Generated May 25, 2026 | Two plans for Alyssa, same $70,000 a year, both protect the family with $10,000,000
You have $70,000 a year set aside. Both plans below cost exactly that, and both pay $10,000,000 if Alyssa dies. The only real difference is how much money you build on the side while alive, and who controls it. Plan B builds about twice as much, and you own all of it.
Plan A: The insurance policy (what Diamond pitched)
You pay$70,000 / year
Family gets if she dies$10,000,000 *
Money you can take out by year 20$2,619,810
Who controls itInsurer + bank
The catchGains capped, a bank funds most of the premium, the policy borrows against itself, lock-up and fees
Plan B: Buy term, invest the rest
You pay$6,765 term + $63,235 invested = $70,000 / year
Family gets if she dies$10,000,000
Money you can take out by year 20$5,388,764
Who controls itYou
The catchTerm ends at age 65; by then the account is your self-insurance
Same cost. Same $10,000,000 protection. But Plan B leaves you with $5,388,764 you fully own and can touch, versus $2,619,810 locked inside the policy. That is $2,768,954 more, and it is liquid.
Money you have built by year 20
What you could actually take out after 20 years, for the same $70,000 a year. Both plans also pay $10,000,000 if Alyssa dies during the term. Policy figure is the surrender value from Diamond's illustration (prop-alyssa.pdf). Term-plus-invest figure is $63,234.90 a year in an S&P 500 index fund over the actual returns of 2005 to 2024.
Why is the policy's number so much smaller? Two reasons.
Reason 1: the cap. The policy only credits market gains up to a cap each year, with a 0% floor in down years. It sounds safe, but the market makes most of its money in a few giant up years, and the cap clips exactly those. Skipping a couple of crashes does not make up for missing every big rally. The table below shows it on the real years.
Year
What the S&P did (price)
What a capped policy keeps
Difference
"Capped policy keeps" = the S&P price change, limited to a 10% cap (assumption, the policy's real cap is not printed on the illustration) and floored at 0%. Source for yearly returns: Wikipedia "S&P 500" annual returns table.
Reason 2: the loan. Diamond's illustration shows a $9,793,188 "accumulation value" at year 20, which looks great. But that is the gross number. The policy borrows about $7,173,378 against itself (around year 15 it takes a $4,985,975 distribution to pay off the bank loan). What you could actually take out, the illustration's own surrender value, is $2,619,810 (prop-alyssa.pdf). The $9.79M is mostly offset by the loan.
Question for Diamond. The illustration shows a $12,619,810 gross death benefit at year 20, but if there is roughly a $7,173,378 loan against the policy, confirm what actually reaches the family after the loan is repaid. The $10,000,000 term policy has no loan against it, so the family gets the full amount.
The honest caveats
Term ends at age 65 (year 30). It covers the years when an early death would hurt most. By then the invested account, $5,388,764 and still growing, is the self-insurance. The policy's death benefit is meant to be permanent, but capped, financed, and loan-encumbered.
Past is not future. The index figure uses the actual S&P 500 returns of 2005 to 2024. A weaker stretch would narrow the gap. A flat or falling decade is where the policy's floor earns its keep.
The term premium is an indicative quote (term4sale.com, female age 35, Preferred, non-tobacco, $10M, 30-year). The issued price depends on a medical exam and, at $10M, financial justification.
Policy figures are illustrated, not guaranteed (prop-alyssa.pdf). If the policy credits less than illustrated, its numbers get worse, not better.
Sources
$70,000/year out of pocket, $9,793,188.63 accumulation value, $2,619,810.44 surrender value, $12,619,810.44 gross death benefit (all year 20), and the $4,985,975 year-15 distribution: Diamond Patni illustration, prop-alyssa.pdf, 5/4/2026 (attached to Gmail msg 19e5178bbc33061e, hemani.ali@gmail.com).
Term premium $6,765.10/year for $10M, 30-year level, female age 35, Preferred, non-tobacco: term4sale.com (Compulife), pulled May 25, 2026.
Invested amount $63,234.90/year = $70,000 minus $6,765.10. Index result $5,388,764 = that invested at S&P 500 total returns, 2005 to 2024 (Wikipedia "S&P 500" annual returns table). Total contributed: $1,264,698.
Loan against the policy $7,173,378.19 = $9,793,188.63 accumulation minus $2,619,810.44 surrender. Difference in accessible money $2,768,953.56 = $5,388,764 minus $2,619,810.44.