylan Silver (18:06)
Okay yeah, that’strue. Help me out here. Help me out here.
Reuben.lowing (18:09)
Okay, so term is just pure insurance and it’s for a term, 10, 15, 20, 25 years. then if you don’t die, you don’t get paid back, right? And then you get older, you’re gonna have, it’s more expensive to start a new one, right? So that’s the challenge. Terms are inexpensive, okay?They’re for a term and there’s no cash value building up in a term policy. Now there are convertible terms now, most all of them are. So now what I’ll do, if somebody doesn’t have an emergency fund, they don’t have at least three to six months set aside in the savings account, a CD, a mutual fund or something, I won’t put them in a permanent policy. I’ll get a term started for them and then I’ll coach them along, helping them pay off debt.
and to build up that three to six months in a liquid account. And then we’ll convert that term policy, they don’t have to go through underwriting again to make it a cash value policy. Now they start that same money they’re putting to build up, you know, pay off their debt and build up the emergency fund. Now we just redirect that to the whole life policy.
or the cash value policy, whatever it is, right? If I don’t have a business or a mortgage to pay off, I don’t use whole life. I’ll use a universal life, index universal life, available universal life.
Dylan Silver (19:52)
Thank you for breaking that down for me and for clearing up some of my confusion. As the name says, you’re not gonna outlive a whole life policy. ⁓ For folks who may not have ⁓ a mortgage to be paying down, would whole life still be something that would make sense for them or would one of these other policies maybe make more sense for them if they don’t have a mortgage at the time?Reuben.lowing (20:18)
Well, okay, so if they don’t have a house with a mortgage or a business to pay off, if they have other debt, like I just had one of my agents who’s a mortgage broker has a client, young guy making like 25, making $300,000 a year and he’s getting thesea firm or after pay. He’s got like nine of them and the guy’s got something coming out of his. His checking account. Every day of the month. OK, and I’m like, dude, this guy, this guy’s perfect for this type of strategy, even though he doesn’t, you know, he’s got a house, he’s got he’s got a mortgage. That’s why this guy is working when he’s trying. I guess he’s trying to buy a house. He’s trying to buy a house. OK.
And so he’s an ideal candidate to set up for the family banking or infinite banking strategy. But there’s, let’s say he didn’t have a house, but he’s got all this debt rolled up or debt. You know, it’s faster and costs you less money to do an infinite banking strategy with a whole life policy than it would be to do a debt roll up.
or the pill method.
Dylan Silver (21:49)
Wow. I mean, as we’re talking about this, I’m thinking about all the young people who may think, what would be the use case for me? But the reality is there’s a lot of people with revolving death. There’s a lot of people who are looking to get into a home. And if you start now, right?Reuben.lowing (22:06)
I know when you talk toyoung people, they’re like, what? I’m going to make my mom my beneficiary, right? They’re like, or they’re, they’re
You know, their mind isn’t there. There’s part of a man’s brain that doesn’t get engaged until they get that significant other. Then you watch how fast they get it together and get themselves so they can qualify to buy that house for that significant other, right? So they can be together. You watch how fast they do that, right? There’s a motivating factor then. get the kids. I mean, it’s like that part.
Dylan Silver (22:41)
Yeah. Yeah.Reuben.lowing (22:50)
of there’s part of us that doesn’t engage until that happens. I got this young guy, automotive mechanic, like 22 years old, making $60,000 a year, right? And he’s just like fat. mean, to him, it’s like life is great, right? Got my own place, got my money, right? And I call him up. He’s like, I’m glad you called because I paid everything off. have about $1,000 left and I was going to go get another tattoo.Right? And there’s like, you know, until you until you they have a reason. Like nobody does anything. But they don’t have a reason. They have a that’s a passionate reason. They got to want it really bad. OK, and then watch what happens. OK, but if you don’t, you know, if you don’t, it’s hard. mean, and I don’t I don’t like chargebacks. I don’t like
So when somebody quits their policy, right, that’s why I make sure they have an emergency fund, because everybody’s going to have an emergency just no matter when. And you don’t want to have all the abdominals fall on you, right? ⁓
Dylan Silver (23:59)
Yeah.Yeah,
I mean, when we talk about needing to have that motivation, this applies to real estate investors as well. Oftentimes it’s some stressor or some distress, whether it’s physical or financial, that causes people to become real estate investors, or they just get, have so much pain from their job or whatever it is in their life that is saying, I’ve just got to find a different way. And so I’m hearing a similarity there.
We are coming up on time here though, here Reuben. Any new projects that you or your team are working on and also where can folks go to reach out to you?
Reuben.lowing (24:42)
Well, I have a website. It’s mybusinessisyourbusiness.info. And my, you know, there’s all kinds of everywhere you turn, there’s a way to, you know, get my, get my attention. All right. I get notified if you can go on the website and look around. ⁓ there’s all kinds of information about what I’m talking about. There’s, know, you contact me. It comes right to me. ⁓ that’s.the probably the easiest and then you there’s so much I got videos everywhere. were animated videos that talk about the family banking and the you know, one of the things that people don’t realize is is a and right now like today is the deadline for Texas, Michigan and California, which just happened to be the states that I’m licensed in to get the faster for performing if they have a high school senior that’s going to be going to college in the fall.
It’s a federal program with a federal deadline is June 30th. But for Texas, Michigan and California, you got to get the FAFSA form in now. And if you have assets that are in a retirement, like an IRA or annuities or cash value life insurance, you don’t have to count it on the FAFSA form. So you don’t have to spend that money before your child gets financial aid. Okay, so that’s today. That’s the deadline for today. And that’s, I get
started a lot of conversations with that. ⁓ So that’s what I’ve been working on since the first part of the year until now because of that deadline. But there’s still, ideally you wanna get ⁓ for your kid, anybody who’s got children, next fall, then ⁓
October 1st is the opening date for to get your information. And you want to have everything lined up before that ever even happens. You know, like I was telling you, because of my background with mortgages in real estate, I can’t look at somebody’s finances. I have had a young girl. She was a massage therapist and she’s making like forty five hundred dollars a month, single woman. Right. And she had great credit.
And the only thing that was keeping her from getting, and she wanted to buy a house. She wants to be a real estate investor, right? But she has no assets, right? And I look at where she’s spending her money, she was spending like $660 a month eating out. I’m like, what, can’t you cook? Right? And you know, I’m like, you know, or is the food that good? What it is, it’s always something, right? Is that social interaction, right? And what she’ll…
Dylan Silver (27:18)
Mm.That’s
exactly it.
Reuben.lowing (27:30)
Yeah,but what’s the quality of the waiter or the waitress or the guy taking over behind the counter of that social interaction? Now, she just got married, right? So things are really going to change there, right? And that’s another thing. When I see all the time people that he’s got his money in her debt and she’s got her money in her debt, neither the two shall meet. It’s hard to even sit them down and get them to talk about it, right? And usually in those relationships, their days are numbered. If you get them working together,
You know, like my boxing coach, Roy Jones senior used to say, both fighters think they’re going to kick the other guy’s butt. The first one that changes their mind loses. When you got two people working on the same thing, it’s going to happen. So when you both are working on your goals together, it will happen. But when you don’t, and it’s like, you know, it’s like that story of guys playing golf with his buddy and his buddy dies of a heart attack. he’s like, you know, afterwards, like, man, you look rough. What happened? goes, well, you know,
Joe died and then it was from that pose like hit the ball, drag Joe, hit the ball, drag Joe. mean, that’s what it’s like when you don’t have your partner and you on the same page. think every pastor in every church should be licensed in financial services and sit down with their people and look at it because it doesn’t matter what comes out of their mouth. When you look at their finances and seeing how they’re spending their money, it’ll tell you where their priorities are.
Dylan Silver (28:42)
Yeah.Absolutely. know, it’s the bedrock of any business, of course, is going to be some type of spreadsheet, right? And numbers don’t lie, right? Especially when we talk real estate and financial services for sure. Reuben, thank you so much for taking the time today. Thanks for coming on the show.
Reuben.lowing (29:18)
So I appreciate it, I’m honored. ⁓ I hope I gave you some insight. I hope you learned a little something.
