Review Those Life Insurance Policies!
A while back I blogged about the advisability of trustees of irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) reviewing the policy owned by the trust to help ensure the policy is still a sound investment and won't lapse. Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal website covering a related topic, Keep Tabs on Insurance that Covers Estate Taxes. The article doesn't discuss the use of ILITs to avoid estate taxes on the life insurance proceeds and further protect the funds for the beneficiaries, but in my opinion an ILIT should always be used for life insurance in a taxable estate (over $3.5 million in 2009). ILITs are the best (estate) tax shelters around! Even for relatively "small" $1,000,000 policy, a $2,500 trust could easily save over $500,000 in estate taxes.
It's great to see an attorney be proactive about sharing the value of proper life insurance coverage. What better way is ther to leverage money against estate taxes?