Episode Transcript
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Mike (00:05):
Welcome to How to Retire
On Time, a show that answers
your retirement questions. Saygoodbye to the oversimplified
advice. This show is all aboutgetting into the details so so
you can determine what is rightfor you. As always, text your
questions to (913) 363-1234. Andremember, this show is not
financial advice.
It's information to continueyour exploration. With me in the
(00:26):
studio today, mister DavidFransen. David, thanks for being
here. Yes. Hello.
Thank you. David's gonna readyour questions, and I'll answer
them. Let's jump in.
David (00:34):
Hey, Mike. I have a life
insurance policy, but don't feel
I need the death benefitanymore. What should I do?
Mike (00:41):
Yeah. Let me talk about
life insurance generally first.
Okay. And then dive into thisquestion. So first and foremost,
what's the purpose of lifeinsurance?
It's to pay for a death benefitin case you die.
David (00:54):
Yeah. Makes sense. Right?
You're sort of trading this,
like, well, I'm gonna give themmy Yeah. Premium, and then
Mike (01:00):
Now, David, you're a
father.
David (01:01):
I
Mike (01:01):
am. Your wife is a
dentist? She is. You both have
income. We do.
How detrimental would be if oneof you just died?
David (01:10):
Yeah. I mean, we yeah. We
depend on each other. That that
combined income stream iscrucial. It's nice.
Would you consider term lifeinsurance just to bridge that
gap?
Mike (01:19):
Yeah. What's your
expectation to get your money
back if neither of you die withterm life insurance?
David (01:24):
Well, mean, yeah, we had
to go into it knowing that,
okay, we're gonna pay this justin case, but if no one dies,
then a, we're happy that no onedied. Yeah. But b, we have to
also be okay with, well, we justgave them a lot of money for
decades.
Mike (01:36):
Yeah. But and I'm being a
little facetious here. People
listening are probably going,well, duh, Mike. Yeah. Well,
hold on.
Okay. That is what lifeinsurance is. You are paying a
fee to an insurance company forthe death benefit so that in
case someone dies, you receive alarge sum of money to offset the
lost income or lost cashopportunity for whatever that
(02:00):
may be for your situation. Thatis the purpose of life
insurance. It is not aninvestment.
Yeah. Now with thatunderstanding, as you approach
retirement, there's a couple ofdifferent questions. First off,
you have to ask yourself, if youhave term life insurance and
you're entering retirement, doyou wanna keep that term policy
or not? There's no cash valueassociated with it. It's term.
(02:22):
Yeah. That's it. Right? So doyou keep that term knowing
you're paying a higher premiumor not? Do you delay your Social
Security knowing that the term,if you were to die sooner, that
death benefit would offset thepotential loss of revenue from
Social Security?
Like, you could play that gameif you really wanted to. I've
seen that happen to certainpeople that just wanted to
(02:44):
transfer that risk to aninsurance company, but they knew
that the odds were not in theirfavor, that they were healthy,
and they probably wouldn't die.And that's how you gotta think
about this is whenever you'redealing with an insurance
company, the odds are not inyour favor. That's how insurance
works.
David (03:00):
We just have to accept
that and be okay with it, and
understand that that's there'snothing wrong with that. Right?
Mike (03:05):
Nothing wrong with that.
Yeah. That's like getting upset
with Coca Cola because they makea beverage that may not be
considered healthy. I don'tthink Coca Cola has ever come
out and said, hey. This is ahealthy beverage.
No. They say it is a refreshingbeverage. Yeah. I don't know.
And it lives up to the claim.
Yeah. I like Coca Cola more thanPepsi.
David (03:24):
Yeah. Oh,
Mike (03:24):
yeah. That's a famous
dispute. Yeah. But the the point
is, let's not assume thatsomething is what it is not.
Life insurance is not aninvestment.
Now it gets a little bit moretricky when you move into
permanent life insurance. What'spermanent life insurance? This
is universal life or whole life.Now there's different categories
within those types of lifeinsurance. You've got on the
(03:45):
universal life side, you've gotthings like indexed universal
life, so it has growth on theupside, but no downside risk,
just in fees.
So if the markets go down, youdon't lose value, but you do pay
fees. There's universal lifewhere it's kinda like this not
exactly fixed, but roughly justkinda steady. It grows at an
arbitrary rate, and then you'vegot variable universal life
(04:08):
where you've got more upsidepotential, but you've got
downside risk as well. K? Soyou've got three different ways
you can slice that one up.
And then whole life, similar inthat situation as well. They're
just structured differently. AsI'm going to define it, knowing
all policies are structured alittle bit differently,
universal life, as I've seen it,tends to front load the fees, so
(04:30):
that after ten years or so, thenit's a little bit lower
typically in fees for the longhaul. Whole life, kind of as
I've seen it, spreads these feesout for the rest of your life.
So they're just structured alittle bit differently.
Is one better than the other?Who's to say? Depends on what
you want. But when retirees willget to retirement, they're now
(04:53):
second guessing, should theykeep buying into the policy?
Should they not buy the policy?
Should they cut the policy? Andthat's a very loaded question.
So just so we're clear, to theperson that asked the question
and to everyone listening in, Iam not gonna tell you to cancel
your life insurance policy. Thisshow is not giving individual
financial advice. This is adiscussion, and I'm gonna point
(05:16):
out a couple of things toconsider.
That fair? Sounds fair. Yep. K.The first one is understand what
you're paying for.
Are you paying for riders andadditional benefits with the
policy? Those additional ridersand benefits would cost you
money. Do you still want them,or do you not want them? Only
you can really decide that.Understand the fees associated
with it, and know that the olderyou get, there may be an
(05:37):
increase in those fees.
There may not be. There may be.Just gotta look at the details.
And you can call the insurancecompany. They'll answer these
questions.
Mhmm. They don't hide thingsfrom you. They're just
complicated policies. Yeah. Thenext one is how large is the
death benefit compared to thecash value associated with the
policy?
So generally speaking, with apermanent life insurance policy,
(05:57):
you would fund it until youdon't need to fund it, and the
cash value and the growthassociated with it should
maintain the policy until acertain point.
David (06:06):
Okay. So the growth of
the policy, and the company can
pull out of the growth to paythe fees? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Mike (06:12):
Yeah. Now let's be a
little bit, I don't know,
sarcastic with this. Just for amoment, I wanna prove a point.
Let's say your policy has 50,000in cash value, and the death
benefit is $100,000. Alright.
So the death benefit's like 50k. Do you think that's gonna
cost a lot of money? No. That'snot a lot of money out for the
(06:33):
insurance company, so the costof insurance is gonna be very
minimal. And that policy, youshould be able to structure to
where you stop paying into it,and it should sustain itself.
And as the cash value grows, thedeath benefit might grow with
it, because there has to be acorridor or a difference between
the death benefit and the cashvalue. So you might say, look,
you don't need it, but there'senough cash value. The fees
(06:55):
associated with it are smallenough. Just let it ride. And
that's a very common situationthat I see.
It's not paying into it, but wejust do a real illustration, we
restructure it, and then justlet it be. You've already paid
into the policy, you might aswell just let it grow tax free.
Maybe you borrow against it taxfree. Maybe it's just there for
the beneficiaries whenever youpass. That's okay.
(07:15):
Now let's say you've got that50,000 cash, and there's, like,
a $500,000 death benefit. K? A$450,000 death benefit. Do you
think the fees associated withthat are greater?
David (07:29):
I would guess so. Yeah.
Mike (07:31):
Yeah. Of course they are.
Yeah. Because there's more risk
to the insurance company, and soyou've got to pay to compensate
for that risk. So you've got toask yourself a question, are you
willing to maintain payments tokeep this policy alive so that
you have that $450,000 or sodeath benefit in case you were
to pass?
(07:51):
These are kind of the questionsyou've gotta ask yourself and go
back and forth on. Is it rightfor you, or is it not right for
you?
David (07:58):
And so who are these
policies for? Like, permanent
life, whole life, like, who'sthat really for? Is it for a
certain high net worth person?Is it for the
Mike (08:06):
I've seen people use let's
do whole life.
David (08:10):
Okay.
Mike (08:10):
Whole life's the old
school one. I don't see them
written as much. It's just it'sthe old traditional one. It's
steady, Eddie, it grows.Ideally, you put enough into it.
At some point, you can stoppaying into it, but it's just
kind of the most boring of themall. Boring isn't bad. Boring
means predictable. No problemwith that. The newer policies
I've seen typically fall underthe universal life umbrella,
(08:31):
which is a newer type of lifeinsurance as I've understood it.
Just on the new products thatare available, the new
innovations they've done, theyseem to be focusing more on
universal life. And that's whereI see, like, hybrid plans where
it's like, hey. There's a longterm care benefit that if you
qualify, you could tap into yourdeath benefit, because if you
need long term care, you're kindof on your way out. That's the
(08:52):
harsh reality. So they're gonnapay a death benefit anyway.
They kind of just make it alittle bit easier for you to do
that. Now that might lead tohigher fees. There's always a
catch to these things, But I'veseen people say, well, I can't
afford long term care, but maybeI'll do universal life and kind
of do these hybrid plans. Sothat's for someone that's
typically a little bit I don'tknow. These aren't cut and dry
(09:13):
numbers, but maybe 2,000,000 orless might consider something
like that, if that's what theywanted.
The million dollars or more,I've seen people use universal
life for tax planning, but let'sbe very, very clear. Life
insurance is not an investment.You don't buy it unless you want
the death benefit, and it'sprobably not gonna outpace the
stock market over the long termperiod of time. So when I hear
(09:36):
people say, well, this is therich man Roth, it is not. Okay?
Mhmm. That is a tale that hasbeen manipulated to sell you a
life insurance policy. Peoplemight say, well, this is how you
pay estate taxes. Well, when areyou expected to die? In your
eighties.
When did you take out thepolicy? In your sixties. If you
compare the premiums you put into your life insurance policy
(09:59):
and compare that to, let's say,a 7%, 8% average growth, you
just put it in the stock marketas a difference, by the time you
got to your expected death dateof mid eighties, you would have
had a greater death benefit justby putting it in the stock
market, and then using that topay your estate tax or other
things. It's only gonna bebeneficial if it's earlier on.
(10:21):
And I get so much resistancefrom people when I just point
this out, they say, no.
Well, they said this, or or it'seven like the insurance agents.
When I do trainings, I'm anational coach. Mhmm. So I train
financial advisers all over thecountry. I'm on the panels just
to kind of share thecontradictory opinion of things.
I just think, guys, you know howto use Excel. Right? Just do the
math. Right. Just question ifthe thing you're being told is
(10:45):
true or not.
And it really upsets them whenthey realize, oh, maybe it isn't
as cracked up as I was told. Butthese are things you need to
understand about life insurance.So the rule of thumb is that
I've noticed, this is myanecdotal kind of result is,
people that have life insuranceas they enter into retirement,
usually they keep it, but werestructure the policy to lower
(11:06):
the cost of insurance. They'vealready paid into it, and we use
it as best as we can. I haveseen people where there's a
higher death benefit, there'slower cash value, and they just
get rid of it because they don'tneed a death benefit, because
they've already saved enough.
They've amassed enough wealth.They don't need the death
benefit anymore. So why wouldthey keep paying, taking out
their cash flow, when they couldbe doing other things with the
(11:26):
money?
David (11:27):
Right.
Mike (11:27):
But it is such an
individualized conversation.
You've really gotta run thenumbers. You've gotta look at it
from not just the the cash valueand the death benefit, but the
other parts of your financialneeds, your health care
planning, the death benefits,the legacy planning, your estate
planning, the tax implications,and so on. Understand what
(11:48):
you're saying yes or no to. Manytimes, the solution you would
not have even thought of becauseyou didn't know the right
questions to ask.
That's why you come in and seesomeone like us here at Kedric
Wealth, is to not go to theperson that's already sold you
the policy, the person that'salready made the commission.
It's kinda like they may notwant to spend the time diving
the details. It's already beendone. You want to work with
(12:10):
someone that, frankly, you'repaying them by the hour to give
you the objective opinion,that's honest, that's
forthright, and is very blackand white, explaining the
benefits and detriments of thevarious paths that you would
proceed. That is key.
That's all the time we've gotfor the show today. If you
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(12:52):
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