Advantage Insurance Highlights PPLI's Strategic Role in Global Wealth Planning
Sam Zuckerbraun, Business Development Manager at Advantage Insurance, presented at the Hubbis Wealth Planning & Structuring Forum in Dubai 2025, focusing on Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) as an evolving tool in wealth planning. He emphasized PPLI's role in delivering tax efficiency, asset protection, and facilitating intergenerational wealth transfer, particularly for families with assets across multiple jurisdictions. Zuckerbraun noted that PPLI policies can hold diverse asset types including hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and digital assets, growing them in tax-deferred or tax-free environments, with benefits passed onto heirs efficiently.
PPLI offers distinct advantages over traditional estate vehicles such as trusts and foundations, notably in portability, privacy, and tax treatment. Advantage Insurance has a cross-jurisdictional footprint with insurance carriers based in Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands, enabling solutions tailored to various regulatory and tax considerations. Puerto Rico-based carriers include both 953(d) elected and non-953(d) entities, catering to U.S. taxpayers and international clients respectively.
The firm’s PPLI solutions provide segregated account legislation benefits, ensuring client assets are held separately from insurer general assets and protected against creditor claims. This structure distinguishes PPLI from traditional Indexed Universal Life (IUL) products, as assets are managed by independent managers and custodied per client instructions.
Zuckerbraun highlighted PPLI's flexibility to fund policies with non-bankable assets, including private equity portfolios, hedge funds, and real estate, with structures that can comply with Sharia law—important in Middle Eastern markets. Regarding regulatory compliance, some jurisdictions used by Advantage Insurance do not require Common Reporting Standard (CRS) or FATCA reporting, appealing to clients concerned with data privacy.
A case study illustrated an ultra-high net worth family transferring $8 million of bankable assets in-kind into a PPLI policy rather than selling them and triggering capital gains tax. These assets grow tax-deferred inside the policy and can be passed to heirs efficiently, remaining professionally managed and protected under segregated account rules.
Zuckerbraun framed PPLI as a modular addition to wealth planning strategies, complementing trusts, tokenisation initiatives, or managing cross-border real estate. He encouraged advisors, trustees, and family offices to explore PPLI's integration to enhance outcomes in tax planning, liquidity management, compliance, succession, and governance. Advantage Insurance supports these implementations globally, having onboarded over 100 custodians worldwide.
In sum, Zuckerbraun’s presentation positioned PPLI as a versatile financial planning tool offering regulatory compliance, multi-jurisdictional flexibility, and customizable asset management frameworks suited to the needs of globally mobile, high-net-worth families.