tax-free retirement by patrick kelly

 

The book, “Tax-Free Retirement”, by Patrick Kelly is a national best-seller that takes a look at the failures of the “tax-qualified” retirement plans like the 401(k) and IRAs and recommends a solution that works better for many, if not most, people. Patrick Kelly was an insurance agent who made a lot of money in the go-go days of the stock market, only to lose most of it in the dot-com crash. Returning to life as an insurance agent and financial planner, he carefully researched the various options available to his clients. He describes the situation on pages 19-20 –

 

“So, in a miraculous way, I found myself back in personal production as an insurance agent in January 2001. But everything had changed. The financial landscape had been transformed. Insurance companies were offering bank products and banks were selling insurance. Everybody was in everybody else’s business. It was now one financial marketplace and I was ready to dive in.

I was ready to build wealth in a new way. However, I didn’t yet know what that meant. I was going to make an honest search unlike any I had ever made before. I wasn’t going to settle for an answer just because somebody told me it was good. I was going to do my own homework….flesh out the real data. Every last detail had to make financial sense. Other than individual stocks and commodities, at that time, I was able to sell most other financial products. I could offer 401(k) plans, SEPs, Roth IRAs, Traditional IRAs, and personally designed pension and profit-sharing plans. And I could fund these plans with a bucket load of different products. I had just about everything in my own arsenal of products.

However, I was willing to go outside of my own business if necessary in order to find the best plan to build consistent wealth for the long-term; and because of my financial endeavors, I had the knowledge base to know where to find it.

I wiped the slate clean of all my preconceived beliefs and was willing to give each plan and strategy an equal and fair shot at victory. I wanted to pursue an honest search in which the winner was proclaimed by the facts, not by emotional attachment or personal access to a particular product.

The result of the search was shocking. If you would have laid a million dollars on a table in front of me and told me that all the money would be mine if I could name the product that would become the eventual winner, i could have had three guesses and still had to leave the money lying on the table. The winning strategy had been sitting under my nose my entire career but I had failed to see it.”

Patrick Kelly goes on to show why so many people fail to properly plan and act in ways that will secure their long-term financial health, then explains the winning strategy he had found, which is Universal Life Insurance. He not only explains WHY this is often the best approach, he even describes the best candidates for this strategy.

“Tax-Free Retirement” by Patrick Kelly is easily readable and I can’t recommend it too strongly, especially for those in the age ranges of 25-50.