BOLI (Bank-Owned Life Insurance) has proven to provide a cost-efficient and effective means for banks to offset rising employee benefit costs, such as supplemental executive retirement, deferred compensation programs, and post-retirement medical obligations - all of which constitute major expenses for most corporations.

Most banks look for cost effective and tax-efficient ways to fund their employee benefit programs.  Purchasing BOLI has become an increasingly common way to accomplish this objective.   In a BOLI program, a bank purchases life insurance on a defined group of its highly compensated officers and employees. The bank pays the policy premiums, owns the cash value of the policies, and is the designated beneficiary.  Prior to purchasing this insurance, the bank is required by statute to obtain each employee’s affirmative consent to the bank insuring his or her life, and the bank must disclose to each proposed insured employee the beneficiary designation and the maximum amount of insurance coverage under the policy on his or her life.

A properly designed BOLI plan may offer the following benefits:

• BOLI can be used to help fund and support assorted employee benefits, including non-qualified deferred compensation and other post-retirement programs.

• BOLI can potentially offer annual after-tax returns that are higher than the returns earned on other assets on the bank’s balance sheet.

• A bank’s earnings derived from BOLI may come from growth in the policies’ cash values or from life insurance benefits payable on a tax-free basis upon an insured’s death.

• The growth in a policy’s cash value is tax-deferred unless accessed via a partial-withdrawal or surrender, if permitted under the terms of the policy.

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