People think I built a giant pile of money.
They imagine that when Rebecca and I are gone, our kids are going to pull up with U-Hauls and snow shovels and drive away with it. That is the furthest thing from what we built. A family banking system is not a stockpile. It is a structure, a set of policies, a family constitution, and a way of thinking that keeps the money working long after you are no longer here to direct it.
I started in July of 2008 with a single policy. Today, our system spans 77 dividend-paying whole life insurance policies, 27 lives insured, $1.5 million in annual premiums, $51 million in death benefits, and $6.4 million in cash value as of May 2026. None of that happened because we accumulated enough. It happened because we built a system. And then we built the governance that protects it.
What People Think We Built and What We Actually Built
The 70% Statistic Nobody Wants to Explain
According to a study by the Williams Group of over 3,000 wealthy families, 70% lose their wealth by the second generation. 90% by the third.
When I ask people why, the answers are always the same. Bad investments. Lifestyle inflation. A market downturn.
Those are the visible causes. They are not the real ones.
The real reason wealth disappears
The families that lose their wealth almost always had enough money. What they did not have was a system that told the next generation what the money was for. Capital without governance does not last; it just takes a generation to prove it.
Nobody built the structure. They built the pile and handed it over with no rules, no accountability, and no context for what it took to build.
Key Note
Generational wealth does not fail because the next generation is irresponsible. It fails because nobody built the system that tells them what responsibility looks like. The money is not the problem. The absence of governance is.
What is a Family Banking System?
A family banking system is not a single policy; it is a coordinated pool across every life you have a stake in. Capital leaves through loans and comes back through repayment. The pool grows with every cycle.
The Flow of Money
Our system runs across 77 policies and 27 lives. When it grew to 6 or 7 policies, Rebecca came to me frustrated; she could not track which repayment went back to which policy.
What I told her then is what I tell every client now: you are not tracking the policy. You are tracking the repayment schedule. Send the money back to whatever policy will hold it. The system is the unit. Not the individual contract.
The Trust Analogy Nelson Nash Used
R. Nelson Nash, the late founder of the Infinite Banking Concept and a man I am honoured to have called a mentor, described this in Becoming Your Own Banker on page 69. Think of it like a trust. You are the grantor. The life insurance company is the trustee. When you pay the premium, that capital belongs to the company. In exchange, they fulfil a contractual obligation—daily guaranteed cash value accumulation that must match the total death benefit by age 100. They have never failed that obligation in more than two centuries.
The Real Contrast Nobody Talks About
Every payment your family makes to an outside institution, such as a mortgage, car loan, or credit card, transfers capital permanently away from the family. Not just the dollar. Every dollar that dollar would have ever earned. It stops compounding the moment it leaves. It never comes back.
Inside a properly structured family banking system, capital does not leave permanently. It circulates. A policy loan funds the need. The repayment brings the capital back. The pool grows. The death benefit rises. And the lives insured keep aging, which means the system keeps building whether anyone touches it or not.
Key Note
The family banking system and your investments are not competing for the same capital. The system controls how money moves. The investments build ownership in businesses that produce income. One funds the other. One protects the other. The capital that stays inside the family is the reason the investments never need to be interrupted.
How the two approaches compare across a generation:
| Conventional Wealth Transfer | Family Banking System | |
| What transfers | A sum of money at death | A system, a constitution, and a mentality |
| Governance | A will. Sometimes a trust. | A family constitution governing access, character, and conduct |
| Next generation’s relationship to capital | Recipient. No rules, no accountability. | Participant. Earns access through character and contribution. |
| What happens to capital when accessed | Leaves permanently. Stops compounding. | Circulates. Returns through repayment. Pool grows. |
| What survives the founder | The money, briefly | The system, indefinitely |
| Primary threat | Lifestyle inflation, bad decisions, no rules | Absence of shared values is solved by the constitution |
The Family Constitution: The Document Every Policy Owner Should Have Never Build
What it is and why it exists
This is the biggest takeaway from everything I have built over 18 years. The family constitution.
Ours is 110 pages, professionally printed with the family seal. Every member receives a copy. At our last annual family office meeting, my daughter Charlotte stood up and read it aloud to everyone in the room.
What the Constitution covers
It describes who we are, why we exist, what we believe, how we operate, and what is expected of every member. Our relationship with wealth. Our commitment to giving. Our declaration as a family.
It also covers how conflict is handled, conduct requirements, the path to reinstatement if someone breaks the rules, income suspension provisions, and prenuptial requirements. Every direct bloodline descendant who intends to marry must execute a legally enforceable prenuptial agreement confirming that the Lowe family trusts are inaccessible to spouses. No exceptions.
Access is conditional on character, not DNA
The trust is non-collapsible. We think in three-generation horizons. A beneficiary must be gainfully employed, operating a sustainable business, and demonstrating how they give back to their communities. If they cannot show that, they have no access to anything in the trust.
I have had parents tell me that it is harsh. My response is always the same. This is a business. It is not a daycare centre. The alternative, handing capital over with no rules, is what produces the 70% statistic. I know what the other side of that curtain looks like. I grew up inside it.
The Three Golden Rules
When my wife and I were expecting our firstborn, I said I had no playbook for being a dad. We settled on three rules.
- Be respectful
- Be responsible
- Be kind
Any behaviour, good or bad, can be traced to one or all three. When I raise my voice with one of my kids, I say it out loud: I dishonoured all three. Will you accept my apology? My kids now say the same to each other.
Ready to take control of your financial future?
Speak with an Ascendant Financial Advisor today and start building a strategy that protects your legacy.
Your Kids Are Not Listening. They Are Watching.
The Most Common Question and Why the Answer Is Not a Conversation
One of the most common questions I hear: ” How do I get my kids to understand this?
The answer is not a conversation. It is a demonstration.
My firstborn son took his first policy loan at nine. He did not sit through a lecture. He watched how we handled money from the time he was born, repayment schedules made, meetings attended, interest flowing back into the system instead of out to a bank. When the time came, the process was not foreign. It was the only financial world he had ever known.
The attorney meeting, not mom and dad
When our children are old enough to own their own policies, our family attorney, not Rebecca and I, walks them through their options.
Option A: Borrow from the family pool at ten percent, finance everything through the system, and be included in the Lowe Family Trust.
Option B: borrow from someone else’s bank, and the policies we own on your life transfer to charitable organisations of our choosing. You are not included in the trust.
That is not harsh. That is a business.
Never Gift the Policies
Do not transfer policy ownership to your children at eighteen. I have watched it happen. The child sees the cash surrender value, asks who to call to access it, and the policy is surrendered before the ink is dry. If your children want to own those policies, they buy them at market value. The purchase creates a relationship with the asset. The gift destroys it.
What a Family Banking System Does Well and What It Requires
What the System Does Well
- Capital circulates inside the family rather than leaving permanently for outside institutions
- Cash value rises daily, uninterrupted, contractually guaranteed regardless of market conditions
- Death benefit provides a tax-free windfall that replenishes the pool at the moment it is most needed
- Ready access to capital on demand, the family never borrows on someone else’s terms
- The system grows with each completed loan cycle, and every repayment strengthens the pool
- Scales across generations. Every new life insured expands the system and the death benefit
- The family constitution creates accountability, governance, and shared values that protect the capital from within
- Entirely private, not reported to credit bureaus
Where It Requires Commitment
- Consistent premium payments, the system only grows when capital enters it regularly
- Discipline to repay policy loans, the pool only recycles if the capital comes back
- A family constitution without governance, the capital does not survive the transfer
- Annual family office meetings. The values and the system must be revisited, not assumed
- The willingness to treat it like a business with consequences, accountability, and no exceptions
- A long time horizon, the system compounds slowly at first and then with extraordinary momentum
- Professional support estate planning attorneys, tax professionals, and an Authorized Infinite Banking Practitioner
You Do Not Need to Start Where We Are
I was not born into money. There was nothing silver in my family. My parents struggled financially and argued about money more times than I can count. I was the referee of those arguments as a young boy, and those are painful memories I carry still.
Nobody taught my parents what I am sharing with you today. Nobody showed them that the banking function was something they could control. Nobody helped them build a system. They navigated alone, the way most families do, and the financial stress eventually took its toll.
The life I dreamt about as a young boy is the life we are living today. Not because we got lucky. Because we built something. Gradually, incrementally, one policy at a time, one repayment at a time, one family meeting at a time.
In July of 2008 I started with a single policy. Today, that system has $51 million in total death benefit and $6.4 million in total cash value. And it grows every single day — because 27 individual lives insured are aging, and the contractual guarantee moves with them.
What can change for your family if your children and grandchildren inherited a system instead of a sum?
Most families will pass on financial stress. A small number will pass on financial systems. Ascendant Financial shows up differently in this conversation. We are not just helping families transfer dollar amounts. We are helping them transfer the wealth mentality that built those dollars in the first place. The difference is not income. It is not intelligence. It is not even discipline. It is the decision to build the structure and then to build the governance that makes sure the structure survives.
The foundation goes in first. The constitution protects it. Everything else compounds from there.
Ready to Build a System That Outlives You?
Book a family banking strategy conversation with an Ascendant Financial advisor. We will map how capital is currently moving through your household, show you what a properly structured family banking system looks like at your stage of the journey, and walk you through what the first steps of building your own family constitution actually involve.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you start a family banking system if you only have one policy?
In the same way, we started with one policy. A family banking system is not a destination you arrive at with a certain number of contracts. It is a process you begin with a single policy and expand from there. Nelson Nash was clear that this concept is not meant to be achieved through a single policy. It is meant to be achieved through a system of policies built over time. The first policy creates awareness. The awareness changes the behaviour. The behaviour expands the system. We went from one policy in July of 2008 to 77 policies across 27 lives over 18 years. That did not happen overnight. It happened one decision at a time.
Who can be insured inside a family banking system?
Anyone in whom you have a clearly established beneficial interest. That includes your spouse, your children, your grandchildren, your business partners, key people in your companies, and joint venture partners in projects that will produce taxable income or capital gains. The test is simple: if that person’s death would cause you a financial loss, you have a beneficial interest, and the insurance is justifiable. Nelson Nash had 22 lives insured in his own system. We have 27. Every new life insured expands the pool and adds compounding power to the system.
What is a family constitution, and does every family need one?
A family constitution is a governance document that defines who your family is, what you believe, how capital is accessed, what character is required to participate, and what happens when someone defaults or opts out. Our constitution is 110 pages and covers everything from conduct standards to prenuptial requirements to philanthropic commitments to leadership succession. If you are building a system that is meant to outlive you, yes, you need one. Without governance, capital does not survive the transfer. The 70% statistic exists precisely because families built the wealth and skipped the constitution.
Should I gift my whole life insurance policy to my child when they turn 18?
No. This is one of the most well-intentioned and damaging decisions a parent can make. When you transfer ownership of a policy to a young adult, that person sees the cash surrender value and asks who to call to access it. The policy gets surrendered within weeks in many cases. Once ownership transfers, you cannot reverse it. If your children want to own the policies you have built on their lives, they buy those policies from you at market value. The purchase creates a relationship with the asset. The gift destroys it.
What happens to the family banking system when the patriarch or matriarch passes away?
This is precisely what the system is designed for. The death benefit from the policies on the life of the person who passes arrives income tax-free to the beneficiaries. That windfall replenishes the pool at the exact moment it is most needed. The family trust and the family constitution govern how the capital is distributed and accessed going forward. The system does not stop when the founder graduates. It accelerates. because the death benefit was always part of the design.
How do you stop the next generation from squandering the wealth you have built?
You do not stop them with a conversation. You stop them with a structure. The family constitution defines what is required to access the system: gainful employment, demonstrated entrepreneurship, philanthropic activity, and adherence to the family’s shared values. Access is conditional on character, not DNA. Beyond the structure, the most powerful thing you can do is demonstrate. Children learn by watching, not by being told. My son took his first policy loan at nine years old. My daughters are borrowing and repaying the system now at fourteen. This is the only financial world they have ever known.
How does Ascendant Financial get paid?
We are licensed insurance brokers. We are compensated by the life insurance company when a policy is placed. The education, the coaching calls, the family banking strategy conversations, and the ongoing support we provide cost nothing separately; it is part of how we operate, because families who understand the process implement it better and sustain it longer. We only get paid when a policy genuinely makes sense for someone, and they choose to move forward. There is no charge for the strategy conversation and no obligation at any stage. That is not a sales line. It is how we have built a community of over 6,500 families across North America.
Conclusion
A family banking system is built one policy at a time. The first policy creates awareness. The awareness creates the discipline. The discipline expands the system. The family constitution protects everything the system produces.
You do not need to start with 77 policies. You need to start. The system grows from there. And the thinking it produces in your children, the financial world they grow up inside, is the most valuable thing they will ever create.
Nelson Nash said it best: the infinite banking concept is caught, not taught. Start the process. Let your children watch. The rest follows.
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