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Becoming Your Own Banker by R. Neslon Nash

I just have finished my third book touching on the concepts of the Infinite Banking Concept (IBC), Becoming Your Own Banker by R. Nelson Nash. This book however is deemed the bible of IBC. Nash developed the concept in the early 1980’s and I think he’s incredibly clever for it. He started to use Whole Life insurance policies (from MUTUAL insurance companies) to run his finances through. And in this book he analyzes this process under multiple lenses.

This concept seems so crazy to me because I’ve been relatively close to insurance products, as I’ve been working in actuarial roles for about ten years now, and yet am relatively new to the IBC scene. Nash says this concept is an exercise in creativity and that people should try to look at things differently than how they were intended to be used. Moreover, spend time finding the best environment to fly in and not necessarily making the fastest plane. We’re taught to just make more and more money instead of how to identify which environment would grow our money the most efficiently.

While this book is full of insurance illustrations showing premiums going into a policy and the corresponding cash values that accumulate over the years I think the psychology that one needs to master in order to succeed with this long term is what I’ll take away. He mentions 5 factors that one must master/overcome:

There’s an analogy he uses throughout the book comparing starting a banking policy as running a grocery store. Something where you are the owner, but at the same time a consumer.

The bottom line: The more of those interest payments, that you’re paying to other banks, that you can recapture and direct to YOUR bank the better off you’ll be. It will take extreme discipline and desire to not live like the herd.

I now have two policies that I’ve started capitalizing and can see there being many benefits down the road:

We’ll be releasing a podcast episode on this book next Sunday which will be posted here

If you want to join the “weird” people and get out of this traditional banking system, the book is a wonderful place to start:

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