Introduction
Ken Crabb is the founder of the Restricted Property Trust, which helps business owners manage money more effectively. He has more than two decades of experience and has spent years studying tax planning and insurance tools. In 2000, he teamed up with a tax law firm. Together, they built a safe and lawful plan. That plan became the RPT. Today, RPT helps owners plan for the future, supports long-term growth and income goals, and offers a death benefit for security. Ken also serves as a trusted advisor nationwide. In this interview, he shares his journey, discusses building RPT from scratch, and explains how the market responded.
Q1. Ken, can you introduce yourself and share the core motivation behind creating the Restricted Property Trust and dedicating your career to tax-efficient planning for high-income earners?
Ken Crabb: I’ve spent my career working at the intersection of advanced life insurance, trust design, and tax law, with a focus on helping business owners and high-income professionals solve problems the traditional planning market wasn’t addressing well. Early on, I kept seeing the same pattern: highly successful people earning significant income, paying substantial taxes, and running out of compliant ways to reposition those dollars efficiently for long-term benefit.
The Restricted Property Trust was created out of that frustration. At the time, I was working with a single-family office in Cleveland, Ohio, overseeing their life insurance silo. I was specifically tasked with developing a tax-deductible life insurance solution. Every plan I encountered in the marketplace was either overly abusive or careless in how it approached the tax deduction. There was very little discipline, and even less durability.
The motivation was never to design something trendy or marketable. It was to build a conservative, defensible structure that properly utilized timing, leverage, and the deferral of taxation, while staying aligned with the intent of the tax code. I wanted a solution that allowed clients to convert taxable income into a long-term asset in a way that was intentional, compliant, and sustainable over decades, not just optimized for a single tax year.
Ultimately, my focus has always been on durability. If a strategy can’t stand up to scrutiny, it doesn’t belong in a client’s plan. The RPT was built to give high-income earners clarity, confidence, and control, while remaining firmly inside the guardrails of the law.
Q2. Many advisors describe the RPT as one of the few compliant structures that allows tax-deductible contributions and long-term accumulation. What were the biggest legal, actuarial, and structural challenges you had to solve in order to build a trust the market could fully rely on?
Ken Crabb: The biggest challenge was restraint. It’s not difficult to create a structure that looks compelling in a sales illustration, but it’s much harder to build something that remains defensible under legal, actuarial, and regulatory scrutiny over long periods of time. From a legal perspective, the trust had to be grounded in well-established tax code, ERISA concepts, and trust law, not creative interpretations designed to manufacture deductions.
One of the most critical elements was properly structuring and maintaining a meaningful risk of forfeiture. Without that, the deductibility simply doesn’t hold. The restriction can’t be cosmetic or temporary; it must be real, enforceable, and consistently administered. We spent a significant amount of time ensuring the trust terms, contribution mechanics, and benefit limitations all supported a legitimate and ongoing risk of forfeiture, because that is foundational to the integrity of the structure.
Actuarially, we focused on conservative assumptions and realistic funding patterns. That meant avoiding overly aggressive policy designs or illustrations that relied on best-case scenarios. Structurally, every component (trust language, contribution methodology, policy design, and administrative process) had to align so there were no weak links.
The objective was never to build the most aggressive solution in the marketplace. It was to build one the market could rely on. One that remains compliant and defensible ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road.
Q3. Recent articles highlight the growing adoption of the RPT among entrepreneurs, medical professionals, and family-owned businesses. In your view, what has been driving this surge in demand, and what misconceptions do you still see in the industry?
Ken Crabb: What we’re seeing is a combination of constraint and awareness. High-earning entrepreneurs, medical professionals, and family-owned business owners are increasingly running into the limits of traditional planning tools. Qualified plans, deferred compensation, and conventional benefit structures work well up to a point, but they often lack the flexibility and scalability required at higher income levels.
One of the key drivers of RPT adoption is the flexibility it offers executives. Companies that implement the RPT allow executives to decide whether to participate. Those who elect to participate can choose their own contribution amount, providing control over how the plan fits their personal and business cash flow. Once contributions are elected, they are locked in until vesting, giving both commitment and clarity. Unlike qualified plans, the RPT does not require participation to be offered to rank-and-file employees, making it particularly valuable for closely held businesses and professional practices that want to selectively reward key individuals.
At the same time, rising tax rates and increased regulatory scrutiny have made clients and advisors more intentional about compliance. The RPT appeals to those who want a structure grounded in real economic substance, including meaningful restrictions and ongoing risk of forfeiture, rather than strategies that rely on aggressive interpretations or short-term optics.
There are still misconceptions in the marketplace. Some view the RPT as a tax shelter or a replacement for traditional planning tools. It’s neither. It’s a supplemental strategy, best used once core planning is in place. It is a phenomenal addition to a well-rounded portfolio. Others assume its value lies in front-loaded results, when in reality its strength is long-term durability, flexibility, and defensibility.
The growth we’re seeing reflects a shift in mindset. Advisors and clients are prioritizing control, optionality, and compliance over short-term marketing appeal, and the RPT was designed precisely for that audience.
Q4. You often emphasize converting taxable dollars into legacy assets. What measurable outcomes or long-term advantages have you observed from clients who have been in the RPT for 10 or more years?
Ken Crabb: One of the most compelling long-term advantages of the RPT is the chassis it’s built on. At its core, the structure is anchored to participating whole life insurance, which has proven to be one of the most predictable long-term financial instruments available. When we look back at clients who have been in the RPT for ten years or more, what stands out is how closely real-world performance has tracked original illustrations. In many cases, those illustrations have been accurate within a very narrow margin, which is rare in long-term planning.
That predictability matters. Because contributions are tax-deductible at the plan level, the effective internal rate of return on the policy is meaningfully enhanced. A traditional whole life policy might generate one to two basis points of net efficiency after tax. When you layer in the deduction and the structure of the RPT, that efficiency can increase to the equivalent of six to eight basis points over time. That difference compounds significantly over a decade or more.
Once a participant satisfies the vesting requirements, the policy is transferred into the insured’s personal ownership. At that point, it becomes their asset to manage as they see fit, whether that’s accessing tax-free income through policy loans, maintaining it for legacy planning, or integrating it into a broader estate strategy.
What we consistently observe is that clients emerge from the vesting period with a fully formed, tax-advantaged asset that provides optionality. They’re not dependent on market timing or future legislative changes. They’ve converted dollars that would have been permanently lost to taxation into a legacy asset that offers control, predictability, and tax-free income potential for the rest of their lives.
Q5. The tax-planning landscape is becoming more complex with regulatory scrutiny and shifting IRS guidance. How do you ensure the RPT remains conservative, compliant, and resilient as financial laws evolve?
Ken Crabb: We design the RPT with the assumption that scrutiny is inevitable. In today’s environment, any strategy that isn’t built to be examined shouldn’t exist. From the outset, the RPT has been grounded in established tax law, trust principles, and long-standing guidance rather than novel interpretations or one-off rulings. That foundation is what allows the structure to remain conservative and resilient over time.
Ongoing compliance is just as important as initial design. The RPT is regularly reviewed in coordination with tax counsel, trust attorneys, and actuarial professionals to ensure it continues to align with current IRS guidance and regulatory expectations. When changes occur, we adapt carefully and deliberately, always erring on the side of conservatism rather than trying to engineer incremental advantages.
Equally important, we avoid structural drift. There’s a natural temptation in this industry to “enhance” strategies as markets or laws change, but that often introduces unnecessary risk. The RPT’s strength comes from consistency, clear documentation, disciplined administration, and a meaningful risk of forfeiture that is respected throughout the life of the plan.
By focusing on intent, substance, and process, rather than short-term tax outcomes, the RPT remains compliant and durable even as the broader tax-planning landscape evolves.
Q6. Finally, what advice would you give to financial entrepreneurs who want to build integrity-driven, compliant, and high-impact solutions in a marketplace that often rewards shortcuts?
Ken Crabb: The marketplace may reward speed or flashy results, but real, sustainable solutions are built deliberately, with integrity at the core.
My advice to financial entrepreneurs is simple: start with the guardrails, not the profits. Build strategies that can withstand scrutiny, are defensible under the law, and prioritize client outcomes above all else. Focus on clarity, transparency, and durability; if a solution works when everyone is watching, it will work when no one is.
Don’t chase novelty for novelty’s sake. Innovations that endure are those that solve real problems within the rules, not those that exploit gray areas for short-term gain. Embrace discipline, expect regulatory and operational challenges, and design with a multi-decade horizon in mind.
Ultimately, reputation compounds over time. The firms and entrepreneurs who succeed are the ones who deliver value responsibly, earn trust consistently, and resist the temptation to take shortcuts. If you prioritize integrity and compliance, the market eventually finds you, and the solutions you build will last.
Conclusion
Ken Crabb proves that a strong vision shapes success. Through RPT, he offers a strong planning path. His work supports owners in making tough decisions because it is rooted in careful, honest strategies. Ken’s hard-earned lessons in growth and trust offer simple and practical advice. He explains how challenges shaped his journey. He promotes patience, daily learning, respect for your clients, and long-term thinking. Ken’s story shows what focus can do and shows how purpose builds strong systems.