Credit Where Due - Insurance Does Have a Place in Planned Giving

I am already jaded when it comes to new insurance plans - as my previous posts have shown.

But, I have to give credit when it is deserved.

As mentioned in a previous post, many of us in the planned giving community in New York were bombarded with Fedex'ed invitations and phone calls to attend a gala insurance event (The CHIEF Plan).

The whole thing threw me off. Firstly, the aggressive invitation approach. Secondly, a claim by the promoter that their plan is "patent pending" (one of my main signals that the plan is probably absolutely bogus - not that I know about this one or will ever find out).

What confused me the most was that Peter Fleischmann, the head of the Jewish community foundation in Buffalo and one of the top planned giving professionals around, was a guest speaker at their event.

Finally, last week I was able to speak with Peter and hear what the event was about and see if he had really gotten caught up in one of those schemes we all moan about.

Surprisingly, what Peter described to me was a firm, particularly his contact with them, that did standard insurance things that any decent planned giving program should be considering. Donors sponsoring the premiums on policies that will someday create endowment funds, arbitrage with commercial annuities, careful review and consideration by investment committees, and so on.

Insurance does have a place in planned giving. There will be opportunities that arise where it is the right vehicle for enabling major philanthropic objections. The challenge is to make sure the plans involved are truly vetted by the IRS, not speculative, honest, and worthwhile for all parties involved (not just the insurance salesmen).

I can't understand why these insurance people keep running around saying they have a patent pending or a highfalutin (a real word!) law firm's tax letter or required non-disclosure agreements.