How much money has flowed through your hands up to this point in your lifetime? Can you write a check for that amount right now? Like most people, the answer is probably “no”—and it’s likely that you can’t identify where it’s all gone. Jayson Lowe and Richard Canfield, co-founders of the financial podcast series Wealth on Main Street, believe that typical saving methods and products may not be as safe as you may think when you factor in taxation, inflation, market and geopolitical risks and what they describe as other “silent wealth drains.”
In their latest book Don’t Spread the Wealth, Lowe and Canfield suggest that these drains are the hidden culprit behind why many families struggle to build lasting financial security and end up with underfunded retirement accounts. “When the average person has extra money, it is very quickly absorbed by a new definition of necessities,” Canfield says.
He adds that the co-founders aim to show people how to take control of their financial resources—such as extra payments and savings—and channel them into a “self-sustaining system within their own dividend-paying whole life policy, or ideally a system of policies.” While Lowe and Canfield provide guidance, they maintain that the people they help remain in the driver’s seat and choose the direction that suits them best.
From the podcast hosts’ perspective, someone else’s bank might not be the most logical place for your money to reside. They think that even the interest earned on savings can be eaten away by taxes, inflation and increasing restrictions on accessing your own funds. This constant drain can erode your wealth over time and leave less for you and your family. The co-founders describe this as a system designed to keep you dependent, not prosperous.
“Someone must perform the banking function as it relates to your needs,” Lowe says. “Most people not only abdicate the responsibility of that function in their lives but also the opportunity to control it and what that represents for them and for their family.”
Based on the Infinite Banking Concept pioneered by their late mentor, R. Nelson Nash, Lowe and Canfield’s approach challenges conventional financial wisdom. As they propose in their book, the key to building generational wealth isn’t about smart investing or high yields. Instead, it’s about fundamentally changing how money flows through your life and family. Beyond setting aside a sizable amount for the lean times, Lowe says you want to “have that money flowing into your family’s hands, not through your family’s hands never to be seen again.”
When it comes to controlling how you finance all the things you may need throughout your lifetime, such as automobiles, major appliances, education, homes, investment opportunities or business equipment, the co-founders see dividend-paying whole life insurance, ideally with a mutual company, as the ideal tool. “You can contribute almost unlimited sums of money, have ready access capital, on-demand, on your terms, without reducing the asset’s value and without triggering a taxable event,” Lowe suggests.
The podcast hosts believe that one of the most compelling aspects of this approach is how it addresses both living benefits and the inevitable reality of death—more control over your finances while you’re alive and a tax-free windfall that bypasses probate for your loved ones when you pass away, ensuring they’re taken care of precisely when they need it most. “In a mutual life insurance company, the only owners are the participating policy owners,” Canfield says. “They are all the sole beneficiaries of the divisible surplus and equity.”
“If you knew these companies are the most financially solvent on the planet, have been operating longer than 200 years and have never failed to produce a divisible surplus, how much of your capital would you not want residing there?” Lowe adds.
Lowe and Canfield’s book is backed by practical experience. Lowe—a Chartered Life Underwriter and founder and CEO of Ascendant Financial—has been educating and coaching on the implementation of this process since 2008. The co-founders say that their businesses, built on an education-first model, are never about pushing financial products or making quick transactions but rather empowering you with knowledge and providing ongoing support for your unique financial situation.
The podcast hosts say you don’t have to change your financial objectives, whether they involve saving for retirement, planning for your children’s education, establishing a legacy or growing your business. They believe what should change is the process of achieving those objectives—turning them into achievable realities without unnecessary market risk, tax risk or liquidity risk.
