Safe Money - 2-1-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning to all. Craig Shillig here and this is
Safe Money. I'm here every Saturday to talk with our
listeners about financial strategies we use to manage and protect
assets safely. I've been an insurance agent for over twenty
four years. During that time, I've learned a few insurance strategies,
like using annuities as safe money harbors, or using cash

(00:23):
value life insurance to supplement retirement income. Just a reminder
call our office at five six three three three two
two two zero zero if you'd like to enroll into
one of my virtual Medicare community meetings that I do
via zoom. I give one every month, or you can

(00:44):
email me at Craig at Craigshillig dot com and that's
Craig cr Aig at cr Aig scchi l LIG. Today
I want to talk about life insurance. February is Ensure

(01:06):
your Love Month. The Ensure your Love Month theme for
twenty twenty five is life Insurance is love insurance. Getting
life insurance to protect your loved ones financially is a
way to say I love you and mean it. Put
your love into action with life insurance. Ensure your Love

(01:29):
Month is the perfect opportunity to put your love into
action by ensuring their family's financial future with life insurance.
Life insurance is love insurance. Put your love into action
with life insurance. Here's a real life story from Life Happens.

(01:50):
Small business owner and widow Liz Feedler shows how life
insurance saved her family and her family farm when her
husband Pais asked away at just age thirty nine. It
started with a happy hour. Josh picked up Liz to
bring her to an afterwork event when a mutual friend

(02:13):
could no longer attend. The accidental twusome that started that
day turned into an engagement nine months later. What also
happened quickly was a discussion about money. In the beginning
of our relationship, Josh was asking me about finances, including
life insurance. He really felt strongly that we should both

(02:35):
get it, and so he did, says Liz. Starting a family,
The couple married and their careers unfolded, Liz as a
nurse practitioner and Josh as an agricultural lender. Their family
grew as well with the birth of Vidalia. That's when
the couple purchased a additional life insurance. They just never

(02:59):
thought they would ever need it. On a cold December day,
everything changed. Liz became worried when Josh's colleagues called, saying
he had missed several appointments. A short time later, he
was discovered at the foot of his treadmill at home,
having suffered a cardiac event while doing a workout. He

(03:21):
was only thirty nine and had be given a clean
bill of health just two days prior. While shock overwhelmed Liz,
financial worries did not. Josh's life insurance allowed her to
take a leave of absence from work to grieve and
care for her three year old. In addition, the day

(03:42):
after Josh's funeral, Liz discovered she was pregnant with their
second daughter, Davy. No one can prepare you for the
death of your spouse, says Liz, but having life insurance
meant we could continue on with the life that Josh

(04:02):
and I had begun. For Liz, this meant growing the
flower business she and Josh had started on the family
farm they'd purchased. She also built a new home to
replace the dilapidated farmhouse they lived in. The Life insurance
has allowed Liz and her girls to truly build a
new life. I tell everyone who will listen that life

(04:25):
insurance is so important no matter how young and healthy
you are. My life is proof, says Liz. No one
can prepare you for the death of your spouse, but
having life insurance meant we could continue on with the
life that Josh and I had had begun when Liz's husband,

(04:46):
Josh died. The life insurance helped pay bills, build a
new home, maintain financial stability, and grow their family flower business.
Because Josh got life insurance, he protected his family's financial
future through them. His legacy lives on what plan do

(05:09):
you have for your family's financial future if you can't
be there to provide for them anymore. Josh and Liz
planned ahead for the what ifs and got life insurance.
Life insurance can allow the ones you love to continue
pursuing their dreams. For Liz, life insurance gave her the

(05:31):
security to pivot careers and grow her flower farm business.
Life insurance gave me the security to pivot careers and
grow my flower farm, which in turn allowed me to
spend much a lot more time with my children. Here's
another real life story from Life Happens in Good Times

(05:54):
and bad Corey and Asia Schroeder are the most unlikely
couple and yet the most likely couple. They met under
the status of circumstances, but now married for thirteen years,
they've used their relationship to transform the unimaginable into the possible.

(06:15):
You see, Asia was the widow of Peter, a marine
that was in the same unit as Corey. He was
part of an elite bomb squad and died in the
line of duty while stationed in Iraq. Asia was just
twenty three and their son, Jacob was just three years
old at that time. Grief gripped the small family, but

(06:38):
thankfully financial concerns weren't an issue. Just before deploying, Peter
purchased an individual life insurance policy that essentially doubled the
coverage he had through the military. His wife and son
were at the center of his life, and he wanted
to make sure they wouldn't suffer financially if he didn't return.

(07:00):
The future unfolds. When Peter died, it felt like I
was watching a movie. It's something that happened to other people,
not to me, says Asia. His life insurance was instant
assurance that everything was going to be okay financially. Corey
offered solace and helped to Asia and Jacob as they

(07:23):
looked toward the future. Friendship turned to love and a
new family unit was born when Korey and Asia married,
but the power of life insurance didn't end there. The
couple purchased policies, including permanent life insurance because they had
seen what it could do firsthand. As they continued to

(07:45):
build their dreams together, Korean Asia tapped the cash value
of their permanent life insurance policies to use as a
down payment on a new commercial property. They wanted to
do it span their twenty four to seven gymnasium and
transform it into the prosperous business they knew it could be.

(08:09):
It has allowed us to follow our passion and do
something we enjoy, says Corey. The Schroeders know firsthand the
power of life insurance. It's been there to support their life,
their dreams, and their future through good times and in bad.
What plan do you have for your family's financial future

(08:31):
if you can't be there to provide for them anymore.
When you promise to protect your children, life insurance becomes
a true expression of that love. It's a way to
put your love into action and ensure their financial security.
Don't assume that your loved ones don't want to talk

(08:52):
about life insurance. Now is the perfect time to discuss
your family's future with your loved ones and a true
insurance professional. Life insurance is the safety net your family
needs when you aren't around to protect them. A common
reason parents or grandparents get life insurance coverage for their

(09:13):
child is to build cash value over time. This cash
value is not only a monetary asset, but also a
tool for supporting their future financial needs. Not sure who
needs to hear this, but don't overthink saying I love you.
It can be as simple as I got life insurance.

(09:37):
So true. Managing bills can be overwhelming, but we're here
to tell you that life insurance is more affordable than
you probably think. Getting life insurance means you're putting that
I love you phrase into motion. It's time to express
love beyond words with life insurance. Show them you care

(09:58):
all year, not just on Valentine's Day, doing the dishes,
filling the gas tank, planning a surprise date, saving a
bit more retirement money getting life insurance. The basic motivation
behind purchasing life insurance is love. People want to protect

(10:20):
their loved ones, and the one of the best ways
to provide that financial protection is through life insurance. Why
do we need ensure your love month, Well, I'll tell
you because one hundred and two million people say they
need life insurance and more of it. Getting life insurance

(10:42):
is a simple and affordable way to make sure the
ones you love are protected financially if you are no
longer there. Life insurance doesn't have to be expensive. In fact,
the monthly costs can be the same as your favorite
streaming service. Nine percent of Americans say they'd rather spend

(11:03):
fifteen dollars a month on life insurance than on a
standard Netflix subscription. An important part of keeping your promises
to your spouse is ensuring they would be okay financially
if something were to happen to you. That's why life
insurance is key. The truth is every newly ed starter

(11:25):
pack should include life insurance. Most people ensure their homes,
their cars, even their smartphones. Why wouldn't they ensure their
own life. This serves as a great reminder to ensure
what matters most with life insurance. Life insurance can help

(11:45):
protect the home or business you work so hard to build.
Life insurance can make a difference for you and your family,
not just financially, but emotionally as well. Which is the
better active love this Valentine's Day? Talking about life insurance
or getting life insurance. Now, I have a poem i'd

(12:11):
like to share with you. I've shared this poem before,
but this goes right into what we're talking about today.
The poem is by Van Mueller. I am a piece
of paper, but even more I am an idea. I
am a promise. I help people see visions, dream dreams,

(12:33):
and achieve economic immortality. I am an education for the children.
I am savings. I am also property that increases in
value from year to year. I lend money when you
need it most, with no questions asked. I put off,

(12:54):
excuse me. I pay off mortgages so that the family
can remain together in their own home. I assure fathers
and mothers the daring to live and the moral right
to die. I create, manage, and distribute property. I guarantee

(13:15):
the continuity of business. I protect the jobs of employees.
I can serve the employer's investment. I am a tangible
piece of evidence that a man or woman is a
good spouse or parent. I am a declaration of financial independence,
a charter of economic freedom. I am the difference between

(13:39):
an old man and an elderly gentleman. I am the
only thing that a father or mother can buy on
the installment plan, and the survivor doesn't have to finish
pain for it. I am a certificate of character, evidence
of good citizenship, and unimpeachable title to the right of

(14:01):
self government. I am protected by laws that prevent creditors
from accessing the moneies I give to loved ones. I
bring dignity, peace of mind, and security to the later
years of life. I am the great social compact that
merges the individual into the mass and places behind the

(14:26):
frutality of human beings standing alone the immeasurable strength of
human beings standing together. I supply investment capital that makes
the smoke go up, the chimneys, wheels turn, and motor's home.
I guarantee there always be Christmas with tinsel, a happy fireside,

(14:49):
and the laughter of children, even though a breadwitter parent
is no longer there. I am the guardian angel of
the house. I am your life life insurance policy. Here's
two questions for thought. I know many of you have
thought about what happens if your life ends early? But

(15:12):
have you given consideration to what would happen if your
life doesn't end early? Have you thought about that? Here's
another one. If I could show you a way to
stay in complete control of your money until you took
your last breath. But instead of giving that money to
the government like the IRS, a nursing home or a

(15:36):
hospital network, you could keep that money in your family
for generations to come. At the very least. Wouldn't you
want to know about that? Let me know? We can talk.
An offshoot of my life insurance talk is what many

(15:57):
people don't know. You can take a life insurance policy
and turning into an annuity later in life. Now you've
all heard me talk about annuities in the past. Life
insurance and annuities kind of have an inverse relationship. Where
life insurance pays when you die. Technically, annuities pay you

(16:18):
to live now cash value give it in pain. Life
insurance can pay you while you're living. Furthermore, you can
also use those for because it's an asset. Just like
the example I gave, you could use that to collateralize alone.

(16:41):
Now they took the cash values from that policy as
a loan to the insurance company, but you can also
use those to collateralize alone. If you're getting a commercial
loan from a bank. Bankers love those. They're great because
they know that if that business owner dies, they can
use part of the death benefit to offset the loan

(17:03):
that is outstanding on that note. Now whatever's remaining, then
we go to the beneficiaries, and there's different ways to
work that out. But that's also another neat piece of
life insurance that people most people don't know. Business owners
understand that, bankers understand it, but not everybody is accustomed

(17:25):
to that type of flexibility. The annuity side of the coin.
You could turn a life insurance policy into an annuity
going into retirement. So let's say you have a life
insurance policy you've had for twenty thirty years and it's

(17:45):
paid up and you've got a sizeable amount of money
into that contract. You could turn that into an annuity
and make that a lifetime annuity like a spear that
I've talked about in the past. This would pay you
a monthly or an annually stream of income for your

(18:06):
life or for a certain period of time going forward
into those retirement years. You've also heard me talk about
you need to have a different bucket of money when
you're going into retirement. Cash value dived in paying life
insurance is the one of the best buckets you can
use for that type of strategy. So imagine you want

(18:30):
to retire in the market tanks a couple months before
whatever your retirement date's going to be. Your fidelity account,
for example, was a million dollars. Well now it's six
hundred grand. You lost four hundred grand and you know,
thirty or maybe sixty days. That's a charge to the system.

(18:52):
If you want to maintain that retirement date, you're going
to need to be able to access a different bucket
of money. So you can let that hundred thousand come
back to that amount you were at, and that may
take a few years. If we go back to two thousand,
two thousand and one, two thousand and two, or two

(19:12):
thousand and seven, eight nine, those were bumps in the market.
And please keep in mind, the market's done very well
since twenty eighteen. If you look at your four to
one case statements last year, everybody was happy. Now this
isn't a political piece that had nothing to do with

(19:34):
who was in the White House. That's just how the
market and how the economy was doing. A lot of people.
I mean, the stock market did twenty three to twenty
five percent. Most investors probably did over ten, maybe twelve percent. Now,
if you're in some other strategies, you could do better.
But when is the market going to reset. There's going

(19:58):
to be a blip. It's usually every seven to nine years.
It's just like real estate. Real estate does well over
an eight or ten year period. But whenever that reset comes,
your financial professional is going to tell you, Craig, you
don't want to pull money from that account because a

(20:19):
couple months ago you had a million in there. Now
you only have six hundred grand. If you take a withdrawal,
now you will never recover what was lost. I mean,
that's poof. You're going to need time for that to
come back to that number. Then you can readjust and

(20:41):
move to a different strategy. That's one of the beautiful
things of cash value life insurance. More simply, I've used
my life insurance policies several times over my lifetime. I
had to buy a computer in college, had to help

(21:02):
collateralize a loan for a vending business. When I started
my career, when I got out of college, I needed
some spending money. I went to Italy once and I
used those with borrowed cash values that I paid back.
That's I mean, it's very simple. You fill out a form,

(21:24):
you give them the direct deposit slip. You don't have
to get permission from your loan officer to take that loan. Now,
most companies will only allow you to borrow up to
ninety percent of your cash value. But that's an option
you have. I mean, it's an asset cash value difvedent.

(21:46):
Paying whole life insurance on the balance sheet is an asset,
not a liability. Now term life insurance will be a
liability on your balance sheet. It only becomes an asset
at the time of claim, which means someone had to
die in order for that to be paid. But permanent
cash value whole life insurance, there are many things you

(22:11):
can do with it. You've heard me say that before.
It's the Swiss Army Knife of financial products. Please don't
forget that. And I sell them to all ages. You
can be an infant who's three weeks old, and I've
sold them to seventy five year olds. Yes, sixty five,

(22:32):
seventy five year olds can still get life insurance. Now
it's not inexpensive. You're going to pay a fair premium,
but it still can be done if you're relatively healthy.
The key thing on life insurance is it's cheaper when
you're younger. You're younger, you're healthy, age and health is

(22:52):
what drives that premium. So the younger and healthier you are,
the better rate you're going to get. But understand, and
people are living longer, so people continue to buy permanent
cash value life insurance throughout their lifetimes for different reasons.

(23:13):
It happens all the time. Going into retirement. If you
make too much money, you want to buy cash value
life insurance to offset your inheritance taxes or what may
be needed for estate taxes. So something to think about.
From a charitable standpoint, it's cheaper to buy life insurance

(23:37):
and have it paid to the charity than it is
to write the check. So also keep that in mind.
There are ways to do that. Those dormitories and those
buildings on college campuses, the names are there. They always
say because so and so donated money. Well, most of
the wise ones that did that usually did it with
something else, and life insurance is the cheapest way to

(23:59):
do it. Now, some do collateralize securities or gift stock
stuff like that as charitable donations. The life insurance for
that type of charitable gift is still the most efficient
way to do that, both from your standpoint and from

(24:20):
the dollars offered standpoint being the amount of money that
you could contribute through life insurance versus writing your own check.
Don't forget. I give monthly virtual meetings regarding Medicare for
two different companies every month. In one meeting, I will
cover Medicare supplement plans with a standalone drug plan. That

(24:43):
meeting is sponsored by well Mark. United Healthcare is a sponsor.
The other virtual meeting that I give, I focus on
Medicare advantage plans known as Medicare parts see and cover
the benefits of that platform. You can call my office
at five six three three three to two meter zero
zero for the zoom meeting codes and additional dates and times.

(25:05):
You're also welcome to email me at Craig at Craigshilig
dot com and that's c r a I G at
c R a I G s c h I L
l I G dot com and I'd be happy to
send you the virtual zoomlink meeting codes. This is Craig

(25:26):
Shillig with safe money,