About BLIS

For people who know life insurance matters and suspect it could be doing more.

For many families, executives, and business owners, life insurance feels like another bill and another PDF to ignore. BLIS turns that part of your financial life into something simple, useful, and aligned with what actually matters: control, liquidity, and long‑term security.

Why This Approach Exists

The turning point came in a single conversation.

A family member shared that his father had liquidated a 401(k), paid over a million dollars in taxes, and redirected those funds into a short‑pay whole life policy—then used that policy as a private bank to finance real estate projects.

That story revealed a hard truth: most people never see what life insurance can do when it’s designed and used strategically.

At the time, the focus was on investments, securities, and traditional insurance. Policies were being sold, but their potential to build secure, accessible wealth during a client’s lifetime was left on the table.

Again and again, clients showed up with the same frustrations:

  • Policies bought years ago that nobody really understood
  • Contracts that looked good on paper but offered little real‑life flexibility
  • Savings trapped in tax‑heavy, market‑exposed strategies, while policies sat underused on the sidelines

The conclusion became clear: when life insurance is designed as a living asset, it can protect today and tomorrow, not just “someday.”

A wealth‑management background made it obvious where life insurance fits in a broader wealth‑stacking strategy. The old “either/or” thinking—stocks or safety, growth or guarantees, tax‑deferred or liquid—stops working once real life gets complicated. The real opportunity is both/and.

Core Belief

Life insurance should behave like a living, breathing asset that supports today and tomorrow, not a static promise that only matters after you’re gone. The aim for every client is a policy that delivers legacy value and also functions as a working financial tool while you’re alive, structured the way the wealthy have quietly used it for generations.

Simply put: life insurance should enhance your balance sheet now and later.

Mission

BLIS exists to help families, executives, and business owners reduce risk, amplify liquidity, and preserve wealth across generations by using life insurance as a living asset.

How Every Recommendation Gets Made

Every meaningful financial decision starts with a real problem, not a product. Most clients arrive wrestling with issues like:

  • Not enough liquidity when it’s actually needed
  • Heavy tax drag from traditional retirement plans
  • Gaps in asset protection and wealth transfer
  • Exposure if a key person, partner, or owner is lost
  • Build a family or business “bank” you can tap when life happens
  • Fund education for kids or grandkids
  • Balance growth with protection and access
  • Transfer wealth without needless tax erosion

Strategy Before Product

The starting point is always your life, your balance sheet, and your goals, not a commission grid.

Design begins with your numbers and your reality. The goal is a policy that serves your needs, reduces unnecessary fees and commissions where possible, and directs more of your dollars toward your priorities instead of product overhead.

When strategy comes first, you see clearly why a structure is recommended, how it behaves over time, and what trade‑offs you’re making. The result: a policy that fits your plan, not the other way around.

If the structure can’t be explained plainly enough to draw on a napkin, it doesn’t move forward.

Complex ideas get broken down visually and verbally so you can see how everything connects: where the money goes, how it grows, how you can reach it, and what happens under different “what‑if” scenarios.

The goal is simple: you walk away able to explain your own strategy in your own words. When that happens, confidence replaces confusion.

Life insurance has to support the broader tax, legal, and investment picture, not fight it.

With deep experience working alongside CPAs, estate attorneys, and advisors, and with advanced training such as the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation, recommendations are built to sit comfortably within your existing plan.

That means:

  • No surprises for your CPA
  • No conflicts with your estate plan
  • No strategies that quietly undermine your investment approach

The policy becomes a coordinated asset, not a wildcard.

Policies live for decades. Reviews, updates, and honest conversations need to do the same.

A well‑designed policy is only as good as the ongoing attention it receives. Many BLIS clients have stayed in relationship with Jon for years through career changes, business exits, health scares, births, and losses.

The commitment is simple:

  • Regular reviews to keep your strategy aligned with life as it really is
  • Straight answers when laws, markets, or your circumstances change
  • A long‑term relationship built on familiarity and trust, not a one‑time transaction

You aren’t just buying a policy; you’re gaining a guide who stays in the picture.

Who’s Behind BLIS

Jon Billinger

CLU – Founder | BLIS (Billinger Life Insurance Solutions)

BLIS is led by Jon Billinger, CLU, a life insurance specialist with over 30 years of experience helping families and businesses use insurance to unlock security they didn’t know was possible.

Over the decades, Jon has seen:

  • Families keep homes and stability because a death benefit was in place when it mattered most
  • Business owners keep doors open and staff employed because a properly structured policy backed them through a crisis
  • Clients use living benefits and cash value to fund education, stabilize cash flow, and weather medical or business storms

These aren’t abstract case studies; they’re the reasons BLIS exists.

A long personal battle with Crohn’s disease shaped Jon’s belief that wealth means little without health, and that planning should reduce stress, not add to it. That perspective shows up in the way clients are supported: with warmth, patience, and a real understanding that life doesn’t move in straight lines.

Outside of work, Jon is a former minor league catcher who still thinks in terms of strategy and teamwork. He’s also a husband, father to three sons, and grandfather, with a deeply personal stake in what real family security feels like. Even the family dog, Ella the chow, is part of that story.

Clients don’t just get technical expertise and credentials. They get someone who has stood with families through claims, college funding, business transitions, and tough health seasons, and who designs every plan as if his own family were on the receiving end.

Over 30 years designing life insurance strategies that protect families, stabilize businesses, and unlock accessible, tax‑smart wealth.

If the idea of life insurance as a living asset resonates, the next step is simple: have a conversation and see whether this approach fits your numbers, your goals, and your season of life.

The focus stays on education and clarity, not pressure. You see what’s possible, what isn’t, and whether a deeper discussion is worth your time.