About PPLI.com. Research for informed decisions.
PPLI.com is a research site about offshore bonds and the bespoke version of the same contract, private placement life insurance. This edition is written for UK residents and UK-connected families, and for the solicitors, accountants and financial advisers who work with them. The aim is simple: explain how these policies work under UK law, what they cost and where they fit, so you can read a proposal critically and take sharper questions to your advisers. No article or calculator can tell you whether a policy suits you, whether an insurer will accept you or what the tax result of your own transaction will be.
If you are new to the subject, start with what an offshore bond is and what PPLI adds. How an offshore bond is taxed in the UK covers the chargeable event rules from the top, offshore bond charges explains what a policy costs and how to compare it with investing directly, and the jurisdiction guides explain the rules in the places where policies are issued. Everything else is in the UK research library, with the calculators alongside it.
An offshore bond decision is really three decisions at once: an insurance contract, an investment portfolio and an ownership structure.
Each needs its own evidence. The tax result depends on the rules that apply to you and on the facts, and a well-known insurer's name tells you nothing about the terms of a particular contract. Our research is there to show you which documents and which professional opinions a proposal still needs.
Our purpose
We want the questions behind an offshore bond decision to be easy to see: what the contract actually provides, what it costs each year, who chooses the investments, how you can take money out and which country's rules apply. A fair comparison always includes investing directly, an ISA, a pension and the other ways of holding or passing on wealth, and sometimes the honest answer is that a bond is the wrong tool.
PPLI.com is led by its chief executive, Eldar Edmond Grady, who acquired the site in 2020. The research is published in eleven editions: English for readers in the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore, and editions in Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Hindi and Arabic. The people who advise the company, and their backgrounds, are listed on the advisory board page.
How we work
Every article follows our editorial standards. Legal statements are tied to a named source, a country and a date. Calculations show their assumptions. Credits say who wrote a piece and who reviewed it, and mistakes are corrected. Judge each article by the evidence it gives for its conclusions, not by its date or by the names attached to it.
Check the source
Every legal point should name the country, the date and the rule it relies on. For a UK policyholder, for example, the tax on a bond is set by the chargeable event rules in Part 4, Chapter 9 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005, and HMRC's reading of them is in the Insurance Policyholder Taxation Manual. A citation only helps if it supports the conclusion, conditions included.
Read the assumptions
A worked example is an illustration, not a client result. When you compare, use the same investments and the same period, list every charge and tax assumption, and note what a calculator leaves out. A projected surrender value is not the same thing as the money left after income tax on the chargeable event gain, and neither is the sum paid on death.
See who did what
Writing an article, reviewing it and sitting on the advisory board are different jobs. A name on the board page does not mean that person reviewed a given article. The credit on each article tells you who actually wrote or checked it.
Check the relationship
Before you rely on a recommendation or accept an introduction, find out who the parties are, what they will do, what they charge and how they are paid. The word "independent" is no substitute for that disclosure. Whether a firm is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to advise on or arrange a policy for you is a separate question again, and the FCA register is where to check it. PPLI.com is not authorised by the FCA and does not advise on, arrange or sell policies.
If you have a question about editorial responsibility, an article credit or a commercial relationship, write to us through the contact page and tell us which page it concerns.
Questions, corrections and privacy
Found a mistake? Send us the page link, the sentence in question and the source or calculation that shows the correction, by email to [email protected] or through the contact page. For a first question there is no need to send account numbers, identity documents, medical records or a full policy file.
How we handle data on this site is explained in the Privacy Policy, and the Terms of Use set out the terms for using it. Our articles are general information about UK law, not advice on your own policy. If someone offers you a professional service, confirm who provides it, on what terms and with what responsibilities before you go ahead.