Few charities promote insurance gifts, and most of them focus only on the transfer of existing life insurance policies, said E. John McKee, director of gift planning at the University of Maryland at a session of the annual conference in Denver of the National Committee on Planned Giving.

But, he says, this approach rarely makes sense for either the donor or the charity. It assumes that the donor has no heirs, doesn’t take into account the donor’s original motivations in purchasing the policy, and is usually met with resistance from the donor’s insurance agent, who won’t receive commission or benefit from the extra paperwork entailed in the transfer.

Instead, Mr. McKee recommends that charities ask donors to create new insurance policies with the charity as the owner and beneficiary. A fully paid life insurance policy lets the donors make small payments toward what will become a major contribution and provides income tax benefits to the donor.

For example, said Mr. McKee, a donor that pays $10,000 annually for 10 years toward a universal life insurance policy with a “no-lapse” clause —which guarantees that a death benefit will be paid regardless of market or interest rates — can secure a payment of $250,000 to the charity. In this arrangement, the charity’s guarantee of payment is even more of a “sure thing” than with a bequest, says Mr. McKee . Donors can always revoke a promised bequest or the assets they left to charity could drop in value before they die.

Mr. McKee also proposed encouraging donors to take out a commercial gift annuity that pays a death benefit of 50 percent of the premium to the charity.

A commercial annuity that offers a donor regular payments that keep pace with the increase in inflation is financially more advantageous to the donor than a traditional charitable gift annuity, says Mr. McKee, and takes the charity out of the awkward position of betting against a donor’s life expectancy.