190. Breaking News: Victoria Declares Whole Life Insurance Is A SCAM
7 Dec 2025 · 36 min
Richard Canfield and Jayson Lowe respond to a Facebook commenter who called dividend-paying whole life insurance a scam. They explain how participating policies work: premiums buy guarantees, cash value serves as collateral for loans, and death benefits are paid tax-free. They challenge Victoria to produce documented evidence of fraud.
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Rich, so you and I were talking before we hit the record button and I was sharing with you that and all of our viewers and listeners are going to actually.
I think, really appreciate this from the sense of just all the noise that's out there and the misconceptions and.
The fact that sometimes people would rather just be insulting or really emotionally charged up versus presenting a rationale, argument or a different perspective. And this, this came up recently because, you know, we do a lot of, as our viewers and listeners know too, we do a lot of content on social media. So we're on every social media platform. And Facebook is a really great platform for us and we attract a lot of great people that we love to serve. And we run sponsored ads. And on this one ad, there was a comment from a person and I'm going to share my screen. I mean, it's. The person commented, it's out there. It's. It's in the public domain.
We'll. I'll use, I'll use Ryan and James. They like to say, assume angelic intentions.
Yeah.
For this individual. But, but additionally, it's like, okay, what, what's that, Jason? You guys run a business and you market your business to grow and help and serve people. Oh, it's a fascinating idea. Amazing. Imagine that you want to be in business long enough to serve the people that you serve.
No kidding.
Marketing for your business isn't that incredible?
And so the ad that I'm talking about is this one that invites people to go to learnwithj.com and to watch a webinar. And that's it. And the webinar is delivered on the house, no charge, no cost. And the whole intention, you can volunteer.
To do it or not volunteer to do it. Hence, it's completely up to you if you want to watch that webinar and register for it or not.
Yeah. And so the, the whole intention is to educate and to provide people with a deeper understanding of the process of becoming your own banker. The infinite banking concept. And this particular ad has received 125 shares. It's got 150 comments. Like it's, it's very engaging.
Over 700 likes.
Like it's, it's a great ad. Like it, very effective. And so this person comes on and says keywords, borrow your own money and then pay it back with interests. Exclamation marks. You have to save the money in cash value first. Exclamation marks. And the first two years minimum of your savings go straight to his commission. Exclamation marks. This is a new scam way to talk about whole life insurance. Nothing but a wealth robber. Exclamation marks.
How many, how many people do you think that have, that have passed away owning whole life insurance and their family received a tax free death benefit check felt like they had any of their wealth robbed?
Yeah. You know, I've never met a critic at a funeral of someone who's passed away that's received a very large tax free windfall of money. I've never met a critic there using language like this person.
Uses. And, and I had responded to her outside of the fact that I shared in good humor that she set a Guinness Book of World record.
For the highest utilization of exclamation points. I pointed out some factual things to her as a professional courtesy. And she went on to respond.
The facts are this. Now let's address this person's facts. Richard, why would you buy a policy to save money?
Well, Victoria.
There'S a difference between what a person's buying and what they're implementing. And what we're talking about here is the implementation of a process. And the tool that we utilize to implement the process is dividend paying, participating whole life insurance. And that tool is a tool that requires the payment of premium, not the saving of money.
That tool accumulates cash value, which, Victoria, you may not have been advised that cash value isn't money. And so understanding what's really going on, which is you're paying premium. And in exchange for that premium, you're receiving all of the contractual guarantees that the life insurer is legally bound to fulfill and to honor. And she goes on to say, when you put your money away into a savings account, whether it gains interest or not, why, why, why would I have to borrow it to take it out and pay it back with interest? Why am I being loaned my own money? Well, Victoria, if you would have read the previous comment carefully, you would know and understand that you're not borrowing your own money. Your money is paying premium. The money you're borrowing is the insurance company's money and that's an insurance company that you co own. So you're not being lent your own money. Your policy's cash value serves as collateral for the money that you're borrowing and all of your cash value continues increasing daily without interruption, uninterrupted by the policy loan that you've taken. The loan balance, the loan balance is a lien on the death benefit of the insurance policy. So not if but when you die, the insurance company is going to subtract the loan balance from the total death benefit and the residual balance is going to be paid to your named beneficiaries income tax free.
When your clients die, your company keeps all of their savings, doesn't go to their family.
You probably listeners this is, this is, you know, going back to Victoria's comments, what she's saying here.
Oh yeah, yeah, you probably don't explain that part right. How about the first two years of monthly savings contributions going to your commissions, not into their account? Obviously Victoria needs to see an illustration of a participating dividend paying whole life policy that is properly designed for the implementation of this process. Because Victoria, when my clients die, we don't keep any of their savings because we never received any of their savings. And 100% of the total net death benefit of their policy is paid to their named beneficiaries income tax free. And if you're referring to cash value as being savings, I would ask you to watch this episode again and play it. Play the record at a very slow speed.
So that you can absorb.
The facts.
The cash value is the net present value of the future payment of a death benefit. Let that bake your noodle.
The best part is when I go to review this episode personally and I'm listening at like 1.8 or 2x speed, that part that you just did there is actually going to sound like at a normal pace, which is going to be kind of fun for me.
That's a really good point. That's the truth. And how about the first two years of monthly savings contributions going to your commission, not their account? Victoria, that's just simply not true. And I'm sure that any life insurance carrier that is reputable would be more than pleased to walk you through how commissions are derived, the formula that's utilized to calculate them, and why they decide to pay what they do. We have no control over what the life insurance company pays a licensed advisor. So I would encourage you, as I shared in my previous comment, which you evidently glanced over, get in touch with the insurance company if you're that concerned that they're paying me too much money. Go ahead and let them know that you're concerned about that. And I'm sure they'd be happy to receive that feedback about their compensation process. Process and policy. I didn't build it for them.
And here's the thing, I think that's really important for people to identify and this is a great topic to discuss. The insurance premium is actuarially calculated. That means an actuary who's gone to school for actuarial sciences and received a degree.
Yep.
Has looked at all these variables and they have isolated those variables into a premium calculation. So lapses of policies, premiums coming in, death benefits being paid, the taxes that need to be paid to the Canadian government, which you know, so they don't charge you directly, it's charged indirectly through the cost of the premium. The, the expensive operation of the insurance company, paying the salaries of all the employees. All of these features are baked in. Comes down to a calculation that says this is the premium. Well, one of those features is something called the, the distribution. Well, I'm the distribution, Jason, and our team is the distribution. We're the distribution force. If there's a truck on a road taking groceries from where they grow fruit in California and it's trucking it across the border to bring it to a grocery store in Canada, that's part of the distribution mechanism. But you know, the truck driver is not going to do that without being paid. Would you believe it? You know, he's got bills to pay too. So someone has to perform the function of distribution. That's what the insurance advisory force is for. Now many life companies don't employ people directly to do that. They have contract people who are licensed and they have contracts with multiple companies. That's the category we fit in. They pre calculate into the premium what that compensation is right in the premium. So the premium that a person willingly chooses to pay doesn't. There's no like fee in there. There's a premium. The, the premium does the job that it's intended to do, which is buying the insurance coverage. In that overall calculation, it's already pre baked in. Whatever is allocated to the distribution force. Who the advisor is is completely irrelevant. Every advisor gets the same amount of distribution that's baked into the cost of the premium. It's pre calculated like we can't choose it. Yeah. You know who chooses, you know who chooses how much money I make, Jason? Yeah, my clients. Yeah, they decide the premium. I don't decide it. They decided.
Well, you know, we're. We're blessed in that, you know, we're. We are compensated extremely well for what we do, and I make no apologies for that. And it's unfortunate that Victoria has such a big concern with it, but she's addressing it with the wrong person.
She needs to go directly to the life insurance company and protest their compensation process and.
Formula. That has nothing to do with us at all.
You know, would be great is if they. They just negotiated that down to zero so that nobody. Nobody earned anything for selling insurance products. And then the result of that behavior is no one ends up with an insurance product. And then the result of that is that no benefits are received by the families that desperately need it. And then the result of that is we gotta go beg our hands and knees to the. The overlords at the government agencies to then come in with more programs to support everyone, because there's no dollars that show up when we need it the most. Right. Insurance solves a social good by the virtue of its design.
Yeah.
People are helped every single day because it exists. Yep.
I'm with you. And she. She goes on to say, I am well educated. Thank you. I just have morals, unlike you. How about you? Read any books not written by a spineless insurance agent like you? Oh, do you like the exclamation marks? Well, I don't know, Victoria. If you can see my bookshelf behind me.
I've.
I'm very well read. And then she brings up what I. I just suspected was coming. Authors like Susie Orman and Dave Ramsey, who have both had a significant influence on Victoria's communication style.
I could go on all. All say the same thing. I don't know if Victoria needs hooked on phonics or something, but I'm not sure what she means by that one being. They call it whole life insurance because all your money ends up in a hole. I think that's a real catchy phrase, Victoria, but it's certainly not a factual representation, that's for sure. And then she goes on and says it's. It is sad that there are people like you out there in this world. Well, I would invite you, Victoria, and I'm happy to give you the names, provided my clients would be agreeable to it. The. The surviving families of clients that I've delivered millions of dollars of death benefit to. If you're open to it. I'm happy to share their contact info and.
Go ahead and read them what you shared with me. And I'd be curious to know if they share the same sentiment because again, like I shared with Richard earlier, I haven't met or come across or ran into Dave Ramsey, Susie Orman, or any other critic at a grieving family's funeral. What I do though is show up with a very significant sum of money that's delivered tax free and gives the family a right to go on living. And then she goes on to say, you gave. You give salespeople an insurance agent. I don't know who that insurance agent is. A bad name. Shame on you. Respond with rude comment about me. And tell me more about your Google reviews of people that don't realize they are being screwed. So Rich, as you know, we have.
Just a couple. Yeah, like we've eclipsed. We've surpassed a thousand. I don't know what the exact number is today, but it's probably somewhere in the 1200 plus range of five star Google reviews. And, and of course they're all wrong. And Victoria's right.
All those people that left those reviews must, must need their head examined. Yeah.
And she says, infinite banking. For whom? When does life insurance pay out? When you die. Why give your money to an insurance company to save. Best legal scam ever. Sweet dream. I will pay for your clients. Sorry. Pray for your clients.
You know, it's, you know, it'll be better.
What a wonderful demonstration of maturity.
At no point did she say anything that that would even remotely resemble a rational thought. I, I, I was dumber after reading her comments.
Become your own banker and take back control over your financial life. Hey, is this even possible? You may be asking, can I even do this? Well, you better believe it. In fact, it's easy to get going. So easy that we've put together a free report, 7 Simple Steps to becoming your own banker. Download it right now. Go to seven steps ca. That's seven steps ca. Now let's get back to the episode.
What's interesting is, of course it's. So I'm going to just take a wild stab. I'm going to assume she doesn't have any insurance coverage, but let's hope that her family is protected in some way. But you know what would be a much better idea? We should just blindly put all of our money into the market instead and just, and just wait for the market to give us everything that it claims it will do on all those. You know, I understand that if you just leave it in there and over time it just always works out. Yeah. For every single person. Like no one ever gets screwed by having their money wrapped up in the market.
Right.
And having that As a play, as a place to make sure their family is also protected. Right. Like what are we talking about here? If, you know, this goes to the idea of being self insured, which certain financial entertainers promote. The idea of buying term and investing the difference. Except what people don't do is they buy, usually they buy a really expensive term that isn't going to be there when they need it and then they don't invest the difference, they spend it. So there's no difference to invest. Which means they don't have the investments and the investments don't perform anyway. They're being fed some lie that they're going to get a magical 10% return every single year, which I, I've never met anybody in 15 years that's received that. So maybe I just haven't been in the business long enough. And there's a, there's a couple of people who've achieved that 15, you know, 10% return every single year like clockwork. And it's never, they've never been down in the markets. And then, But I tell, I will tell you this, I have met lots of people who bought into that idea and that advice and lo and behold, you know, the time went by. Anyway, 15 to 20 years later, now they're meeting, they're meeting with us and they're showing us their, their policies that they have their insurance contracts, you know, they haven't paid off their mortgage like they thought they were going to. They had the best of intentions. They don't have the money saved up in their investment accounts like they thought they were going to because they had the best of intentions. But life got in the way and the market didn't always perform. So the values aren't where they should be. Right. They still have kids or family at home and they still have spouses that they need to support and because they still have mortgage and debt to tackle. But now they're running in a position where next year, three years from now, five years from now, the insurance that they have, which is term insurance, is going to skyrocket in price. 3, 4, 5, 600% what they're paying. And the result is that they're going to get rid of that coverage. When that happens because they don't have the financial capacity to fund it, then there'll be no insurance. There will, there is no self insured because they didn't get the investment returns that they were promised. And they stand to leave their family destitute. That's what's actually happening and that's what I See, when I meet with people, it happens, you know, a couple of times a month. Month. I meet with people who are in that situation and it's ridiculously unfortunate. It, it's like a knife into the heart. Because it didn't need to be that way. Yeah. And it could have been simply solved by being mindful of the fact that you can pay a larger premium, get access to a lot of capital that's being created by the insurance company by owning that contract, fund the things in life that you're spending your freaking money on anyway, practice some behavioral principles about returning the money back to the pool of capital that you control. And you know, life is just a lot easier and the stress melts away.
Yeah, it's. Everything that you've shared is very, very accurate and factual. The, the one thing that I did in response to, to Victoria is I did share with her. You know, I said, look.
Your passion's commendable, but your approach is terrible. And you know, the, the Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman's of the world, I, I believe that they're well intentioned people. I, I have nothing to substantiate that. I just believe it.
Where, where people.
I guess may be a little bit.
Ill informed is that, you know, the, the Dave Ramsey's and Susie Orman's are compensated very well to not understand dividend paying, participating whole life insurance or the process of becoming your own banker. The distinction being a product versus a process, they're compensated really well to not understand that. And I went on to share with Victoria in my response to her that while I could have simply just blocked her.
Because of the tone of her remarks, I decided to issue a thought challenge to her. But it's going to require some research, some extensive research.
And that challenge I brought to your attention, Rich, today because I said, hey, you need to be aware of this because my hope is, is that know Victoria goes on a journey of learning and she comes to some very.
Well researched conclusions that are factual and she can look, look at them and say, wow, okay, I learned something new. And boy was I ever wrong. And so what I shared with her was you go ahead. You recruit any life insurance carrier in Canada that provides dividend paying, participating whole life insurance contracts.
And prove even one of your remarks as being factual.
And any of mine as being wrong.
Put together a dissertation, have the life insurance company itself validate in writing your dissertation.
We'll invite you onto the show and you and you alone. So Dave isn't welcome, Susie's not welcome, you and you alone Present your research.
And I will publicly acknowledge your subject matter expertise. And I will donate personally.
From those commissions. I will donate up to a maximum of $10,000 to any person or organization that you choose. And in this healthy thought challenge, we both get to win and we get to put an end to your embarrassing temper tantrums. It's your golden ticket to stick it to me.
And I'll receive that feedback if the insurance company says, hey, like, yeah, he's absolutely wrong, like, everything that he shared with you is incorrect.
And it's my golden ticket to bless someone else's life in a positive way or some other organization in a positive way. And you're the one who gets to choose who receives all that, that blessing.
I don't, I don't take what, anything that she says personally. You know, although she took it upon herself to insult me personally, I don't like, I'm just, I don't care what she thinks. But to express with such emotionally charged sensitivity.
E Word warriors.
Random incoherent.
There isn't anything that she shared that could be categorized as a rational thought. And so I'm, I'm asking her to go and learn something and, and present it, provided that she's able to identify anything that she shared as being factual. Because she said, hey, these are the facts, and I can absolutely assure you they're not. And so my hope is, is that.
She goes on this journey and I wish her well. Like, I wish her the best and obviously, you know, she's got some issues or whatever. And don't we all?
I feel like we should get the, that intro music to somehow played on this podcast episode. Remember that show from like the, I think it was like the late 80s or whatever. It was like the Facts of Life.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, get that, get.
That tune in here somewhere.
Yeah, I remember that.
A couple of things I think that just come up for me and I don't want to, I just want to circle back to the, the, the, the Daves and the Suzies of the world or the financial entertainers that are out there. And one thing that comes up for me, because there's, there's several and they become popular and lots of people will do these reaction videos on YouTube and blah, blah, blah. That's all fine dandy. But there's people who call into a radio program and, and then there's 30 second sound bites of advice that are delivered and I get really frustrated by that. It bothers me a great deal. So I don't, I don't care who that person is. I don't think anyone should be, I don't think, first of all, I don't think you should be receiving, accepting and implementing 30 second sound bites of advice or 2 minute TikTok sound bites of advice. That is not a financial plan or a strategy. So please don't do that. Recognize that people who call into radio programs and radio programs are designed to be marketing oriented tools of their own, of their own nature. But if someone is, you're asking a few questions and the person who's taking those questions doesn't know anything about you and your circumstances, they are not equipped to be providing you any advice and what happens. And I've heard this on several programs for said, said financial entertainers. They will take very small snippets of information and they will recommend right there, live on a call, on the spot, publicly for people to cancel life insurance policies. Yeah, they don't, they don't ask if that person's still insurable. They don't even know. They don't know maybe they've got cancer. You're gonna tell that person, go cancel insurance policy. Like you have no earthly idea how that's going to be interpreted. And in my opinion, and I, I couldn't validate it, but I, I, I have a hard time thinking through logically how there hasn't been people and families left effectively financially destitute because of bad 30 second sound bite advice like that that they've received and then take an action on without running it by anyone else to actually confirm if it was a reasonable idea given their own financial circumstances. So I do have a real beef with that. I think it's severely damaging to the general public and I'm glad that our listeners are smart enough to not do that sort of thing. But it really, really frustrates me. I, as you know, Jay, I like to look out for the little guy and I feel like conversations like that happen on, on these type of radio programs, they just have such a potential to truly negatively impact and really destroy the legacy that people have built without any context of any kind about what's happened in their life. What's going on. You know, earlier today we did an amazing interview for another podcast episode with Michael Isom, who wrote this amazing book, what We're Worth. In that he tells this incredible story, his, his life story that, that literally financially ruined him to, to the, to the point of like, like D day. Like he was, he was checking out and he was going to be gone and it's, you know, like, really, really impactful story. Yeah. But had he called in and gotten some 30 second sound bite advice, who's to know what, what would have happened? And people who are got their back up against the wall in different financial circumstances. We don't know their story until you actually find out what their goals and objectives are and what's going on. Like, it's just so insane to me that we could take that little bit of what Nelson would say, take a little bit of information and jump to an absurd conclusion. And to a degree, I think that's what this commenter on this Facebook, you know, post is doing. And I find it also interesting, you know, she, you know, it, it appears at least based on the, you know, I don't know if the image is correct, but it pays based on the image of the person's, you know, profile. It looks like a, like a young lady and, you know, maybe, like, maybe 30, not even probably to have such a intense level of reaction to a sponsored ad about choosing to opt in to a free webinar. Like, if the ad, you know, I, I see Facebook ads, you know what I do, I just scroll by them if I don't like them. You can also click a little button that says, like, stop seeing the ad. Like, just move on.
What compels you to go into some kind of a keyboard war with people? Like, I don't understand, I don't understand the mindset of that. It just completely baffles me.
I know. And, and that's why I said, like, I, I could have just simply.
Blocked her and. But, you know, I, I always want to find the best in people and just want them to just. If you're gonna get that emotionally sensitized, I think it would be even more effective if it was actually supported by facts. And so Victoria has a lot to learn and I hope that she, you know, embarks on that journey and certainly wish her all the best. But yeah, you know, people, people do that. Right. Some people just do it to kind of incite a reaction. You know, like people will come on and, you know, say something really dumb or, you know, like, ah, this is just a scam, right, Jason?
That 200 life insurance, that must be a scam. Yeah.
And I'm just like, let the adults have a conversation. Okay. Let the adults talk.
Oh, God.
Like, it's, it really for me.
I.
Think again, you know, ads, ads can really get people kind of just like totally charged up just because it's an ad and it's like, wow, you know, just take a Deep breath and just calm yourself down a little bit. But I wanted to share this with our community because I think it's important for people to know all the financial noise that goes on out there and the Dave Ramsey's, the Susie Ormans, you know, they.
They, that's part of their style. You know, they can be incredibly rude and condescending and they have no, like, no, they have no difficulty putting people down. They have no difficulty putting people down.
Belittling them. That's right.
And it, people like Victoria see that and, and have obviously picked up on some of that behavior and it's incredibly unfortunate. But I thought it was helpful to share this and hopefully our viewers and listeners get some value out of hearing the truth.
And.
Yeah, Nelson, Nelson felt that.
People who recognize and understand the ability to implement a process, you know, as he described in his book, they would find the message, they wouldn't, you know, they, they would be able to cut through that noise pretty quickly. And, and I, I, I believe that to be true. He says on page 34 of the arrival syndrome, if you understand what's really happening, you'll know what to do. And I recognize that, you know, you know, this book has sell so well, well over 500, 000 copies worldwide. It's only been in print now for 20, it's in its 23rd year. I mean I think that that's a pretty impressive scenario seeing as how it's self published.
I mean what more proof do you need? Take a look at all of the, you know what, look, just, just in Canada alone, think about the size of the participating accounts of the major insurance companies in Canada. I mean if we added them all together, I'm, yeah, I'm going to do a rough, rough calculation here. Like I, I, I think that we're probably, probably pushing 35 to $40 billion.
Something like that gonna be more, more than that.
Okay, well, yeah, whatever, let's just, so let's just, let's just pick the number and say it's 50 billion and growing.
Man, all those Canadians playing that insurance premium must be, must be something wrong with them. They really must have been asleep at the wheel.
Yeah, it's.
And again there's, you know, my, my dad, my late father.
Used to say, because my, my dad had a, he just had a real way.
Of.
He just wouldn't be reeled into any type of conversation with, with someone who was communicating things that just simply were not true. And, and if they were doing it in a way that was really, you know, rather than speak the truth. You know, you start throwing insults and, you know, speaking in a very immature way.
My dad would say, like, you can't match widths with somebody who has no emotional intelligence. And he would literally just not talk to you if you were behaving that way because he, he wouldn't give you the, the time of day. And.
So, you know, you and I, we share this often and it's the absolute truth. You know, we wish the best for everybody and. But some people just don't want the truth even when it's presented in a logical, well researched way with a proven track record.
Even presented with all of that, a person who prioritizes emotion over.
Facts and logic is never going to grasp it because they've already programmed their brain in that fashion. And you got to be really careful what you feed your brain because, because sooner or later your brain's gonna buy it. And.
So, hey, we welcome the good and we welcome the bad. In the sense that if, if you think that anything that we are saying is wrong, a lie, a scam, whatever that may be.
Please present it in a well researched way and we'll, we'll receive that feedback.
In other words, prove it.
Good luck with that.
Anyhow, this was fun. And Victoria, thanks for being a good sport. I hope you take me up on my healthy thought challenge. And I'd be happy to receive an apology from you if you're mature enough to, to do that. But if not, take care. Wish you all the best. And oh, the other thing, yeah, we always, for gosh, sometimes we forget to mention it, but it's there. It's the next video that has shown up. We want you to continue your journey of learning. And we also want to mention too, as we're going to do on each of our shows, head on over to the Nelson Nash Institute YouTube channel. Again, that's the Nelson Nash Institute YouTube channel. And when you get there, subscribe. There's a ton of great content you can list. Learn directly from the developer, the pioneer of the process. We've been working very closely with the Nelson Nash Institute to help the Institute create and post even more great archived content from Nelson. And that's been a real blessing and a real honor to do. And we encourage you to go head on over there and subscribe. If you think our content is great, you're going to get a ton of value from the Institute's channel as well. So again, that's the Nelson Ash Institute YouTube channel. Make the rest of your week outstanding. And thank you all again for tuning in. And for viewing. We appreciate you Rich. This was fun. Thanks buddy.
Cheers. Thanks for listening to the Wealth Without Bay Street Podcast where your wealth matters. Be sure to check out our social media channels for more great content. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcast player and be sure to rate the show. We definitely appreciate it. And don't forget to share this episode with someone you care about. Join us on the next episode where we continue to uncover the financial tools, strategies and the mindsets that maximize your wealth.










