Tax-Free Retirement Income Strategies: Safeguard Your Future!

By Doug Andrew August 9, 2025 Blog, FAQ, YouTube

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What if the biggest threat to your retirement isn’t market risk, inflation, or even healthcare costs—but unnecessary taxes eating away at your wealth, year after year?

What if there was a proven way to safely grow wealth, access income tax-free, and leave a larger legacy—no matter what the stock market does?

For decades, most Americans have followed a familiar path: stuffing money into IRAs, 401(k)s, or maybe Roths—hoping those accounts will deliver a secure retirement. But the truth is, traditional retirement vehicles often expose your savings to otherwise avoidable taxes and missed opportunities for growth, flexibility, and control.

It’s time to challenge that thinking with a strategy some of the world’s most financially savvy retirees have quietly relied on for years: the LASER Fund—our term for a properly structured, max-funded Indexed Universal Life (IUL) insurance policy.

Today, you’ll discover how families are using this approach for truly tax-free retirement income—even in roller coaster market years. If you’ve never “seen proof”—you’re about to.

Video Transcription

Transcript Introduction In this episode, um I’m going to give you some um actual results of a dozen or so IL policies and how they performed uh in the one-year period from uh January 2024 to January 2025 because we have a lot of naysayers uh that say, “I’ve never seen an IUL policy perform at the rates of return that you quote.” So, we decided here a few months back that we’re going to post a dozen or so actual annual statements of uh IL policies. Uh we don’t disclose the client’s name on these, of course, but the actual statements showing you the rate of return because we have hundreds of these. And so, in this episode, I’m going to show you the ones just for the 12-month period ending January 2025. And while you’re in there, you can go and see the ones for ending December. uh November uh October, September of 2024 uh and you can check it out every single month. So get ready. So I’m Doug Andrew. I’ve been a financial strategist and retirement planning specialist now for north of five decades, helping thousands of Americans optimize their assets and minimize tax and empower what I call their true wealth. Now, my favorite financial vehicle without question uh for retirees is a property structured max-funded IUL indexed universal life. Why? Because it accumulates my money Critics vs Reality: Debunking Low-Return Myths tax-free. I can access that money uh tax-free. Every million bucks I have in in IUL can generate a h 100,000 a year of tax-free income without depleting the million dollar nest egg. That’s called a 10% net payout. uh if I live to be 120 and uh when I ultimately die, anything left in there blossoms. If I leave behind a million, it usually blossoms to a million and a half or 2 million and transfers tax-free. There’s not an IRA or 401k that’ll do that or a Wroth. That’s why I’ve never owned an IRA or 401k. Never will. I’ve never owned a Roth IRA or 401k. ever will because a properly structured max-funded IUL has six major benefits which Roths only have two of those six benefits and Roths have too many strings attached. You can only put in a certain dollar amount or a certain percent of your income. If you make too much money, you can’t even have a Wroth. That’s why savvy CPAs and tax attorneys refer to max-funded IUL as the rich person’s wroth. Uh but I can design an IUL to accommodate uh hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. You can can’t do that with a Roth, but I can use indexing where I benefit when the market goes up, but I don’t lose one dime if the market crashes because my money is not in the market. It’s linked to an index. Okay? And then at the end of the day, it blossoms and transfers uh tax-free. Now, I had I get critics that go, I have never seen uh an IUL policy uh IUL Performance Watch (Data Source) earn the rates of return that you talk about on this channel. Prove it to me. show me one and I just go I’ll show you hundreds. So that’s why we decided to put on u this uh website IUL performance watch. So if you go to laserfinancial.com uh that’s my son’s uh financial firm and uh laserfinancial.com/iulperformancewatch. Okay. IUL Performance Watch and you’ll be able to go in and actually see uh actual results every single month where they just uh almost randomly select a dozen or so IL policies and they show you the return. This is January 2025 snapshots. Okay. So when you’re in there, you’ll see these and when you click on any of them, it brings it up full screen and you can also see the ones that for December ending December 2024 or November 2024 or October 2024. And so there’ll be a dozen or so every single time that that we just post on there to prove what we’re talking about. So let me enlarge these for just a moment. Here’s one that um is an IUL policy that they had a grand total of 5,800, 3,000, and 5600. They also were able to put it into a multiplier, and so they ended up getting an average return uh between these three different places. They diversified 19.8%. So, they were able to uh increase the value of all of these accounts by 19.8%. There you go. Hello. Oh, you’ve never seen one? I just showed you one. Here’s another one. 8.77. That’s just sort of like the average. This wasn’t using a uh anything fancy, but 8.77% tax-free. Not bad. Here’s one 10%. Okay. Range of 2024 Results: 8% to 32% Explained Uh 16,000 grew 10% and is worth 18,000 at the end of the year. These are very uh easy rates of return. So many people go, I’ve never seen one even do seven or eight percent. Well, you’ve been looking at IUL that’s not structured correctly. Okay, this one 8.27, but yeah, there’s some 23.55%. 23 12% return in one single year. Uh January of 2024 to January of 2025. Here’s one 8.55% typical. Here’s another one. 32.65%. Okay. Uh 24.35%. Here’s another one, 23.4%. See, uh, people go, “Wow, uh, that’s pretty impressive.” Again, so many agents, they say, “Show me one.” Well, I’ll show you dozens. And so, we want to make a goal of posting on IL Performance Watch every month, a dozen or so policies uh that are ending uh the one-year point-to-point linking or maybe it’s the end of a two-year period. and what the actual returns were. These are actual returns and keep in mind those are tax-free 22.5%. So uh this is uh critical it it’s u the truth. See if you want to see the truth instead of listening to naysayers say I’ve never seen one. I always laugh. It’s like because you’ve never seen one. I just showed you a dozen here. You don’t think they exist? Well, have you ever seen your brain? How do you know What Drove the 32% High? (No-Cap Strategy) that exists? Okay. Uh, it’s ridiculous reasoning that people give when they say, “Well, I’ve never seen one.” It’s because you’re looking at the wrong policies. Unfortunately, a lot of agents don’t know how to create these results for their clients. And that’s why we strongly recommend you only uh engage with an agent, an IUL agent that is a certified IUL professional by getting certified through our program which was extremely rigid. Okay. It’s very comprehensive. And uh that’s why we’re very passionate about helping IL agents who want to learn how to do it correctly with essential knowledge and case design and be able to help people because the regulators are wanting to know, Doug, who has proven to you that they know how to do it right. Uh the carriers, the companies want to know, but the public wants to know more than anything. And so that’s what the purpose of all of this is. You simply go to laserfinancial.com/iulperformancewatch and you can even go to my YouTube channel which you’re watching this episode on and uh in the YouTube channel when you look at the main menu uh you can look at playlists. So you see the video, you go over to playlists and there’s a playlist there that is only populated with YouTube YouTube episodes and it’s called does IUL work? Does IUL work? And on there it’s usually me or my Case Study: The 61% “Rebound Year” aain sons Emron and Aaron and we’re doing the same thing only we’re we’re we’re not just showing you uh the statement we’re sort of telling you the story behind it and how this client was able to achieve those kinds of rates of return. You’re going to see some clients who uh in one single year, March of 2020 to March of 2021, got credited 61.33% because of the CO9 pandemic. On their IUL , they got credited 61.33%. You’re going to see a statement like this where a client had $852,000 in March of 2020. A year later, that was worth a $387,000. He made $535 grand in one year. In fact, there were about 800 clients that got 61.33%. In one year, do you know during that same year, some used the multipliers that I talked about a moment ago? You know what they got credited? 158%. Have you ever seen an insurance policy where uh they might have a million dollars of cash value in January of 2020 and in January of 2021 it’s it’s it’s more than double that. It it’s grown by 2 million. Well, then you haven’t seen IL structured correctly and rebalanced by simply having annual reviews and talking to a professional that knows what they’re doing. Okay. So, this is designed to help you see the proof. uh we have nothing to hide and that’s why we post uh a dozen or more every single month. So this uh is an example of the ones ending January of 2025. When you go in there, you can look back at the history, the archives for all of these. Again, laserfinancial.com/iulperformancewatch and see for yourself the proof images of the actual statements and these are real people.

Key Misconception About Tax-Free Retirement Income Strategies

“Tax-Free Retirement Income Strategies Are Too Good to Be True—or Only for the Ultra Wealthy.”

Let’s get this straight: Tax-free retirement income isn’t a pipe dream for billionaires or Wall Street insiders. It’s available to anyone who understands how the rules actually work—and acts now to take advantage.

Yet, many hardworking savers limit themselves to IRAs, 401(k)s, and Roth accounts—unaware of the unique, six-way advantages that come with a properly structured, max-funded LASER Fund (Indexed Universal Life).

Why do so many professionals (and even some experts) misunderstand these opportunities?

Simple:

Outdated “one-size-fits-all” advice
The trend of chasing low taxes today, while ignoring the likely potential for future rising tax rates
Confusion over what truly effective tax-free growth looks like

Let’s set the record straight and arm you with the facts.

What Really Works: The LASER Fund Approach

The LASER Fund is our name for a properly structured, max-funded Indexed Universal Life insurance policy designed for safe, predictable tax-free income—with unique advantages you simply don’t get elsewhere.

How does it work, in plain English?

Max-funded: This means you put as much money as possible into the policy, minimizing insurance costs and maximizing cash value growth.
Indexing: By using indexing strategies linked TO the market (not IN the market), your policy’s cash value’s growth is linked to the growth of a market indexes, such as the S&P 500 (no direct stock market investment), so you benefit when the market goes up—but you never lose a dime due to market crashes.
Tax-advantaged accumulation and access: So long as the policy is maintained your cash can grow tax-free. To access your money, you can borrow against your cash value tax-free. You can choose to pay the loan back or not (there’s no required payback schedule—if left unpaid the loan balance will be deducted from the death benefit upon your passing)..
Liquidity and control: Access funds without penalties, taxes, or age restrictions—and no RMDs.
Tax-free legacy: Upon your passing, your beneficiaries receive your death benefit entirely income-tax-free.

Quick metaphor: Imagine “triple-dipping” on tax advantages—growing wealth tax-free, accessing wealth tax-free, and leaving wealth income-tax-free.

Traditional Retirement Paths: The Unseen Costs

Traditional retirement plans have their setbacks:

IRAs and 401(k)s:

Deferred taxes may mean lower taxes today, but all distributions in retirement are taxable—at whatever future rates may be.
You’ll get hit with penalties for early access, required minimum withdrawals (RMDs) at age 73+, and contribution limits.
Your money may feel safe, but you’ll typically lose money in your accounts during market downturns, and locking money away in rigid, taxable buckets can actually hurt your flexibility.

Roth IRAs:

You can get taxes over before contributing, which means tax-free withdrawals, but you’ll have to face strict income and contribution limits.
Roths are no match for the six key advantages found in The LASER Fund strategy.

Real Impact: By sticking to traditional retirement strategies, many miss out on the tax-free compounding, no market-loss years, and liquidity that a properly structured, max-funded IUL delivers.

Proof in the Numbers: Real-World Results From 2024–2025

For years, skeptics have claimed, “I’ve never seen an Indexed Universal Life insurance policy return what you say it does.”

Let’s look at real, verifiable IUL(IUL) statements for the 12 months ending January 2025, as posted to our IUL Performance Watch resource:

8.77% tax-free return: Straightforward, with no special multipliers.
10% tax-free return: $16,000 grew to $18,000 in one year—a 10% gain.
19.8% tax-free return: Diversified across indexing options.
23.55%, 24.35%, 32.65% returns: All within the same 12-month period on different policies.
61.33% tax-free return: During the COVID-19 volatility, hundreds saw their LASER Funds credited at over 60% growth in one year!
158% with multipliers: Some clients leveraging advanced crediting options realized even more explosive, yet safe, growth.

Key point: These are not hypothetical projections—they are scans of real annual policy statements, available for review. While not every year will deliver double-digit returns, properly structured LASER Funds have consistently delivered a historic average returns of 5% to 10%, tax-free compounding, even when traditional investments floundered. And you’re protected by a 0% guaranteed floor during market downturns.

Scenario Walk-through: The Retiree Who Outperformed the Market with a LASER Fund

Consider Richard, a 63-year-old who rolled out his savings into a properly structured LASER Fund in January 2020:

Starting Balance: $852,000
1 Year Later: $1,387,000
Growth: +$535,000 tax-free in just one year (61.33% crediting, thanks to index strategies and safe arbitrage)

Meanwhile, friends with IRAs withdrew money to cover living expenses—each dollar eroded by required taxes.

Richard, on the other hand, accessed up to $100,000 per $1 million in cash value as tax-free retirement income, without depleting his nest egg—or triggering extra taxes or penalties.

If the market had crashed (as it did for many in 2020), his downside was protected. No loss due to market volatility.

Now imagine: The peace of mind that comes with protected principal, tax-free income, and no IRS interference—today and tomorrow.

Action Steps: How to Unlock Your Tax-Free Retirement Income Strategies

Assess Your Current Retirement Plan: Review your IRAs, 401(k)s, or Roths for tax exposure, liquidity, and access restrictions.
Educate Yourself on LASER Funds: Learn about the six unique advantages of a properly structured, max-funded IUL (The LASER Fund). Our YouTube playlist “Does IUL Work?” walks you through real statements and strategies.
Connect With a Certified IUL Agent: Only work with professionals trained in the LASER Fund strategy who are certified, so your policy can be optimized for growth, flexibility, and tax-free access.→ Find a certified agent now
Request a Personalized Performance Review: See actual recent performance statements and ask about point-to-point and multiplier options tailored to your risk profile.
Attend a Workshop or Event: Reserve your spot in upcoming educational events to deepen your understanding and take advantage of market cycles.→ Upcoming Events

First step to take today: Start with a no-obligation review of your current retirement strategies and see how a tax-free LASER Fund can impact your financial future. The boost may surprise you.

The Cost of Inaction: Why This Matters Right Now

If you keep all your retirement eggs in tax-deferred baskets, you’re giving Uncle Sam a blank check on your future.

What happens if you don’t act?

You might outlive your money due to taxes and market losses.
Your beneficiaries will likely inherit less—potentially much less.
You forfeit the combined power of tax-free growth and access to tax-free cash.

Smart, strategic wealth is about control—not just accumulation. Liquidity and tax-free access are cornerstones of peace-of-mind retirement.

Ready to safeguard—and grow—your true wealth? Click here to reserve your spot at one of our upcoming events.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What is a LASER Fund and how can I use it in retirement planning?

A LASER Fund is a properly structured, max-funded Indexed Universal Life (IUL) insurance policy designed to maximize tax-free growth, provide flexible tax-free access to cash value, and deliver an income-tax-free legacy to beneficiaries.

2. How does tax-free retirement income work with an IUL?

You can access your LASER Fund’s cash value through policy loans, which are not considered taxable income. This strategy enables you to access income before and during retirement without triggering taxes or penalties—unlike traditional IRA or 401(k) withdrawals.

3. What are the main benefits of a max-funded IUL vs. a Roth IRA?

A max-funded IUL offers six major benefits, including no contribution limits, no income-based restrictions, tax-free compounding, penalty-free liquidity, and an income-tax-free death benefit. Roth IRAs deliver only two of those six advantages and limit your annual contributions.

4. Is Indexed Universal Life insurance safe for retirement income?

When structured and managed correctly, an IUL offers downside protection because your cash value is linked to—not invested in—the market. Your principal is shielded from market losses with a 0% floor, making it a safer vehicle for predictable, tax-free growth.

5. How do Indexed Universal Life insurance policies perform in volatile markets?

LASER Funds can excel during volatile markets because they capture gains in up years but do not suffer losses due to market volatility in down years. Real-world statements show double-digit tax-free returns even during turbulent periods, as seen in 2020–2021.

6. What is the role of a certified IUL agent?

Certified IUL agents have undergone advanced, rigorous training to design LASER Funds correctly, ensuring you maximize all six advantages and avoid costly mistakes that can lead to under-performance or failed tax strategies.

7. Can high net worth individuals benefit from max-funded IULs?

Absolutely. Unlike Roth IRAs, LASER Funds have no income or contribution limits and are especially suited for high-net-worth individuals seeking predictable, safe, tax-free accumulation and legacy planning.

8. What are LASER Fund “multipliers” and how do they work?

Multipliers are IUL policy design tools that can boost your credited interest in strong index years. Some real policy statements with multipliers show returns over 30%, 60%, or even 100%+ during exceptional years—while never risking your principal due to market volatility.

9. Where can I see real IUL policy performance statements?

You can review dozens of verified annual policy statements posted to the IUL Performance Watch website. These provide monthly, up-to-date proof of actual client results.

10. How do I start a LASER Fund for tax-free retirement income?

Begin by connecting with a certified IUL professional, request a custom performance review, and compare your current retirement approach to the LASER Fund strategy. Click here to get started.

Still have questions? Want to unlock your own tax-free retirement plan?

Access our free guides—and connect with a LASER Fund specialist today: Get started now.

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