No graphs. No sales illustration. Just the paperwork the insurance company actually mails me.
Dave Ramsey says whole life insurance is a ripoff.
And for most of the policies out there?
He's probably right.
So here's a fair question: why do I own over 25 of them?
Either I'm an idiot.
Or there's a version of this that nobody has ever shown you.
I'm not going to ask you to trust me on that. You shouldn't trust me.
Instead, I'm going to open my own statements. Year 1, where it looks like a bad deal. And year 7, where it doesn't.
Then I'm going to borrow $300,000 against my policies, buy something with it, and show you the policy kept growing anyway.
Quick, so you know who's talking
I'm Russ Morgan. My business partner Joey and I own almost 40 life insurance policies between us.
We publish our own personal passive income report every single month, in public.
Everything below is real. We don't make this stuff up. And we never recommend something we don't use ourselves.
Here's what you're going to see:
A real statement, year 1 to year 7
A real policy loan, and what it bought
How long these companies have paid, and who actually owns them
Exactly how we get paid
What we won't do
If you're married, read this together.
The fine print, out loud. These are my policies. Yours will look very different depending on your age, your health, the carrier and how it's designed. Dividends aren't guaranteed, and past dividends don't promise future ones. About 1 in 200 Americans ever make $1 million or more from every source combined, and most people never replace their paycheck with passive income. I'm not your financial advisor, CPA or attorney. This is education, not personal advice. What you do with it is on you.
Year 1: the part most people won't show you
Here's year one.
What went in: $25,000.
The cash value? Less than that.
That gap is the cost of setting the policy up.
Anybody who tells you year one is free is lying to you.
Year 4 and year 7: the paperwork flips
Now here's year four.
The cash value for that year was $27,459. That's clearly more than the $25,000 I put in that year.
Here's year seven.
$13,873. And I only put in $7,195 that year.
Every dollar in that policy has been sheltered from taxes, and it's kept growing, even though I use it.
That last part is the whole point.
Red box vs. blue box
Most of your money sits in what we call a red box.
Your 401(k). Your IRA. Maybe your home equity.
All of it is locked.
A blue box has the same shelter, but you can actually get to it.
And money you can't touch doesn't do much for you.
So watch what happens when I touch it.
Borrowing $300,000 with no bank
I asked the insurance company for a loan against my policies.
No bank involved
No application
Nobody asking me what it's for
I'm not asking for permission. I'm telling them where to send it.
Within two to five days, the money hits my checking account.
I used it to buy $300,000 worth of land, something I've bought almost a thousand times at this point. I could just as easily have used it for self storage or rental properties.
Now look at the policy.
The cash value didn't go down. It didn't go to zero. It's still there, and it's still growing. Whatever dividends come in still get credited.
The same dollar is working in two places at once: in the policy and in the asset.
It's like the piggy bank example I gave with my son. He gets to use the money and still have the money in the piggy bank.
It's not free (and I'll show you the rate)
Let me be clear: none of this is free.
The insurance company charges loan interest. The rate on this one is 5.95%.
I pay it back out of what the asset pays me.
Quick question while we're on cost: who would you trust with your money? A company that has paid its customers for one year, or one that's paid them for ten?
Penn Mutual, one of the companies we use, has paid a dividend every single year since 1847.
That's before the Civil War. Through two world wars, the Great Depression, 2008 and COVID.
How we get paid (so you're not wondering)
Your consult with us is free.
That's not generosity. We don't run a nonprofit. When a policy is set up, the insurance company pays us a commission. So you never write us a check.
Here's what matters more: how the policy is built.
Every policy has two parts:
Base premium: builds toward the death benefit
Paid-up additions: the extra deposits that create cash value
If a policy is designed 100% for the base, 100% of the money builds the death benefit. That's the version Dave Ramsey is right about. Most of it is built to pay the agent.
In the blue box strategy, we're trying to help you have cash value. So we use that lever in the middle, based on your timeline.
Some people want 100% of their money to be long-term. They want to keep putting money in for as long as they possibly can.
Others have short-term goals. They need access to as much money as possible today. Their plan gets designed completely differently, and that does limit how much they can put in later.
Anybody who tells you there's only one way to do it, run. That means they're trying to fit you into a cookie-cutter plan.
What we won't do
We won't tell you to cash out your 401(k) on the first call.
We won't sell you an indexed universal life policy (IUL) and tell you it's the same thing.
We won't promise you a return.
We won't design a policy you can't comfortably fund.
We won't pick your investments. You decide what your money buys.
And if what you're doing now is better for you, we'll tell you that.
A dentist, year 8, and a $285,000 loan
One of my clients is a dentist. We've worked together for about 16 years.
When he first came to me, he'd done all the typical stuff. His money was in red boxes, and he'd been burned by the typical financial planning world.
Looking at one of his policies, I think it's year 8: in the last two months he took a $285,000 loan to make a passive income investment.
Here's what you need to know about a policy loan: it's actually a prepayment of the death benefit.
So the loan gets paid back by the death benefit, and the beneficiaries get the rest. Nobody sends your family a bill saying, "Hey, you still owe us $200,000."
"What if I can't make a loan payment one year?"
Life happens. We design for it, with room. Your policy architect will show you exactly what your options are.
"Why not an IUL?"
Whole life will work. An IUL may work. With my family's money, I'll take "will."
Your next step
We open a set number of free Passive Income Operating System Game Plan sessions each week. When they're gone, they're gone until the next week.
Bring your spouse. Bring your real numbers, whatever shape they're in. In 45 minutes, usually closer to 30, you'll walk out with your numbers mapped and a straight answer.
If what you're doing right now beats this, we'll tell you. And you'll sleep better knowing it.
👉 Book your free Game Plan session here
If you want to see the statements and the loan with your own eyes, the full video is here.
The only answer that costs you anything is maybe.
Talk soon,
Russ Morgan
Wealth Without Wall Street
P.S. Want to see how we use whole life as our own bank, step by step? Join the free Blue Box Strategy Masterclass, live Tuesdays at 7pm ET.
P.P.S. This post shows the paperwork. The idea behind it, the red box vs. the blue box, is in my last article: Your Money Already Works Full-Time. Just Not for You.
DISCLOSURE: Wealth Without Wall Street provides educational and informational content only and does not provide legal, tax, financial, or investment advice. Any examples or case studies are illustrative and not a promise or guarantee of results. Earnings or income statements (if any) are not typical, and your results will vary based on factors such as your effort, experience, market conditions, and business decisions. You are responsible for your own actions and outcomes.
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