Independent insurance and financial advice for business owners, professionals, executives, and families — property & casualty, life & legacy, and investment planning, coordinated under one roof.
Who I am, how I work, and why "independent" is the word that matters most.
The practice, in three chairs.
Owners, professionals, executives, and families. Most start in one chair and grow into all three — choose where you'd like to begin.
P&C · 01
Property & Casualty
Home, auto, umbrella, and commercial coverage — reviewed against the open market so you're neither over- nor under-insured.
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Life · 02
Life & Legacy
Protection, permanent cash-value design, premium finance, and estate liquidity for the people and businesses that depend on you.
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Adv · 03
Financial Advisory
Independent investment management, retirement and qualified-plan design, and financial planning aligned to your goals — not a product shelf.
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How I work
Advice you can trace back to your interest — not a sales quota.
i.
Independent by design
No captive shelf. Coverage and portfolios are sourced across the market and chosen on the merits for your situation.
ii.
The whole picture
Insurance, investments, and planning are decided together, so one decision never quietly undermines another.
iii.
Owners, professionals, executives
Deep work in premium finance, executive benefits, and cash-balance and defined-contribution plan design — for people whose income and risk are anything but simple.
One point of contact
Your attorney, your CPA, and me — in the same conversation.
A plan only works if the legal documents, the tax treatment, the coverage, and the investments all agree with each other. For most people those pieces sit with professionals who have never spoken, and the client ends up as the messenger. My job is to sit at the center and make them line up.
Attorneys
Wills and trusts, entity structure, buy-sell agreements, asset protection.
CPAs & tax
Tax treatment of the plan, entity elections, deduction strategy, filings.
Insurance & carriers
Underwriting, coverage placement, and in-force policy management.
Investments & lending
Portfolio management, retirement plans, and financing relationships.
Already have an attorney and a CPA? Good — I work with them. They stay in the loop, and nothing I recommend cuts against what they've already built for you. Don't have them yet? I'll introduce you to people I've worked with and trust. Either way, you stop relaying messages between professionals who've never met.
The advisor
Straight answers, fewer moving parts, and a plan that holds together.
I'm Troy Lucas, an independent advisor working across insurance and investments. After years inside a captive structure, I went independent so I could give advice without a house product to push.
I work with business owners, professionals, executives, and the families behind them — situations where a life policy, a company retirement plan, a portfolio, and an insurance program all have to hold together as one. I'm a business owner myself, so when we talk about payroll, partners, or what happens to the company if you're not there, it isn't theoretical.
The best P&C program is the one you never think about — until a claim, when it does exactly what you expected. I shop your risk across carriers so the price is fair and the gaps are closed.
What's covered
Personal and commercial lines, read against the whole market.
Two sides of the same discipline: match the coverage to the real exposure, then keep it right as your life and business change.
Personal lines
Home & family
Homeowners & rentersRebuild-cost accuracy, not just a headline number.
Auto & recreationalRight limits, sane deductibles, multi-policy efficiency.
Umbrella / excess liabilityThe catastrophe layer most people are missing.
Valuables & specialtyJewelry, collections, and hard-to-place items.
Landlord & secondary homesCoverage that follows how the property is really used.
Commercial lines
Business & operations
General & professional liabilityProtection sized to your actual exposure.
Property, BOP & inland marineBuildings, contents, and equipment on the move.
Commercial auto & fleetFrom a single vehicle to a working fleet.
Umbrella & specialtyExcess liability and industry-specific cover.
Who this is for
People with something to protect — and no time to babysit it.
Growing households
New home, new drivers, rising net worth — coverage that keeps pace instead of quietly falling behind.
Owners & executives
One point of contact for the company's policies and the household's, reviewed together as a single program.
The over-insured & under-insured
If your last review was "whatever renewed," a clean second opinion usually pays for itself.
The process
01
Review
We inventory what you have and what you actually need to cover.
02
Market
Your risk is shopped across carriers for the right terms and price.
03
Recommend
You get a plain-English comparison and a clear recommendation.
04
Bind
We place coverage and make sure nothing falls through a gap.
05
Review annually
Life changes; coverage is re-checked so it stays right.
Get a second opinion
Send me your declarations pages.
A quick look at what you're paying and what you're actually covered for — no obligation, no pressure. A few details get us started; the rest we'll cover in a short conversation.
Life insurance starts as protection and, designed well, becomes a financial instrument — for liquidity, for a business succession, for a legacy. I build the structure around the outcome you want, not around a single product.
What I design
From straightforward protection to advanced structure.
Some clients need term coverage placed cleanly and cheaply. Others need permanent cash-value design or financing. The tool follows the goal.
A.
Term & permanent protection
Income replacement, mortgage and debt cover, and permanent policies where lifelong need or cash value calls for it.
B.
Cash-value & liquidity strategies
Whole-life-based designs built for stable, accessible cash value — a personal liquidity engine, structured properly.
C.
Premium finance
Using leverage to fund large permanent policies — modeled honestly, with the risks and exit paths shown, not glossed over.
D.
Business continuity
Buy-sell funding, key-person coverage, and executive benefits that keep a company intact through a loss.
E.
Estate & legacy liquidity
Coverage positioned so heirs inherit assets, not a forced sale or a tax bill they can't cover.
F.
Policy review & rescue
An independent audit of in-force policies and illustrations — including ones that aren't performing as sold.
Who this is for
Anyone whose absence would leave a hole — financial or otherwise.
Families & earners
Making sure a spouse, children, or aging parents are covered if income suddenly stops.
Owners, partners & executives
Funding a buy-sell, protecting a key employee, or building tax-advantaged cash value alongside deferred comp.
High-net-worth households
Estate liquidity and premium-financed structures where the numbers get large and the design matters.
The process
01
Clarify the goal
Protection, liquidity, succession, or legacy — we name the real objective first.
02
Model options
We compare structures side by side, including the downside scenarios.
03
Design
The policy or financing is engineered around your goal and budget.
04
Underwrite & place
We shepherd underwriting and secure the best available offer.
05
Steward
In-force policies are reviewed so they keep doing their job.
Already have a policy?
Get an honest second read.
If a policy or illustration was sold to you and you've never had it independently checked, that review is worth having.
As an investment adviser representative, I sit on your side of the table — building portfolios and plans around your goals and risk, not a product line. Advice, investments, and retirement-plan design under one roof.
The work
Planning first, then portfolios that follow the plan.
Investments make sense only once the goals, timeline, and risk are clear. Here's where I spend my time.
A.
Investment management
Diversified, macro-aware portfolios matched to your risk — from conservative income to more aggressive growth mandates.
B.
Retirement & qualified plans
Cash-balance and defined-contribution plan design for business owners looking to maximize deductible, tax-favored savings.
C.
Financial planning
Cash flow, goals, and trade-offs mapped into a plan you can actually act on and revisit as life changes.
D.
Retirement income
Turning accumulated assets into durable, tax-aware income that lasts as long as you do.
E.
Estate & wealth transfer
Working directly with your attorney and CPA — or mine, if you need the introduction — so assets pass efficiently to the next generation.
F.
Business-owner strategy
Exit and succession planning, entity-level tax coordination, and integrating the business into your personal plan.
Philosophy
Fewer surprises. Clear reasons for every position.
i.
Own the whole balance sheet
Investments, insurance, real assets, and the business are planned together — and coordinated with your legal and tax advisors, not siloed away from them.
ii.
Cost and tax discipline
What you keep beats what you earn. Fees, taxes, and drag are managed deliberately.
iii.
Explained, not dictated
You'll understand why you own what you own. If you can't explain it, you shouldn't hold it.
The engagement
01
Discover
Goals, obligations, risk tolerance, and the full financial picture.
02
Plan
A written plan with clear priorities and honest trade-offs.
03
Implement
Portfolios built, accounts organized, plans put into motion.
04
Monitor
Ongoing oversight and rebalancing as markets and life move.
05
Review
Regular check-ins to keep the plan matched to reality.
Ready to plan?
Let's map where you actually stand.
A first meeting to understand your goals and see whether working together makes sense. No cost, no obligation.
Two structures most business owners are never shown, worked all the way through — the size of the opportunity, what it costs, what has to hold true, and who it actually fits.
The two studies below are hypothetical illustrations prepared for educational purposes. They are not client engagements, they do not represent the results of any actual client, and no client achieved these results. Figures are illustrative, every assumption is stated, and the risks are set out in full alongside the numbers.
Case 01 · Advanced qualified plan design
Their plan sheltered $146,434. The code allowed $1.83 million.
Three owners of a professional services firm were running a perfectly competent 401(k) with profit sharing. It was capturing about eight percent of what they were entitled to deduct.
Hypothetical illustration
Owners
3$330,000 W-2 each
Staff
21$1.14M combined payroll
Existing plan
401(k)with profit sharing
Assumed tax rate
45%federal and state combined
The ceiling problem
A defined contribution plan caps what any one participant can receive in a year, and no amount of design work moves that cap. Three owners hitting it three times is still just three times the cap. Against a firm producing seven figures of net profit, their plan was sheltering a rounding error.
A second plan type sits entirely on top of that cap and is driven by age and compensation rather than a flat limit. Layering the two, and making one specific decision about how the second is funded, produced the following.
The comparison
Plan year 2023
Existing plan
Our design
Contribution to owners
112,200
1,723,000
Contribution to staff
34,234
105,779
Total deductible contribution
146,434
1,828,779
Share allocated to owners
76.6%
94.2%
Projected tax reduction at 45%
65,895
822,951
Hypothetical. Contribution levels are actuarially determined and vary with census, plan provisions, and testing outcome.
12.5×
Increase in annual deductible contribution
$757,056
Additional projected tax reduction in year one
$71,545
What the additional staff cost, in total
The staff didn't get less. They received roughly three times what the old plan gave them. The efficiency came from a design feature that weights contributions by age and compensation, which is why the ratio moved so far on so little incremental cost.
What has to be true
This is not right for every business, and the reasons are not small print.
The second plan is a funding obligation, not an option. A 401(k) contribution is discretionary. This one is a legal liability that a bad year does not suspend. There is real flexibility in the range, and a plan can be frozen or terminated, but a firm that cannot reliably produce the cash should not adopt one.
Timing and character, not forgiveness. The $822,951 is deferred, not eliminated. Distributions are ordinary income and required minimums begin at 75. What you are buying is decades of compounding on pre-tax dollars, control over when income is recognized, strong creditor protection, and assets that can be positioned for far better tax treatment on the way out than a straight rollover would produce. Whether your rate is higher or lower in retirement is one input, not the whole case.
The funding choice carries an annual tax cost. Small relative to the deduction, but real, and it appears on a W-2 every year.
Real cost and a real commitment. An enrolled actuary, annual valuations, and filings run roughly $5,000 to $10,000 a year in hard costs — modest against a deduction of this size. We do not bill separately for administration; we are compensated through asset management fees and insurance commissions, which means we earn more as more flows into the plan. That is a conflict you should weigh, and one we will quantify for you on request. Budget for a multi-year commitment, since a plan adopted and abandoned quickly invites scrutiny.
The census decides everything. Nondiscrimination and top-heavy rules bind. A firm with a large, young, well-paid staff will produce a materially worse ratio than the one above, and no design fixes an unfavorable census. The only way to know is to run yours.
Regulatory limits apply to the funding component. Exceeding them puts the plan's qualified status at risk, which is a far larger problem than any deduction it produced.
Who this fits
Worth modeling
A closely held business with concentrated ownership
Owners in their prime earning years — the advantage grows with age
Relatively stable annual net profit
Significant recurring income tax exposure
Willing to commit over the medium to long term
Probably not
Earnings that swing hard year to year
Capital needed in the business, not locked in a trust
Large or young high-earning staff relative to owners
A heavily part-time or unionized workforce
Disclosure — Case 01
The figures above are a hypothetical illustration prepared for educational purposes. They do not represent the results of any actual client and no client achieved these results. Actual contribution limits are actuarially determined and depend on the employee census, participant ages and compensation, plan provisions, actuarial assumptions, funding method, and the outcome of annual nondiscrimination and coverage testing. Results will differ, potentially materially.
The assumed combined federal and state marginal rate of 45% is an assumption only and does not reflect any particular taxpayer's situation. Contributions to a qualified plan are tax deferred, not tax exempt; distributions are generally taxable as ordinary income and may be subject to penalty if taken before age 59½.
This material is not tax or legal advice and is not a recommendation to adopt any particular plan or purchase any particular product. Plan design, funding, and administration should be undertaken with a qualified attorney, tax advisor, enrolled actuary, and third-party administrator.
Case 02 · Premium financed life insurance
A bank funded $17 million of premium. The couple paid $6.98 million of interest.
Premium financing is usually sold on the ending. Start with the invoice instead, because the interest bill is the part that decides whether the ending happens at all.
Hypothetical illustration — projected values
Ages at inception
39 / 36married, both insurable
Taxable portfolio
$2.0Mplus $200,000 added annually
Assumed tax rate
40%blended, on portfolio income
Horizon modeled
46 yrsto ages 84 and 81
The question actually being asked
For a decade, premium financing was pitched against the 2026 collapse of the estate tax exemption. That premise is gone. The exemption is now permanently $15 million per person, $30 million for a couple. A great many households that were told they had an estate tax problem no longer have one.
What remains is narrower. This couple is young, healthy, high-earning, and compounding toward an estate that will plausibly clear $30 million in their lifetimes. The question is not how to dodge a sunset. It is whether borrowing to fund a large permanent policy beats simply continuing to invest the same cash — measured against that alternative, not against doing nothing.
The comparison
46-year projection
Continue as-is
Financed
Difference
Annual retirement income, after tax
541,265
835,204
+293,939
Cumulative after-tax income
10,825,306
16,704,074
+54.3%
Net to heirs
23,743,481
38,007,785
+60.1%
Income plus net to heirs
34,568,787
54,711,859
+58.3%
Hypothetical projected values. Death benefit is net of the outstanding loan. Financed column combines portfolio withdrawals with policy distributions.
+$293,939
Additional after-tax income per year in retirement
+$14.26M
Additional net to heirs at the end of the projection
$6.98M
Interest paid to the lender to produce it
Most of the improvement is tax character rather than investment return. Pre-tax income rises about 24 percent; after-tax income rises 54 percent. Nothing here assumes the insurance out-earns the portfolio — the portfolio is modeled at 6 percent and keeps compounding in both columns.
What has to be true
Every number above depends on assumptions holding for sixteen years. Some of them will not. These are the failure modes, in the order they are most likely to matter.
Rate exposure is the primary variable — and it can be managed. The base model holds one rate flat for sixteen years on an index that floats. Left unhedged, every 100 basis points at peak balance is roughly $170,000 a year. Fixed tranches, caps, and swap arrangements can take most of that off the table, at a price embedded in the rate you receive and with their own unwind mechanics if the exit accelerates. The question is not whether rate risk exists but whether it has been priced and disclosed, or quietly assumed away.
The exit is the case. Repayment depends on policy cash value reaching a target on schedule. If crediting underperforms, the exit slides and interest keeps running on the full balance while it does.
Collateral is posted, not hypothetical. Outside assets are pledged in the early years. They stay invested but encumbered, and if policy values lag the lender can call for more. The scenario that matters is the correlated one: a market drawdown and a rate rise arriving together, so the collateral is worth less at the same moment the interest bill is larger. Size the account for that, not for today.
No bank commits for sixteen years. These loans renew on short cycles at the lender's discretion. A change in credit conditions or in your balance sheet can force a refinancing at a worse rate, or an unplanned exit.
Transfer tax treatment varies with the structure. How much gift or estate tax exposure the plan creates, and when it lands, depends on which planning vehicle is used and how it is drafted. Some structures reduce the ongoing exposure to nothing. Almost all of them create a transfer tax cost somewhere, most often at funding, and that cost belongs in the model before anyone commits. Where a structure preserves a spouse's access to the assets, that access runs through the marriage continuing.
Underwriting is not a formality. A health rating changes the premium, the loan size, and the exit year, sometimes enough to break the case. Underwrite first, model second.
Demand the unleveraged comparison. The most useful column is the one showing what happens if you simply pay a smaller premium in cash, with no bank and no exit risk. Leverage should have to earn its place against that. If nobody has shown you that column, ask why.
Who this fits
Worth modeling
A portfolio large enough to hold LTV through a drawdown and carry the interest from its own returns
$10 million net worth, or credibly approaching it
$1 million income, or credibly approaching it
Liquidity that is genuinely unencumbered and not earmarked elsewhere
A genuine need for large permanent death benefit
Probably not
No unencumbered assets to collateralize, or a portfolio too small to hold LTV through a drawdown
Modest net worth on a flat trajectory, with no meaningful future tax exposure
Low tolerance for renewal and rate risk
Anyone who wants the death benefit alone — buy a smaller policy in cash
Disclosure — Case 02
The figures above are a hypothetical illustration prepared for educational purposes. They do not represent the results of any actual client and no client achieved these results. Projected values are not guaranteed, are based on assumptions that will not be realized, and will differ from actual results, potentially materially.
Stated assumptions include a 6.00% pre-retirement and 3.00% post-retirement rate of return on the taxable portfolio, a 3.00% withdrawal rate, a 40% blended income tax rate, and a level 4.00% loan interest rate held across all years. Actual investment returns will vary and may be negative. The loan rate floats with a short-term index and is not fixed; the rate assumption is not a rate lock and no lender has committed to the terms shown. Policy values depend on carrier crediting rates or dividends, which are not guaranteed and are subject to change.
Premium financing adds cost and risk to the purchase of life insurance, including interest expense, collateral requirements, collateral calls, loan renewal risk, and the risk that the loan cannot be repaid as planned. The insurance carrier is not a party to and is not responsible for the loan. Policy loans and withdrawals reduce cash value and death benefit, may cause the policy to lapse, and a lapse may create a taxable event. Transfers to a trust may be subject to gift tax and may reduce lifetime exemption, depending on the structure of the arrangement.
Federal estate and gift tax exemption figures reflect the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 as understood at the time of writing and are subject to legislative change. This material is not tax or legal advice and is not a recommendation to purchase any product or enter any financing arrangement. Any such planning should be undertaken with a qualified attorney and tax advisor.
Recognize your situation?
The answer depends on your numbers.
Neither structure works on the strength of a web page. If the profile fits, the next step is running yours.
Why I built a practice that puts insurance, investments, and planning in the same conversation — and answers to you, not to a product shelf.
Troy Lucas
An advisor who works the whole balance sheet.
I'm an independent advisor licensed across both insurance and investments — which means the person helping you place a policy is the same person managing the portfolio and building the plan around it. Nothing gets handed off, and nothing gets decided in isolation.
I spent years inside a captive structure before going independent. The reason was simple: when a firm manufactures the products it asks you to recommend, the advice bends. I'd rather be able to look at the whole market, say plainly when something isn't a fit, and have that be an ordinary Tuesday instead of a career risk.
I'm a business owner myself. I've made payroll, argued with partners, and carried the risk of an operation that depends on me showing up. When we talk about buy-sell funding, key-person coverage, or what happens to the company if you're not there, I'm not reading it off a slide — I've had to answer those questions for my own business.
I also don't pretend to be the whole team. Good planning runs straight into law and tax, and I'm neither an attorney nor a CPA. What I am is the person who keeps those pieces talking to each other — working alongside the professionals you already have, or introducing you to ones I trust if you don't have them yet. You shouldn't have to be the go-between for four people who've never met.
Most of my work is with business owners, professionals, and executives — people whose compensation, benefits, and risk are more complicated than a single paycheck. Deferred comp, equity, a practice or a partnership, a retirement plan that could be doing far more work than it currently is. And behind almost every one of those clients is a family that needs the whole thing to hold up.
Credentials & licensing
Series 7 — General Securities Representative
Series 66 — Investment Adviser Representative
Life insurance license
Property & Casualty license
Business owner — operator, not just advisor
Say hello
The best way to know if we fit is to talk.
No script, no pressure — just a conversation about what you're trying to solve.
How information you share on this site is collected, used, and protected.
Last updated: July 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how Troy Lucas ("I," "me," or "my") collects and uses information when you visit this website or contact me through it. Please read it alongside the disclosures in the site footer.
Information I collect
I only collect information you choose to provide and a limited amount collected automatically:
Information you submit. When you use a contact or intake form, I collect the details you enter — such as your name, email address, phone number, ZIP code, and any information you include in your message.
Information collected automatically. Like most websites, basic technical data (such as browser type, device, and general location derived from your IP address) may be recorded by the site's hosting and form-processing provider.
Embedded content. This site embeds videos from YouTube using its privacy-enhanced mode. YouTube may still collect data when you play a video, subject to Google's own privacy policy.
How I use your information
To respond to your inquiry and communicate with you about the services you asked about.
To prepare for and follow up on conversations, quotes, and planning work you request.
To maintain records and meet applicable legal, regulatory, and industry requirements.
How your information is shared
I do not sell your personal information. I may share it only as needed to serve you or as required by law, including with:
Service providers that help operate this site and process form submissions (for example, the site's hosting and forms provider).
Insurance carriers, custodians, or financial institutions when necessary to obtain quotes, place coverage, or implement services you have requested.
Professional partners (such as an attorney or CPA) only with your knowledge and where relevant to coordinating your plan.
Regulators or authorities where disclosure is required by law or to comply with applicable rules.
Data retention
I keep the information you provide for as long as needed to respond to you, provide services, and satisfy legal and regulatory recordkeeping obligations, after which it is disposed of securely.
Security
I take reasonable measures to protect the information you share. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure, and I cannot guarantee absolute security.
Your choices
You may request to review, correct, or delete the personal information you have provided, and you can opt out of further communications at any time by contacting me. Certain records may need to be retained where required by law.
Children's privacy
This site is intended for adults. I do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Changes to this policy
I may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the date at the top of this page.
Template notice: This is a general starting template, not legal advice. Before publishing, have it reviewed by your compliance team or an attorney and tailored to your registrations, your state's requirements, and any privacy laws that apply to you and your clients.
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