Your IUL Can Do So Much for Your Family
So your granddaughter wants to get into her first home.
She’s responsible, hard-working, and already on her way to building a strong entrepreneurial career.
But she’s only in her early 20s, with little opportunity to prove herself worthy of a home loan.
The banks tell her, “Come back when you’re older and have more established credit and income history.”
What are the options?
If you’re like Miers and Sandi (featured in “My IUL Story” in the Summer 2026 issue), you can use your properly structured, maximum-funded Indexed Universal Life (what we call an IUL LASER Fund) as a family bank, helping your granddaughter with a hand up — not a handout.
In Miers and Sandi’s situation, they accessed cash tax-free with their IUL (via a policy loan) to buy the home outright, giving their granddaughter the opportunity to move in right away and rent-to-own. When she qualifies for her own home loan in a few years, she’ll buy the home from them, and they’ll turn around and repay their policy loan.
It’s a win-win for everyone. Sandi and Miers can seize the chance to empower a loved one, while creating invaluable opportunities for her to develop responsibility and accountability.
Their granddaughter has the opportunity to get into real estate while young and get a headstart on her Financial Dimension development.
Sandi and Miers are actual LASER Financial clients, and theirs is just one example of how your IUL can become a catalyst for significant growth and positive experiences when used for your family bank.
Soaring into the Future
When clients Carl and Theresa’s son, Zach, headed to flight school, they turned to their IULs to pay the sizable annual tuition.
Carl, Theresa, and Zach turned to their IULs to pay for Zach’s flight school
In our Summer 2025 issue, Carl shares, “He’s been in training to become a pilot. Flying lessons are very expensive, and borrowing from our policies has been easier than taking out bank loans.
“For this latest loan, we had Zach borrow from his own policy to finish the last of his education. He’s learning real quick what it’s like to take on that kind of responsibility. And he’s paying the loan back — that was one of our rules: You have to pay it back.”
Theresa adds, “We could have paid it off for him, but it was the right thing to do. It’s been hard for him, but he hasn’t missed a payment yet, and he’s learning how valuable it is to put money back into his policy for his future, rather than having to pay a bank for the loan. Once this loan is paid off, he wants to borrow again from his policy for a down payment on a house.”
Carl and Theresa show not only how IULs can be used for education, but also to instill critical habits that can help children and grandchildren prepare for a lifetime of Financial Dimension discipline.
Heading Off to College
Similarly, Jeff decided he wanted to use IUL for his children’s tuition a few years ago. He stopped putting money into their college 529 plans, realizing he didn’t like aspects of those plans (with the account value vulnerable to market downturns and limitations on uses).
His oldest just started college last year, and he’s accessing tax-free cash via policy loans for the tuition. Their family bank rules of governance are this: Over the coming years, the kids will repay the cost of tuition, while Jeff will cover the loan interest.
He’s glad his children will be able to gain the accountability and confidence that comes from having skin in the game with their own education.
What’s more, by using Alternate Loans, the policy’s accumulation value can continue to grow while he has a policy loan funding his kids’ education, and that gives him peace of mind.
Making Meaningful Getaways Easy
Brandon accessed his IUL to make his family’s Southern California getaway a meaningful adventure
Sometimes it’s not grand goals like education or homes that you can use your IUL for — it’s moments along the way, like Family Retreats With a Purpose.
If you’re new to 3 Dimensional Wealth principles, a Family Retreat With a Purpose is essentially a family vacation that’s been leveled up by including values-based experiences on the itinerary.
That can include carving out time for using 3 Dimensional Wealth tools, like The Clarity Experience or the 10 Relationships BREAKthroughs. Or it can mean setting aside time to share I Remember When stories or revisit your family’s Values & Vision Statement.
So for example, when Brandon, one of our LASER Financial IUL specialists, wanted to book a Family Retreat With a Purpose to Southern California this summer, he turned to his IUL LASER Fund.
Rather than dipping into day-to-day savings or credit cards, he took out a policy loan to cover the getaway’s expenses, which included fun days at Disneyland, the beach, family values discussions, and lots of memory-making.
Brandon will repay the loan within a few months, then be ready to borrow again as needed for next year’s Family Retreat With a Purpose.
Unlocking the Possibilities
IUL is often called the Swiss Army Knife of financial vehicles, because it can be used for so many different aspects of life.
And as these real-life examples demonstrate, IUL LASER Funds can be a generator for fueling your family’s Authentic Wealth.
As you can also see in these examples, it’s helpful to establish rules of governance around how the money can be used and how it will be repaid.
While tax-free IUL policy loans do not have to be repaid (any unpaid loan balances are simply deducted from the cash value/death benefit upon your passing), it can help reinforce accountability to require at least a partial repayment from children or grandchildren. This helps you keep your family on the Abundance Cycle vs. the Entitlement Cycle. (For more on this, don’t miss Doug Andrew’s bestseller, “Entitlement Abolition.”)
To make it easy to outline your rules of governance, we invite you to use The KASH Blueprint tool. This workbook walks you through several areas of life like education, real estate, weddings, charitable giving, etc., with prompts to help you clarify when/how/why family members can access money for those things, and what expectations you have around repayments.
(Note: Tools like The KASH Blueprint and others mentioned in this article are available to 3 Dimensional Wealth Community and Legacy Masters members. Click here to learn more about subscribing to these powerful programs!)
Whether you already have an IUL LASER Fund or are thinking of opening a new or additional policy, consider the many ways you can use your policy to lift your family and pass on a powerful legacy, rooted in your values.
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Want to explore how IUL LASER Funds can help you fund your family bank for everything from education to first homes? We can help you access money with your current policy — or help you open a new one. Just click here.
