Leave Something Behind That
Actually Arrives.
Most estate planning looks complete on paper — until someone passes and the family discovers the trust was never funded, the life insurance was never bought, or taxes consume a third of what you worked a lifetime to build. We make sure what you leave behind actually reaches the people you love.
The Estate Plan Exists. The Money to Deliver It Doesn’t.
Your attorney drafted a beautiful trust. Your CPA mapped out the tax picture. Your financial advisor manages the portfolio. But nobody puts in place the dollars — the life insurance, the ILIT, the beneficiary structure — that actually arrive when your family needs them most.
That’s the gap we fill. We don’t replace your attorney or CPA. We sit at the same table and build the part of the plan they can’t.
The Trust That Owns Nothing
The attorney drafted the trust years ago. But assets were never retitled, beneficiary designations were never updated, and when the time comes, the trust owns nothing.
When There’s No Cash
Real estate, family businesses, and retirement accounts don’t become cash overnight. Without a liquidity strategy, children are forced to sell what you built — at a discount — to cover taxes and expenses.
The Tax Bill No One Saw Coming
Inherited IRAs, deferred compensation, and appreciated property all carry tax consequences that catch families off guard. The estate plan addressed distribution — not the tax bill attached to it.
A Family Sorting It Out During Grief
The attorney, CPA, advisor, and insurance agent each built their piece in isolation. Nobody integrated the plan. Your family is left putting it all together in the worst possible moment.
Six Strategies That Turn Documents
Into a Legacy That Actually Arrives.
Each strategy uses tax-efficient life insurance as the funding piece — creating cash, replacing assets, and delivering what you intended exactly when and where your family needs it.
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
An ILIT owns the life insurance policy outside your taxable estate. The death benefit passes to your children income-tax-free and estate-tax-free — giving your family the liquid cash to keep everything you built intact.
Wealth Replacement for Your Heirs
When assets leave the estate through charitable giving, business succession, or equalization — life insurance replaces them dollar-for-dollar. Your children receive what you intended, tax-free, without shrinking the gift or the sale.
Fairness Among Your Children
One child inherits the business. Another gets the real estate. The third receives a life insurance death benefit of equal value. Everyone gets a fair share — without forcing a sale, splitting what can’t be split, or creating resentment.
Legacy & Succession Planning
Pass down a business, a foundation, or a family wealth structure across generations. Life insurance provides the cash to buy out partners, fund trusts, or cover transition costs — without draining what you built.
Beneficiary Designations That Actually Match
The beneficiary forms on your life insurance, IRAs, and retirement accounts override your will. A mismatch between your estate documents and your beneficiary forms can unravel the entire plan. We audit and align every designation.
Cash When Your Family Needs It
For estates above the federal exemption, the tax bill arrives nine months after death — in cash. A properly structured life insurance policy creates the exact liquidity needed so your family doesn’t have to sell what you built under pressure.
Estate Planning Is Where Executive Benefits
and Charitable Giving Converge.
Your nonprofit executive’s deferred comp, your donor’s CRT, and your family’s estate plan aren’t three separate conversations. They’re one integrated story — and life insurance is the thread that connects them.
Executive Benefits
Split-dollar and 457(f) plans create assets that must transfer properly at death. Without estate coordination, the executive’s family may face unexpected taxes or lose benefits entirely.
Charitable Giving
CRTs, CLTs, and planned gifts all have estate consequences. The charitable deduction, the remainder interest, and the wealth replacement policy must be coordinated inside the estate plan.
Family & Legacy
Life insurance provides the cash, the tax efficiency, and the certainty that ties everything together. It’s the funding piece that makes every other strategy actually work for your family.
From Estate Review
to a Legacy That Lands.
We work alongside your existing legal and tax team — never in place of them.
Estate Review
We review your current estate documents, beneficiary designations, insurance policies, and tax exposure to find the gaps.
Funding Design
We model the life insurance strategy that closes each gap — ILIT structure, policy type, premium schedule, and ownership.
Team Coordination
We present the funding strategy to your attorney, CPA, and financial advisor for review, refinement, and integration.
Implementation
Policy placement, trust funding, beneficiary alignment, and an annual review cadence to keep the plan current as your family grows.
Built for Families Building a Legacy
and the Professionals Who Guide Them.
Whether you’re the client, the attorney, or the financial advisor — this is designed for your situation.
Families Who’ve Built Something to Pass Down
You’ve worked a lifetime to build something worth protecting. Your estate plan should deliver what you intend — to the people you love, in the amounts you chose, on the timeline you set.
Estate Planning Attorneys
You draft the documents. We fund them. A properly structured ILIT or wealth replacement policy turns your client’s plan from a set of instructions into a guaranteed outcome.
CFP® Financial Planners
Your clients trust you with their financial future. When the estate plan needs insurance-based funding, we step in as a specialist partner to close the gap.
CPAs & Tax Advisors
You see the tax exposure. We build the strategy that eliminates or offsets it — through ILITs, Roth conversions paired with insurance, and beneficiary optimization.
Make Sure What You Leave Behind
Actually Reaches Your Family.
A 30-minute conversation is enough to find out whether the plan your attorney drafted has the funding it needs to deliver what you intend — to the people you love.
Frequently Asked Questions
Estate Planning Questions, Answered
An ILIT is a trust that owns a life insurance policy on the grantor’s life, removing the death benefit from the taxable estate. Because the grantor has no incidents of ownership, the proceeds pass to beneficiaries free of both income tax and estate tax. ILITs are used for estate tax liquidity, wealth replacement (replacing assets donated to charity), and estate equalization. The grantor funds the trust through annual gifts, and Crummey withdrawal powers qualify those gifts for the annual gift tax exclusion.
IUL inside an ILIT creates a four-layer tax shield no other instrument can match: tax-deferred growth (IRC §7702), tax-free access via policy loans (§7702(f)(7)), income-tax-free death benefit (§101(a)), and estate-tax-free transfer (§2042). The IUL adds cash-value accumulation with downside protection, flexible premiums, and the ability for the trustee to access funds during the grantor’s lifetime.
For 2026 the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption is $15 million per individual ($30 million for a married couple). The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 made this higher exemption permanent rather than letting it sunset, so the reversion to roughly $7 million that had been scheduled for 2026 did not happen. Estate value above the exemption is taxed at a top federal rate of 40%.
Keep in mind that many states impose their own estate or inheritance taxes at far lower thresholds, so families well under the federal exemption can still face a state-level estate tax, and a properly structured plan still matters.
A signed trust is only half the job. If assets were never retitled into the trust and beneficiary designations were never updated, the trust can own nothing when the time comes — and the plan you paid for doesn’t deliver. Real estate, a family business, and retirement accounts don’t turn into cash overnight, so without a liquidity strategy, heirs can be forced to sell what you built, often at a discount, to cover taxes and expenses.
This is the gap NPPSS is built to close: we design and fund the insurance architecture that gives your plan the liquidity it needs to actually execute the way your attorney intended.
For estates above the federal exemption, the estate tax is generally due in cash about nine months after death. A life insurance death benefit — income-tax-free under IRC §101(a)(1) and, when owned by an irrevocable trust, outside the taxable estate — creates guaranteed liquidity at exactly the moment it’s needed. The trustee can use the proceeds to pay the tax, or to buy illiquid assets from the estate at fair market value, so the family isn’t forced to sell the business, the real estate, or other assets they want to keep.
Estate equalization uses life insurance to ensure each heir receives a fair share when family assets are illiquid or indivisible. If one child inherits the business and another inherits real estate, the third can receive a life insurance death benefit of comparable value. When the policy is owned by an ILIT, the benefit passes income-tax-free and estate-tax-free — avoiding forced sales and family conflict.
There’s no single cutoff. NPPSS typically sees the strongest fit for individuals or couples whose combined estate is at — or growing toward — the federal exemption, those with concentrated or illiquid assets like a business or real estate, and residents of states that levy their own estate or inheritance taxes at much lower thresholds than the federal one. For families with substantial estates, business interests, or charitable goals, the ILIT remains one of the most efficient and time-tested vehicles in estate planning.