Speaker 1:
Stay tuned for On The Money, central Florida’s most listened to financial call-in show, brought to you by Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. It’s the only show hosted exclusively by certified financial planner professionals. Monday through Friday, their CFPs provide financial planning and investment advice for a fee. But on Saturdays, the advice is absolutely free and has been for more than 30 years for their WDBO listeners. If you have a financial question you want answered by real fiduciaries, the lines are wide open call (844) 580-WDBO. That’s (844) 580 WDBO. And enjoy the show.
Speaker 1:
(Singing)
Josh:
Hello and welcome to On The Money right here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580. You got a question about your financial future, now is your time to call and get some free expert advice. The number is (844) 580 WDBO, (844) 580 9326, and you know by now that with On The Money for more than 30 years, the professionals at Certified Financial Group have been answering questions for listeners every single week right here on WDBO’s very own on the money. Central Florida’s certified financial group has become central Florida’s most listened to financial call-in program, and it’s the only call-in program where all of the hosts, every single one of them, you’ll hear three voices today, two of them are certified financial professionals, and the other one is, well, me. As one of the oldest and largest independent financial planning firms in the area, the CFP professionals have more than 400 years of combined experience providing financial planning and asset management to central Florida. Today, we are so fortunate to be joined by Wynn Smith and the Oracle of Orlando, Joe Burt. How are you guys doing today?
Joe:
Yes, you are fortunate and it’s good to be here.
Wynn:
Doing great.
Joe:
Josh. Thank you. Thank you for the kind words and the introduction. I was listening to the introduction very intently this morning, for some reason, not that I don’t always, but I was just paying close attention to what we say. And as you say, this is the only program that’s hosted exclusively by certified financial planner practitioners. I listen to the radio an awful lot and I’m always interested in seeing what other firms are doing on the air and today, everybody is a fiduciary. That’s the buzzword in the industry. Everybody is a fiduciary, but only certified financial planners are required by our licensing to work with you as a fiduciary, because anybody can say they’re a fiduciary. If you want to go in business tomorrow, Josh, get some business cards printed up that say financial advisor fiduciary and for all intents and purposes, the public doesn’t know any difference. But as a certified financial planner, Wynn and I and 14 other folks here, we are required by our licensing as certified financial planners to work with you as fiduciaries and so much for that.
Joe:
Anyway, Wynn and I are here to take your questions this morning. Anything that might be on your mind regarding your personal finances, questions that you might have regarding your IRA, a 401k, long term healthcare, annuities, life insurance, reverse mortgages, stocks, bonds, real estate, trusts, all that and more. Though we’re not attorneys, we have enough experience in them and we will direct you to the right attorney for having the legal work done because we’re not attorneys, but we’d be glad to help you in any way we can. The good news for you is the lines are absolutely wide open so if you ever wanted to call the program and get your question answered, I guarantee you, on your mind, it’s hundreds of other folks that are out there, they’re just maybe a little timid to pick up the phone and you can do that right now by picking up the phone and dialing these magic numbers.
Josh:
The magic numbers are (844) 580-9326. (844) 580-WDBO. And the topic of today’s show is September is life insurance awareness month. Are you aware?
Joe:
Yes it is. So what are we talking about today, Wynn?
Wynn:
Well, as you just mentioned, it’s life insurance awareness month, this happens every year, the month of September and this is a reaction from the life insurance industry just to raise awareness about life insurance, how important life insurance is. And recently coming out of COVID, a lot of people are a lot more sensitive or aware of just how fragile life can be. So it’s kind of a timely month this year for life insurance awareness.
Joe:
Yeah, it’s an underappreciated… I don’t want to call it an investment. It’s an unappreciated way to really solidify your family’s financial future if you have not had the opportunity to really build that estate and that’s the purpose of life insurance, to fill that gap, to build that hole until you have had a chance to accumulate the assets that you’re going to need in your retirement years.
Wynn:
Right and comprehensive financial planning, it’s typically one of the first areas we look at because it is that foundation to a comprehensive plan or just to financial planning in general.
Joe:
Yeah. It’s one of those things that it’s like having… If you own house, you’ve got insurance on your house. You’re driving a car, you got insurance on your car. But many people are walking around with no insurance or not the appropriate amount of insurance. So how do you figure out how much insurance you need, Wynn?
Wynn:
Well, there’s a lot of different… lot of websites, a lot of calculators. One I’ve used, Joe, for a long time is just to take out a piece of paper and write L-I-F-E vertically down the side of the paper and then across the letter L, that stands for loans, I would list all the outstanding loans that a client would have because typically those debts come due when one of the borrowers passes.
Joe:
Okay. Now this sounds really neat. I want to be sure that our listeners got exactly what you’re trying to say here. So you take the word life and you print it vertically, L-I-F-E, down the left hand side.
Wynn:
Correct.
Joe:
And then you go from left to right with the L starting with loans.
Wynn:
Correct. All right. I is income replacement. So obviously if a breadwinner passes, that income goes away. So the decision there is how long of do you want to replace that income? Is it for what had normally been the normal life expectancy of the breadwinner? Is it for a shorter period of time until the surviving breadwinner or other adults in the household can get up to speed to replace that income or to reduce expenses? Just you’re buying basically time there to adjust to the loss of a breadwinner.
Joe:
To fill that gap.
Wynn:
To fill that gap.
Joe:
Got it.
Wynn:
F is final expenses. Obviously it takes money to dispose of you, that can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars for cremation to thousands and thousands of dollars. And in Florida, a lot of folks are not from Florida and they want to go back to where they’re from to be buried. It’s very expensive to transport a body from Florida to another funeral home. You have to have a funeral home prepare the body in Florida, you have to have a funeral home to accept the body wherever you’re going. A lot of airlines require someone to accompany the body to the place you’re going. So it can be… And then of course you can spend as much money as you want on caskets and flowers and things like that.
Joe:
Got it. Okay.
Wynn:
So that’s final expense and then E stands for either if you have children or not. If you have children typically E stands for education because you want to take care of those education needs. If you don’t have children, you usually have a child substitute. So you usually have a charity or maybe your church or a civic group or something that you want to work with, in that case, E can stand for endowment. So you want to leave a legacy since you don’t have children as your legacy, you may want to start a scholarship or something, or do something… do some type of gifting to some type of organization that is the focus of your legacy.
Joe:
Or leave money… Yeah. And I’ve done that, bought an insurance policy and what you do in that case is you name the charity, the beneficiary, and then they own the policy and then every year I make a contribution to the charities tax deductible, and then they in turn pay the premium on the insurance policy and when I croak…
Wynn:
They’re getting a nice contribution.
Joe:
Totally tax free. So I get a tax deduction by providing that larger insurance policy and the charity of course benefits as well. So there’s all kinds of creative ways in which to use life insurance. I think what’s happened over the years, because I was a victim of this back in my early days when I was in college, I had some senior knock on my door and said, “You know young man, you’re about to get out in the business world here. I see you’re in the school of business and the first thing you need is life insurance.” And so they sold me a whole life policy and I’ll never forget it. And I was paying on this policy because it sounded like a good idea at that time. What did I know? And you go through these experiences because somebody’s out there trying to make a commission and you don’t… and sometimes of all a sudden… I really didn’t need life insurance as a 21 year old or the insurance is oversold or in many cases it’s undersold.
Wynn:
Yes.
Joe:
Let’s talk about that.
Wynn:
Yes. In fact, most people, well only about two thirds of people, have life insurance. So there’s around 30, 40% of people that have no life insurance and that’s the first thing is determining, do you need life insurance? So typically the first question you ask, “Is there someone that will suffer a financial loss upon my death?” So if you’re 21 years old, 22 years old, right out of school. No, no dependence. Yeah. Yeah. Disability is probably much more important to you than life insurance.
Joe:
Exactly, exactly right.
Wynn:
So that’s the first question. And then it’s determining what would be that financial loss? And that could be the L-I-F-E exercise we just went through. There’s some other down and dirty things like take your salary, multiply it by 10, or take your salary and divide it by 0.04%. I mean that would generate a pot of money that you could conservatively generate the income that would replace that salary. So those are places where you start and then of course you can go down from there based upon affordability, but having that right amount as far as… having the correct amount is the most important thing. Now what you’re talking about about some of the charitable giving, it also comes into play in more sophisticated uses are in tax reduction, charitable giving. I mean there’s a lot of… life insurance can be very creative. What life awareness month is really targeting though, Joe, is just the people they don’t have… they need it like you’re saying, but they have no clue as to how expensive it is, where they get it, the types of life insurance, just some of those basic questions.
Joe:
Right. We had a presentation this week, as you recall, from a firm that we work closely with to provide no commission insurance, it’s a way to get the maximum bang for your dollar to get you the most coverage at the lowest cost and we provide that for our clients, working with them as fiduciaries, because we’re not here to sell you anything. And it works with life insurance, it works with annuities as well.
Wynn:
Yes. Yes. Mostly starting really in the annuity, the annuity space of the business, just because of the fee base of asset management just transfers over into the money that’s put into annuities, but the life insurance industry is responding to more and more fee based type of planning and planners with different types of products. New products are coming out all the time.
Joe:
Right. Unfortunately, annuities have gotten a bad rap because people go to these free lunch and dinner seminars and end up buying this annuity and then two years later they have no idea what they bought or why they bought it. And that’s the ones that have the high commissions and if you get out of them and it costs you an arm and a leg and the shirt off your back to get out of it, but with the new generation of annuities, there is a place for guaranteed income or tax deferral, creditor protection with annuities and the new ones that are out there that we work with our clients on as fiduciaries have absolutely no commissions attached to them. In fact, we now had the ability, if you have an annuity that you bought years ago and those were the only kinds of annuities that you could have, there are ways to take that policy that may have a lot of fees embedded in it and get a far better policy at no cost to you and it’s doing what’s called a 1035 exchange. You want to talk about how that works?
Wynn:
Yeah. So that’s taking those funds that are inside that annuity and you’re replacing that with a new annuity so there is no taxable event for that transfer of those funds. So it’s a way of keeping that tax deferment going and positioning yourself for a better product.
Joe:
Yeah. We had some blow your mind illustrations of annuities that were done on a 1035 exchange on an old chassis because of the built-in fees and how you can greatly enhance the value of what’s locked into that old annuity at absolutely no cost to you. So if our listeners have any interest in that, we’d be glad to run an illustration for you art absolutely no cost. Just give Wynn a call on Monday morning. You can reach them at (407) 869-9800. (407) 869-9800. Or go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com. Financial group.com. And I see we’re up against the break here. Josh, you want to take it away and we’ll come back after the break.
Josh:
Certainly, I will do exactly as you say. If you had a call for the professionals at the Certified Financial Group right here in central Florida, pick up the phone right now, or if you might have one later, write down this number. So pick up a pen right now and write down (844) 580-9326. (844) 580-WDBO. You are listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow.
Wynn:
Today.
Josh:
With the Certified Financial Group.
Josh:
(Singing)
Josh:
Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580. If you have any questions about your financial future, we have a couple of certified financial planner professionals on standby ready to answer your questions write down this number (844) 580-9326. Call in right now and get your questions answered by the experts. (844) 580-WDBO or if something pops up to your… pops into your head after we wrap up the show today, they have plenty of workshops coming up. Isn’t that right guys?
Joe:
Yeah, we do next Saturday, Gary Abely, certified financial planner, as well as a CPA will be hosting his Will Your Savings Last a Lifetime, and Gary goes in detail of what you need to consider, how to do a calculation as to how much savings you need, how it’ll last and the things that you need to look at as retirees. As I say time and time again, they don’t teach us the stuff in school and you approach your retirement years, you kind of hope it all comes together. Wouldn’t it be nice to at least have an idea of what you ought to consider before you pull that plug and ultimately retire? Maybe if you’re already retired and you just want to be assured that you’re going to be okay, this is for you.
Joe:
So this next Saturday morning, September 24th, will be held here at our offices in Altamonte Springs, starts at 10, over at noon. Gary provides some light refreshments, you can come to our learning center, which is a state-of-the-art facility for state-of-the-art audio, visual equipment and so forth and Gary will give you some good information. And I guarantee he’s not going to try to sell you an annuity or anything else. It is absolutely free. So you need to go to our website though, that’s financialgroup.com. Financial group.com, click on events. And then while you’re there, you also may want to consider coming next… What’s the date on that, Wynn? That workshop? It’s the one about college planning. I will tell you just a minute.
Wynn:
I got it right here if you need a hand. It’s October the 12th.
Joe:
It’s October the 12th. It’s October 12th. That’s a Wednesday evening. Once again, seven o’clock here in our learning center. This is for folks whose children may be considering college or even for grandparents, because it’s an eye opener and Charles are going to bring in another certified financial planner who specializes in college planning and she has a great program that will illustrate for you all the things that need to be considered, particularly when it comes to financial aid, the cost of college today, what kind of careers that child may be considering, and if the child is considering X and they’re going to walk away with so much debt, you basically can see how many more years it’s going to take to pay off that debt. So it’s a real eyeopener. She’s explained this to me and it’s a tremendous program. Once again, that’s absolutely free. It’s October the 12th here at our offices in Altamonte Springs. Go to our website, financialgroup.com. Financial group.com and you can click on that one as well. Hope to see you here.
Wynn:
Yeah. And Joe, you’re mentioning the college planning. When we look at debt, typically educational debt is considered good debt because it increases your earning capacity, but depending on what your career you’re picking, that could not necessarily be the case.
Joe:
Oh exactly, exactly. And we have the good fortune of meeting with a lot of folks and it’s interesting. Occasionally we’ll get somebody to come in that’s still carrying a lot of debt and they’re in a profession that just doesn’t generate the income to cover living expenses as well as service that debt.
Wynn:
That’s right. They could have chose a career that they didn’t need the college degree for and be making just as much money.
Joe:
Or more.
Wynn:
Or more.
Joe:
Or more without the aggravation. When you and I were growing up, college was the end all be all, but I am convinced that it’s not for everybody and the worst thing you can do is force some child into going into college when he or she just isn’t ready to do it. Decide where you’re going in life, maybe join the military, take a couple of years off and really see what the real world is like. And don’t live with mom and dad or don’t live to be dependent on mom and dad to cover your expenses and see what it takes to live. And this will give you an idea of what it takes to live when you become an adult and going… So anyway, I’m on soapbox and I hear a break coming up, so let’s move on.
Josh:
I’ll be next to you on that soapbox, Joe, because if I can go back in time, there’s a couple of years in college I wouldn’t mind having a redo in. But I made it through.
Joe:
There you go. There you go.
Josh:
Neither here nor there. If you got a call for the team at Certified Financial Group, any questions about your finances, how to plan your 401K, your Roth IRA, where to put that savings you got from selling a house recently, call right now (844) 580-9326. (844) 580-WDBO. And you are listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group.
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to On The Money, central Florida’s most listened to financial call-in show, brought to you by Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. It’s the only show hosted exclusively by certified financial planner professionals. Monday through Friday, their CFPs provide financial planning and investment advice for a fee. But on Saturdays, the advice is absolutely free and has been for more than 30 years for their WDBO listeners. If you have a financial question you want answered by real fiduciaries, the lines are wide open call (844) 580-WDBO. That’s (844) 580-WDBO. And enjoy the rest of the show.
Speaker 1:
(Singing)
Josh:
It’s only welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580. This show is brought to you by the Certified Financial Group with offices right here in central Florida. This show is a chance for you to always talk live with a real actual certified financial planner professional. Today we’re so fortunate to be joined by Joe, the Oracle of Orlando, Burt and Wynn Smith with the team at the Certified Financial Group. And if you have a question for these two experts call right now, (844) 580-9326. (844) 580-WDBO or, since we’re so in the future nowadays, we have an option to send your questions via text. Is it okay if I throw one of those at you gentlemen?
Joe:
Let’s do it.
Josh:
All right. This one comes to us very recently. It says, “I have a whole life policy that I’m thinking about surrendering for the cash value and that it has a loan. Will I have to pay taxes?”
Wynn:
Well, that depends. Typically what determines whether it’s a taxable event, if you get more out of the policy than you put in. So if you look at what the premiums that you’ve paid into the policy, you look at what the loan was and then you look at the surrender amount, if the loan plus the surrender amount is greater than the premiums you paid, then yes, that would be a taxable event and is taxed at ordinary income.
Joe:
So let’s give an example here.
Wynn:
So let’s say you have a policy that you have paid $50,000 in premiums over the course of the policy and you pulled out a $40,000 loan to purchase whatever.
Joe:
Whatever.
Wynn:
Of course that was not a taxable event because it was considered a loan, but that did reduce the cash value of your policy, but you kept on, kept the policy going and now you’re thinking about surrendering it and you’ve got a $25,000 surrender value. So you put in 50, you took out 40 and then 25 would be 65 so that then you would have a $35,000…
Joe:
$15,000.
Wynn:
Oh, excuse me. $15,000. Thanks Joe.
Joe:
I think that’s right. So the bottom line is you got more out of it with a loan plus with a surrender value than what you put into it and that’ll be taxable income to you. You’ll get a 1099 that you’ll have to recognize and pay ordinary income tax rates on that.
Wynn:
Exactly.
Joe:
Yeah. That doesn’t often happen though. Well, that does happen. Yeah, that does happen.
Wynn:
Yeah.
Joe:
The whole policies have been around for a while.
Wynn:
And a lot of people will structure life insurance like that with the intention of taking money out later on, maybe to supplement retirement. The trick though is to die with the policy in place because as long as there’s $1 of death benefit going to your beneficiary, you never pay taxes on any of that money that you pulled out. So that’s the trick. So it’s something that you’ve got to stay on top of.
Joe:
Totally tax free. Totally tax free. And that’s the beauty of life insurance.
Wynn:
That is what the more creative uses of… especially permanent life insurance.
Joe:
It is totally tax free to the beneficiaries, regardless of the size of the policy.
Wynn:
That’s right.
Joe:
Yeah.
Wynn:
That’s right.
Joe:
Tell you a little story, when I first got in the business, my mom and dad came down to visit us here in Florida and my dad had just retired and my mom and dad didn’t have much life insurance and fortunately, thank God, they never needed it. However, I was concerned about mom. They were mid sixties and I said, “Dad, we probably need to get some insurance on you.” So we set him up with a policy and low and behold, about five years later, he came down with lung cancer and that policy saved my mother’s life financially. I mean, family would always have been there for her… Saved my life financially, because I…
Wynn:
Yeah. Yeah.
Joe:
Yeah. So there is a place for it because it created some instant wealth for her that provided for her remaining years and it worked out fine.
Wynn:
Yeah. We’re not promised tomorrow for sure.
Joe:
No, that is for sure. That is for sure.
Wynn:
Now, Joe, going back to your earlier comment about where you were in college and someone knocking on your door and about you buying that whole life policy, one of the misconceptions about life insurance is that, “I don’t need it until I get older.” It’s really doesn’t have anything to do with age, it has to do with financial responsibility.
Joe:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Wynn:
So you can be a younger person with a tremendous financial responsibility or you can be an older person without any and that would be the determining factor.
Joe:
That’s correct. Yeah. And I think as I’ve had this unfortunate circumstance over the years of a young widow coming to see us for the first time and she has a couple of children and one of the furthest things from her mind is life insurance and there is an absolute need right there for her to provide for those two children. Because if something happens to her, those children are going to be burdens to… Not… I wouldn’t say burdens, but they could be the grandparents or mom or aunts and uncles or somebody… But then what you’re doing is your dropping those kids in somebody’s house and you take care of them without any financial backup. So there’s another need for life insurance. So as much as all insurance has an expense, but there is no substitute for it. There’s absolutely no substitute for it.
Wynn:
No, and studies show that people that have life insurance have more peace of mind than people that don’t.
Joe:
Exactly. Exactly.
Wynn:
So it does provide that.
Joe:
The key is to buy the right kind of insurance at the best cost for you and that’s what we do as fiduciaries. We are not… It sounds like we’re insurance salesmen this morning, but as financial planners, in fact, I’m going back to my financial planning courses from 40… say 40 years ago, and that’s the first chapter, that’s the first segment is risk manage.
Wynn:
That’s right. Yep that’s the-
Joe:
Because we can do the absolute best job for you of increasing your income, your net worth, your assets and so on so forth, but it can all change overnight if you haven’t focused on the risk management.
Wynn:
That’s right.
Joe:
It’s not only life insurances, it’s disability insurance, it’s homeowner insurance.
Wynn:
Liability, all those.
Joe:
It’s all that stuff. So there is a place for insurance. It’s really certified financial planning 101 before we get into all the fun stuff that we do, but you want to be sure that you’re taken care of. So this is what we do with certified financial planners. And I said in the first part of the program, we have the ability now to provide for our clients no load, no commission life insurance and annuities that weren’t available in years past that could really get you a lot of bang for the buck. And I’m going to get back to that opportunity to convert an old annuity that you might have around that you’ve had for years. And maybe you went to one of those lunch or dinner seminars and you’ve got one of those things and you don’t realize how expensive it is with those embedded costs. There may be a way, can’t guarantee it, but there may be a way to substantially improve what you have there tucked away at absolutely no cost and no tax consequences.
Joe:
So if you want more information about how we can do that for you, give Wynn Smith a call, Wynn is a C-O-U-C-H-F-C, what else have you got there, buddy? You got all kind… You have more diplomas on your wall than we have wall space.
Wynn:
Well, it’s just a lifelong learning.
Joe:
Well, you’ve done a great job. So Wynn is an expert in that he doesn’t do only insurance. He is a certified financial planner, but he’s our go-to guy internally. So if you want information about us, go to financialgroup.com. Financial group.com. Or you can reach Chris Toadvine right now who’s also a certified financial planner. You could reach him here in our office at (407) 869-9800. That’s (407) 869-9800 and if the line is busy, please leave a message and Chris promises to call you back. So he’s there dedicated to give you some off the air advice, questions that you might have, maybe you a personal nature. So you can reach him right now at (407) 869-9800. And I see we got another text question that floated in here.
Josh:
I got it pulled up right here. It’s a question that says, “What is the best type of life insurance to have in retirement?” A perfect question since September is in fact life insurance awareness month.
Joe:
There you go.
Wynn:
Well, again, that depends. I would imagine if you have a death need, the best type would be a paid up policy because in retirement, you wouldn’t want to keep paying premiums on that.
Joe:
But that’s something that you’ve had a long time.
Wynn:
That would’ve been something you would’ve had a long time there. Well, you could also maybe look at a single premium policy to get that out of the way. It just depends. If a term policy… Again, if there’s some cost there that’s going away soon that might be appropriate, but that’s going to get very, very expensive as one gets older. But yeah, I would think if there’s still a death need, it would be a policy that you would not have to be paying on in retirement.
Joe:
Or I’m thinking here, a lot of people have refinanced their homes in recent times.
Wynn:
That’s true. That’s true.
Joe:
Many people in their fifties and even their sixties that may be carrying a 15, 20, 30 year mortgage, you can get a decreasing term policy. So you have a fixed premium and it’s designed to pay off that mortgage. So that’s another way to use life insurance. So there’s different ways to use it. The important thing to do is have a good understanding of what your financial situation is, look at all the variables that are out there, where the risk is in your financial future blowing up and how do we most economically cover those risks? So that’s what we do as certified financial planners. Once again, if you want more information about that, go to our website, that’s financialgroup.com.
Wynn:
Joe, one of the other misconceptions out there is that life insurance is too expensive. 43% of people actually when they’re asked what they think life insurance would cost for them, they actually come up with a cost that’s higher than the real cost. So there’s that misconception. But the only way to find out is to actually get a quote or to look for some type of financial plan or something that incorporates life insurance because your life insurance policies doesn’t do you any good if you can’t afford it. So it has to work into your overall financial situation.
Joe:
Exactly, and there is a place for it. And in business, using buy-sell agreements.
Wynn:
Oh, absolutely.
Joe:
Yeah. You’ve got a business, you have partners and circumstance… I know I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it where you’ve got a couple of guys, started a business, doing real well, one of them passes away and now their existing partner has to deal with the spouse of the deceased partner and now you got to a mess on your hands.
Wynn:
And there’s a lot of buy-sell agreements out there that are in place, but they’ve never been funded.
Joe:
Never been funded. Yes. Now what do you mean by funded? I know what you mean, but let’s tell our listeners what you mean.
Wynn:
Yeah, well it either means that they’re creating a sinking fund to create the money needed to buy out the spouse of the deceased partner or there’s a life insurance policy in place that would pay a benefit upon the death of the other partner.
Joe:
Right. So there’s, once again, another need for life insurance. So as I said, we have the ability today to have some great products with no commissions and working with our clients as fiduciaries finding the very best products out there and being independent. We can search and look for the very best opportunities that are out there. And we have time for one more text I saw that floated in here, Chris…
Josh:
Certainly-
Joe:
Or Josh.
Josh:
It’s all right. I’ll answer it, nonetheless. I’ll answer to whatever you say.
Joe:
All right.
Josh:
This question says, “I listened last time you were on, you were talking about your mom and dad and long-term care,” and they’re wondering how they’re doing.
Wynn:
Oh. Yeah. Yeah, Joe, the last time I was on, I think I… Yeah, I was talking about a personal experience where I had done some crisis planning with my parents and we were talking a little bit about long-term care. And actually this is another use of life insurance because right now most long term care that’s being written is being written with a hybrid policy life insurance policy or with a life insurance policy with a long term care writer. So that’s another use of life insurance in a way to integrate life insurance into an overall risk planning part of a financial plan.
Joe:
Right. So kind of, excuse the pun, but kill two birds with one stone.
Wynn:
One stone.
Joe:
Yeah
Wynn:
Right. Right.
Joe:
So if you don’t need it for long term healthcare, your beneficiaries get tax free money.
Wynn:
Exactly.
Joe:
And if you need it for long term healthcare, the money is there so it’s getting more mileage out of that. So the real question is how is mom and dad doing? You brought them down from Georgia.
Wynn:
Yeah. Yeah. And they are adjusting. It’s a transition. They seem to be doing well. This is something I didn’t realize I had… Of course you’ve got to transfer all the healthcare and the doctors and all that and they have a geriatric physician now and I was talking to the PA and they were talking about how a lot of people come down with multiple relationships, but there’s never been a lot of coordination so they’re doing a lot of cleanup.
Joe:
Oh yeah. Yep.
Wynn:
So, that’s what’s going on.
Joe:
Clean up the medicine cabinet. Let’s simplify things for sure. All right. Let’s take it away, Josh.
Josh:
Thank you so much, Joe and Wynn. One more break before one more final segment for one more chance for you to get on with the air with the team at the Certified Financial Group. Pick up the phone right now and dial (844) 580-9326. That’s (844) 580-WDBO. And you’re listening to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow today with the Certified Financial Group.
Josh:
Welcome back to On The Money right here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM 580. This is your chance to talk to real live certified financial planners on the air. We’re talking with Joe Burt, the Oracle of Orlando, Wynn Smith, joining him by his side, both with the team at the Certified Financial Group here and central Florida. Just a few minutes left, so maybe we can get a quick call in if you call right now, (844) 580-9326. (844) 580-WDBO. But if a thought pops into your mind after we wrap this show up today, you feel free to call in our off the air number. That is (407) 869-9800. (407) 869-9800. Chris Toadvine is on call ready to answer your questions. Guys?
Joe:
Yeah. Yeah. One more point about insurance.
Wynn:
Yeah, Joe, one of the misconceptions is that “I have life insurance through my workplace and that’s enough.” And that also kind of piggybacks a little bit on the text question we had about, “What’s the best type of insurance in retirement?” When we’re looking for protection planning, and if you’re still working, first place we’re going to is going to be your employee benefit. So yes, a lot of employers do offer life insurance. Typically that is a factor of your salary or it may just be a flat amount and it’s typically one or two or 3% or three times. That’s typically not enough, but that is a good place to start because a lot of times those are group policies and it may be the group is you’ve got a better rate than what you could do as an individual. And then back to the retirement aspect of that, if someone’s looking at retirement, there might be the ability to convert some of that into an individual policy upon retirement. And that might be a way to do that… cover that life insurance need in retirement.
Joe:
Yeah. Thing to consider though, with group policies that you have through your employer, you leave your employer, you generally can’t take that policy with you, take that coverage with you and what if your health changes and now you can’t get insurance? I’ve seen this as well. Or you have to quit your job because your health has deteriorated, now you’re going to give up your life insurance just at the time you need it the most. So I look at the group policies generally as kind of a freebie. If it’s there, take it, but it isn’t really what you ought to build your risk management on because you can’t control it.
Wynn:
That’s right. You make a good point, Joe, because who owns the group policy? It’s the employer. You don’t, so you don’t have control.
Joe:
Exactly. There’s a place for it, but it doesn’t fill the hole. Anyway, in wrapping up, I want to remind our listeners that next Saturday at 10 o’clock Gary Abely, certified financial planner and CPA, will be hold hosting a workshop for two hours. You want your money to last through your retirement, it’s a great program. Totally free. Leave your checkbook at home. He’s not going to try to sell you life insurance or annuities or anything like that. He’s going to show you what you need to do to be prepared to get through those golden years, if you will. And on October the 12th, following that Charles Curry is hosting one on education planning for those folks or grandparents that maybe looking at maybe children or grandchildren going into school. Really, what does it cost? How to use financial aid? What that financial aid package is all about. What you need to be prepared to know, because if you haven’t been through this before, it is an absolute minefield of what you can stumble into and the costs today are… I don’t need to tell you what the costs are.
Joe:
So it’s once again, a great program. It’s on a Wednesday evening, October the 12th. Totally, absolutely free. Go to our website, financialgroup.com. You can come up and meet the crew here and enjoy some refreshments and get some good education. So go to our website, financialgroup.com. And Chris Toadvine is standing by. He’ll be by for a little bit longer. You can reach him at (407) 869-9800. (407) 869-9800 or 1-800-EXECUTED as if you’re executing a legal document and he’ll be glad to answer any questions that you might have.
Joe:
And that about wraps up our show for today. It’s been a good show, Wynn. We’ve covered a lot of bases on life insurance, hopefully cleared up some misconceptions, given some people some idea. Once again, if you want to have that old insurance policy laying around, you want to see if you can get more bang for the buck, give Wynn a call on Monday morning here at our office and he’d be glad to do it. No obligation analysis for you and show you how you might be able to increase the value of what you have or what you’ve been paying on over all these years to see if you can’t get more benefit, particularly important in today’s economy.
Wynn:
Absolutely.
Josh:
Thank you so much, gentlemen. Again, Chris Toadvine is standing by to answer your calls if anything popped into your head in this very last segment. The number to reach him is (407) 869-9800. (407) 869-9800. This show is brought to you by the Certified Financial Group right here in central Florida. You’ve just listened to On The Money where we’re planning tomorrow, today with the Certified Financial Group.
