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We cover topics on healing, health, happiness, growing wealth and living wise in a world that often sabotages you.
Welcome
to Healthy, Happy, Wise, Wealthy, the podcast where we take people who
have lived through some fire and now want to take that light and help
guide others. I am your host, Mary Meyer. I'm so glad you're here.
I want you to step away from today feeling like you
know some things about how to heal, about how to move
forward, about how to create the life that you want to live.
Let's get started. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Healthy,
Happy, Wise, Wealthy. I have with us today Xander Lehn, and
he is an insurance professional.
I know him from the Missing Link network. And I know in our first
episode, we had Jaclyn on from that to talk about the importance of
networking. And networking has been good for both of us. I know.
So I wanted to have him on because insurance is one of those things, in
my opinion. I know a little bit about insurance, too, because ins. You know,
I had 20 years married to an insurance
broker, basically, so I got to know a lot about that field.
And I know for people, there's usually a lot of questions they have about
insurance, and maybe they don't want to call to ask somebody, because
I think in this world, sometimes you want to know the answers before you call
somebody, just to make sure you're on the right. The right track.
So. And you have only been doing this a couple years and you
made a big life transition. I know we talk about that lot on this show,
too. So, yeah. Introduce yourself a little bit and tell us
why you chose to go into this profession. Yeah. Thanks, Mary. I
appreciate you inviting me on the podcast. That's pretty cool.
Definitely a fun opportunity. And I did make a big life
transition to become an insurance broker and
work with the people that I do. And I love what I do
now. Before I was an automotive
technician for like 12 plus years,
I went to school for IT degrees, you know,
the whole nine yards. And I loved doing it,
but it became a little
challenging to deal with. You know, that I
didn't have a lot of autonomy. I was tied to one place.
I was doing a lot of work that I didn't
have control over. And I really like having the ability
to. To kind of control my own destiny, if that makes sense.
And at the same time, as I was feeling this
tug, this push and pull in my career,
I also lost a family member and
experienced what happens when there isn't
a plan in place. And I
knew one of my good friends was a life insurance
salesperson. And I said, hey, I want to find out about what you
do. And after I learned, I said, you know, What?
I'm gonna make a drastic 180. I signed
up that night for the classes and while
working a full time job, raising two kids, wife, you
know, family, everything, I did the, the 40 hour course
in two weeks, passed my test the first time
and just went, you know, head first into
figuring out all this world and I haven't looked
back. That's very brave. Making a transition like that
with family in tow and everything is a
very brave transition to make. Yeah, it's
definitely scary but rewarding at the same time. And
you know, I, after a couple years doing this, I, I, I
would make the same decision again. Yeah.
And I, I do enjoy just highlighting on this podcast that
life takes turns and you don't always know where you're going
and lots of times those are career changes. And for you
it was just like, man, I, I'm making a change because this,
you have that personal experience and you're like, this is, this is
really the avenue I want to go. So I think, you know,
you do highlight or you do focus a lot on
senior life insurance, final expense, those kind of
things. So we're gonna, we're gonna move into that. I know probably,
you know, boomers are, the boomer generation is in
that age and it's, you know, for most of us listening, it's either
we're one of those or our parents are or a grandparent.
So this affects all of us. And life insurance in
general does. It's something I know. I got life insurance very young, in my
20s. Yep. A term policy.
So can you give a general overview of the
benefit of what the different things? There's three different types, right?
Yeah, yeah. So real quick, you, you touched on something
important that I primarily work with seniors
and a big reason is that there's 10 to 12,000
people in the US turning 65 every
day. So it is a huge market and they need a lot
of help. And they're getting advertisements on
tv, on Facebook, everything blasted this way and that.
You know, some people say they get a hundred spam calls a day, you
know, telemarketing, things like that. And so
there's just a lot that is
happening in that age group right now.
And so that's why I serve that market primarily is
because there's just such a big need. It's
a little easier for somebody that's, you know,
32 to hop online and
click a few buttons and figure it out themselves. Maybe they're using
chat GPT that answer some questions. But
if you're 72, you don't really
use a lot of that stuff for the most part. Right?
Yeah. So you asked, you asked one thing that was, what are the
different types of life insurance? Right.
There's two main types. One
is whole life or permanent, and one is term,
and that's temporary. Or it has a time period where it
expires. There's a hybrid in the middle, and some people
may have heard of it, it's called universal life.
It can be permanent and it can term out. It depends on
how it's set up and the purpose for why you're using it.
There's a few big pieces that, when
you're comparing those types of coverage on, like, why
would I make one choice or the other?
Personally, I think that each one of those types of
insurance has a great purpose.
I have permanent and I have term coverage for
myself, and here's why. I'm 31, I've
got young kids. If I pass away
before they're adults, I want to make sure my wife has, you
know, the mortgage covered, bills paid, some living
expenses while she's trying to figure life out without me.
Right. And so a term policy is great because you'll hear
the advertisements, oh, you can get
$500,000 for 30 bucks a month.
And the only way they're able to do that is because it's term.
At some point that's not going to be there. And
the biggest statistic that they really don't cover with term
insurance is that only about 3% of
people that have term coverage actually pass away
while it's active. The majority of people, 97%,
live through their term policy and then
get something different or just, you know, they don't have that
anymore. Yeah. How longer term? You
know, is it 20 years, 30 years, 10 years? What's the typical amount of
time that you buy term insurance for? And I imagine that affects the
rate. Yeah. So the longer the term, the more
expensive the rate. Interestingly enough, you'd
kind of think it would be backwards, but if you compare
a 20 year versus a 30 year, it's going to be a few
dollars more for that 30 year because they're taking on more risk
for those extra ten years. Right, right. The longer you live, the more
likely something is to happen. So
the majority of term policies people
look at are 20 or 30 years. But, you know, a lot of
people, we get our life insurance from an employer maybe.
Right. And you might even hear, oh, you could
take that with you when you go. But that type of term
insurance, because of almost 99% of
employers only offer term coverage. It's actually
called annually renewable. And so every year,
if you take it from your employer, it gets more expensive.
It's your new age and the rate can go up.
There are some caveats to that. Some of them change every five
years or whatever. But in general,
having private coverage that you own is more
secure and guaranteed than that employer
provided. And one other really important piece of
that is that for the majority of employer
provided coverage, anything over
$50,000 of life insurance is
going to be counted as taxable income for your beneficiary.
And people don't know that. So they'll buy up their insurance
with their employer and if something happens, it can
significantly change their family's, you know,
income tax and things like that. Yeah, and I,
I definitely would say I would highly recommend if
you have, own a home, if you have children, if you have anyone that's
depending on you whatsoever to pay a bill,
that you have some life insurance and the younger you
are, the cheaper it is. I know I still have a policy. I think I
started in my, in my 20s and it's,
I think it'll go another, I don't know, it's term. Yeah,
I lost Track. Maybe another 10 years. But it's under $30 a month
or right at that 30. So yeah, that's worth it for that peace
of mind of, you know, or if you have,
you know, kids, you want to leave something to, you know. Exactly. It's a,
it's a great tool, but that's all that it is. It's
a tool. There are term plans that you can
get your money back from after, you know, if you pay in
for 20 years. That's something called return of
premium. And a lot of people don't know that. Most insurance companies
don't offer that and they think, oh, I'm going to get my money back. But
it, the majority don't and that's actually
to help them keep the cost lower. So if
you have that return of premium, you're comparing options
between companies, it's going to make that more
costly, more expensive. Yeah, that's interesting. So return a
premium is, I mean, it's kind of a savings account,
you know, some money with time on the interest. But
that's not a bad, bad option to do if you wanted to do
it. So. Yeah. Yep. And a little piece that most people
just don't know about. Yeah, I would have forgotten about that. I don't
know that I recalled that. So I know we want to get to the senior
stuff, but Tell us briefly about like what whole, what the difference with whole life
is. Whole life is a lot more expensive, right? Yeah. So
per, like unit of coverage, let's let, let's say per
thousand dollars of life insurance, whole life is going to
be significantly more costly. You know, might hear people like Dave
Ramsey say, oh, buy term and invest the difference.
And there's some theory around that and it may be valid.
But there's a few truths to the situation.
Because whole life is permanent. You have a guaranteed
insurance policy as you age, if your health changes,
if you get sick or if your income goes down,
you can count on that lower rate forever. You don't have to
re qualify down the road. And so if you want some
guarantee that the family's going to have something, whether it
is just for final expenses or it is a
gift or whatever, it's a guarantee because it's
whole life, it's permanent coverage and it's not
going to change down the road. You don't have
to have $500,000 of permanent coverage
because maybe, you know, when you are 82, you just don't
need to give away that much. Right. So you could have a small policy
that's just that guarantee for down the road where
you're, when your term ends, you're not trying to re qualify.
Maybe you have a new chronic health condition and you don't,
you know, you can't get new insurance.
How much in general, how much more expensive is that? Oh
goodness. Well, like for instance, at my age, if I
am like 31, I could get maybe half of a
million dollars of life insurance on term coverage for
around 30 to $35 a month. If I took
that same amount and went to a whole life coverage,
it's going to be maybe 30,000 or
$40,000 is not going to be a whole heck of a lot
comparatively, when you look at numbers. Yeah, yeah.
But that's the difference is the guarantee and the
continuous, you know, hey, I don't have to re qualify down the
road. Right. That's almost estate planning
at that point, right? It is, yep. And the, the last piece
of whole life is that it does build cash value.
So a lot of people have heard of a family member or a friend that
cashed out and like took a cruise or whatever. And that's usually
where that comes from is they borrow against the built up
value in their life insurance and for some purpose,
whether it's a need or a want, they can use that down the road.
Yeah. So briefly, universal life, the in between of
those Two. Yep. So Universal Life kind of combines
the two. And depending on how it's structured, it may
build cash value quickly, it may not. It may be
more like a term policy where there's very little of the premium
goes to cash value, but it can adjust with your
life. That's why it's called universal, because you can have the same policy
and you could maybe this year you are. All of a sudden you're
making more money and you want more coverage. You just pay more into
that Universal life and they can restructure it without
you having to go back through underwriting. If something happens down
the road and you need to lower your premium, they can
restructure it. A lot of people what's
really hot right now, it's called IULs. Not
sure if you've ever heard of that. Indexed Universal Life.
I think I. Yeah, we'll explain it. I think I maybe have. Yeah.
So it's basically a universal life policy that's supposed to
build cash value that's credited against
the stock market index, which is usually the S
P500. And so there's other indexes that it
could be credited against, but it's supposed to only ever
gain value without losing the basis.
So let's say you have $10,000 of cash value and the stock
market crashes your cash value secured. If the stock
market performs really well, the cash value may increase
at like 6 or 8%.
It's. It is a great tool,
but it's being very oversold right now. And that's
something that. Getting an honest opinion on
to understand how it could affect you 10, 20 years down the
road. It's really important. Yeah,
I know sometimes these vehicles are. Insurance are used as
vehicles for savings for different reasons. I
know my brother did that. And when I looked at that, I'm like, I don't
like it. I think it
probably is a little bit dependent on personality, but. Or if it makes sense to
you. Yeah, it's definitely dependent on personality. You know,
there's. If you're looking at it as an investment
tool, it's more of a secure
kind of thing. So it's not crazy growth. It's not going to be like
a. A house in
2021 that was just exploding in value.
It doesn't do that necessarily, but it has
security and guarantees that some
people do use for financial planning. Some people
shun it and some people embrace it. But again,
that's up to you and your financial planner, which always
advised to do. Yeah. Advise for
financial planning, which we're not getting into that a lot. But insurance is usually a
part of financial planning. So for sure, all the different kinds of
insurance, because a catastrophic loss of any
kind is going to affect your ability to
manage your wealth. So. Yeah, that's why. That's why it exists.
Exactly. Yeah. So let's move a little bit
into the senior market then. I know you. This is what you
have chose to do. So all these people are turning 65,
you know, 10,000 a day, is that what you said? It's between 10
to 12,000 a day. Okay. That's a lot
more than a couple, that's for sure. Yeah, more than a couple. So
explain to us what,
what they're, what they're hearing about
this, what, what are their thoughts on it and what is their con or
confusion about it? Yep. So there's like this
huge push in the senior market for final
expense insurance or some people call it burial
insurance or cremation insurance.
And there's a lot of companies who market
to seniors. It's very big in TV advertising,
it's huge on all the social media. They're able
to really target that demographic and bring
up that need because there is a need there
primarily for people who maybe don't have,
you know, big savings or some sort of healthy
retirement account that they're going to. Well, I have all this cash
over here. My family can use that when the time comes.
But it doesn't even exclude that
maybe upper echelon or upper level market
that may be a little more financially secure. And
here's why. What final expense insurance does
is it can be based on term or whole life,
but it provides usually a faster
payout of insurance, death benefits to the family
to be able to make sure that they have the money right when they need
it without coming, going into debt, coming
out of pocket or even having to dip into the estate.
Right. And that's where it can protect each
level of, you know, financial,
you know. Yeah, so explain that, Explain that situation. So,
you know, no one, nobody likes to talk about death, but like
planning for death is just something we do and we should do and you know,
it's just a part of life. Right. So. So I think what you're
saying is someone has, there's a death in the family
expected or not expected. So maybe it's not expected, but
they're over 65, they have that final expense
plan. So what I hear you saying, tell me if I'm right, is that they
will get in time to pay for the funeral costs and
burial costs. They'll get the money. Yep, exactly.
So that's where it really does come down to the fine print.
Some insurance companies will say, hey, we pay in 24 hours.
But then the fine print, it'll say,
oh, we require a death certificate first. And so it's,
it could be three or four weeks before they actually receive
the payment. And depending on how things go, you know, the
funeral home may take that into consideration,
they may charge you a higher amount.
Or what some people do is they actually will take their policy down to
the funeral home and hand it over to the director and say,
hey, we just want to pay with this.
One big piece that most people don't know about is that if you
do that they can take a fee, an additional
cost because they're not getting paid today.
So that funeral home is going to charge a premium if
they don't have the money right when they want it.
And people will ask, well, why should I get
life insurance as a senior at you know, five thousand or
ten thousand dollar insurance policy, why wouldn't I
just go and prepay for this? And
I've seen it before, I've clients who've told me the stories
where a family member said, hey, I've got everything
set up, it's all taken care of. And then they pass away
and you're at the grave site, the funeral director comes
up and says, hey, I'm so sorry but we can't finish the
services. We've only been paid X dollars and
he didn't finish the other 3,000 so we
need that before we're going to put him in the ground. And
this the the simple fact of if he had even a
small life insurance policy in that kind of situation, they
could have said, oh, no problem, we've got it taken care of. But somebody had
to take out a checkbook, take it out of their
401k or whatever, right?
And so while prepaid planning is great, it's not
guaranteed until you have that thing paid off. And
you know, it's all good. Having some life
insurance can be a pretty important piece. Yeah. And there's one
other very big topic that people don't discuss when
or think about when it comes to life insurance for seniors,
if you're married, if you have a spouse or somebody that you
rely on for income, even if they're not, you know, directly
married to you when they pass away, you don't get to keep both
incomes from Social Security. And a lot of people,
the majority of Americans are reliant on Social Security
for their income. And so imagine if your income gets cut in
half, can you all of a sudden afford all the bills next month?
Whereas a life insurance policy can help you bridge the gap
while you adjust your living situation.
Yeah, yeah, that is very important for sure.
So if someone wants to, you know, their, their, their term
life is over, let's say they're 65, 70, 75. I
imagine the, these, it does range in price depending
on how much you get. And, and underwriting, which is health
testing. So can you explain that a little bit so
people kind of have an idea? Yeah, well, a lot of
people will, will be in shock. When I've talked with
a, it's like a 74 year old lady, she had a
20 or 25 year term, it cancelled,
they sent her a bill. If you want to keep this for another six years,
all of a sudden it's going to be $1,000 a month
instead of whatever it was $60 a month before.
She was like that's absurd. Right. So I went over,
we're addressing and looking at everything and
I said, well, this is what you can qualify for in permanent insurance.
Right. Similar budget of what you had been paying,
but the amount, you know, it was like 300,000.
It went down to like let's say 10,000. And she was like well
that's absurd. I used to get this much.
And that's just because you're not about. To die, you're closer to death.
Yeah, according to an underwriter, you're closer to death. I,
that I said that kind of. Rudely but, but that's
exactly what it is. And, and it's the difference of going
from term to permanent. Right. She paid in for 20 years
and didn't get anything back because she didn't have return of
premium. And ultimately in her situation she decided, or we
together combined said hey, you probably don't need it. Your house is
paid off, your car is paid off. You could just set aside the
money out of your Social Security for a couple of years and
have your arrangements taken care of. But not
everybody's in that situation. And some people just want
to make sure that the family or the state is
taken care of. I have a doctor or a dentist,
a doctorate in dentistry that I have coverage
with him and his wife. Even though they have like a
$150,000 policy with one of those
big permanent companies, you know, the,
they're like, hey, if, if we pass away, this needs to be the income
for the spouse. The. But we don't want to have to take that policy down
if we're tight on cash and use that at the funeral
home and have them charge us excess fees. So
right there it's just protecting the estate and making sure that
each individual in that family has the help they need
right when they need it. So what would you guess? Do you have an
idea about what they need to be planning for, for funeral
expenses in general? Yeah, so
I, I do funeral expense planning
on a, basically a daily basis with people. And
so I'm all too familiar with the topic. If you're planning for a
cremation and you don't have the money
today, if you have a life insurance policy that you're going to pay for
it right now, you're going to need between 4 and
$5,000 of life insurance coverage. That's
going to help take care of everything, pay the fees and
etc. Between transportation costs, death
certificates, the cremation, they even
put you in a casket for a cremation.
But the level of quality service that you want,
it could be a little less or a little more.
If you want a burial, the really
starts at at least $10,000.
And that's if you can find a plot of land for a
cheap or decent price. But
most people that I've been working with in the last two years, if
they've had to do a burial that nothing was planned in
advance, it was closer to the 12 to
$15,000 range.
Yikes. Yeah. That is a final expense for sure.
Yeah, hence the name. So let's
talk underwriting for a second. So underwriting, that's, that's when
prices vary per person based on their health. Yes.
There's a lot of different ways that companies do underwriting.
Each individual company is different. One of the big things
that people need to look out for is, is if they're going
into one of these insurance companies that says we don't
ask any health questions, we issue
a policy to anyone, and
anything like that is going to have a two year waiting period
before a death benefit's paid. And the rates are going to be
on average much higher than
anything that they could qualify if their health was
even remotely decent. Okay. Now that type of policy does
have an important place, right. There's some
people who got a cancer diagnosis and they're like, you know
what? It's better late than never. And so I'm going to put in
a policy with one of these guaranteed acceptance companies
and just, you know, hope that I make it through those two years and
everything's okay. If you do pass away in that time period,
the family Gets all of the money back that you paid in. So it's not
like it's all a loss, it's just not a full death benefit.
Gotcha. Now beyond that, the a big factor
are chronic health conditions like heart disease, lung
disease, kidney or liver disorders.
Cancer is a big one. And diabetes. If
your conditions are under control or with basic medications,
you could probably pass through underwriting. With most
insurance companies, okay, it's once they've
been chronic or you're on some pretty heavy duty
medications. And that's how they do it. Most of these companies
nowadays are just running a prescription history check
through the medical information Bureau. It's called an MIB report.
They check your history, they know exactly what you've taken for the last
five years and they can say this medicine's a
risk factor or no, everything you're on is, okay, let's
issue this policy. That's interesting. So they don't like send someone out to take
your blood pressure and look at you and stuff anymore. If you have a
big policy like let's say you're going for
half a million dollars. Some insurance companies will
still require traditional underwriting or like a physical or
a medical exam. But since COVID
happened, they've really done
a good job at improving the way
they do underwriting and categorizing things. And most
insurance companies are moving to that
quick decision through the Medical Information Bureau. Because our
medical reports are all stored electronically anyways, they might as well
use them, you know? You know. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, for sure.
I know the world has changed since COVID so that changed
everything. Yeah. Even like how you get insurance.
Okay, so let's move on to Medicare. So you do Medicare
for people, and that's kind of a big topic. So that's health insurance
for seniors. And what are the, what are the things
people need to know about Medicare? Yeah, so a
lot of people get Medicare confused with Medicaid.
That's a big one. I, I, people
come up to me all the time, oh, I have Medicare. And they're like under
65. I'm like, do you or do you have
Medicaid? Oh, yeah, yeah, it's that, it's that other one.
So that's a big thing is that Medicare is a federal
health insurance program that's for seniors
65 and older or people who have been on Social
Security disability for two years or more.
So I have a client that's in Medicare who's in his 30s,
but he's on disability and he
qualified after being on disability for two years.
But primarily this is for people who are 65 or
older and don't have any sort of employer
provided health insurance. If you're retired or
if your employer kicks you off because you're
Medicare eligible, Some of them do that even if you are still
employed. Yeah. So what should people
expect to pay for a policy? Medicare
policy. Yep. So there's a couple different ways that
Medicare works. There's. There's original Medicare. That's just
the federal system. It has three primary
parts. Part A is hospital insurance,
and that's free. If you paid into Social Security,
you or your spouse for 40
quarters. So if you worked full time or, you know,
equivalent amount of 10 years of full time work before you
turn 65, hospital insurance is free.
Then there's part B, and that's doctor's insurance if
you need to go to a doctor's office, anything like that.
Part B right now costs $185 a month.
Most people elect to have it automatically withdrawn from their
Social Security. And they don't even know that it's
happening. They just. It's kind of like in the back of their mind. Right.
They're not directly paying that bill. Some people do, but it's
$185 a month. It went up $10 this
year from last year. It used to be 174 and some change.
Okay. And that does vary from year to year.
And then there's part D. And part D is prescription
drugs. Now, relatively recently,
it wasn't when it started. You're required to have a
prescription drug plan or some type of prescription drug coverage,
and people will hear about things like Goodrx or
one of these pharmacy discount programs. They might sign
up because it's five bucks a month or something. But
that's not actually a prescription drug plan. And it could
cause issues down the road if you think that it is credible
coverage. It's an important piece for seniors to know.
All right, so would you recommend getting both having the Rx
plan and Medicare Part D or.
Yeah, it really depends on your situation. Right. So now
that we know what original Medicare is, there's two
ways that people move forward and
finish protecting their health care. Because most
of the time, Medicare only pays for about 80% of
your costs. And so if you go into the hospital
and you're on a fixed income, do you want to pay 20%
of a hospital bill? No.
No. Right. Nobody, I mean,
rack up $50,000 in a week at a hospital. Yeah.
What about you? But I don't really want to pay 20% of that
myself. No. So people look at
supplementary Medicare coverage. And so there's two types of
that is a supplement plan or an Advantage plan.
And a lot of people get the Advantage plans confused. Some people
refer to them as Part C, Medicare
Advantage. There's a lot of different names, but
those, those two are the big differentiators.
Advantage plans and supplements. Now, we'll touch on
supplements first, because this was how most people
used to do it. The supplement plan
is like a private. It's kind of like having dental insurance.
Right. And you pay for it. Cost 30 bucks a month or whatever. You
can go to the dentist. Well, the supplement, you pay a
monthly fee and they cover. It's supposed
to cover that other 20% that Medicare doesn't.
So it fills in the gap. That's why a lot of people call it
medigap coverage. But makes
sense. There's a lot of different ways those plans are structured. And
so if you're thinking about a supplement or
medigap plan, it's important to really sit down
and analyze your health care needs before you make a
decision, because you only get one time of
a guaranteed issue where any. You could have cancer
and they have to write you a policy when you turn 65.
It cannot deny you. Oh, interesting. So if you
have really complex healthcare needs and you have
the monthly ability to pay for that supplement,
it could be a very, very strong way to do your
Medicare plan. The other piece is that you have no network.
Like, you have to stick within these doctors. You can go
anywhere that Medicare is accepted, which is nationwide.
With Medigap or the Medicap. You can do that
with Medigap or supplement plans. Yes, those
specifically because you're still with original Medicare.
You have no required network.
People that travel, people that get out of town,
that's a really important, important piece for them. And so they like
that. Yeah. So
I want to recap a little bit because I, I know you talk about this
every day, but I'm processing it and, and maybe people are too.
So basically, you would want to get part A, part B, part
C and. Part D. So
it. Part C is not required.
Okay. Part D is. But
yes, once you turn 65, if you don't have creditable
coverage from an employer, you want to sign up pretty much as
soon as possible. Because if you don't have
prescription drug coverage, you can get fined
later in life when you finally do sign up because you did it
too late. There's. It's called a late
enrollment penalty. And there are prescription
drug plans that cost nothing out of pocket, no
extra money. And so it makes complete sense where
even if you have super basic healthcare needs, you don't think you need
it. Like I'll just sign up in a few years when it's more important.
Don't do that. Okay, so part, part D can
be a zero cost. Exactly. Okay.
All right. It does depend on your market. So you know, I can't
guarantee in, in every single place, but most
places have a zero dollar plan. Okay, so can you
go through again and just tell us kind of the expected cost
per, per part. So, so
part A is free if you've worked full time
for 10 years or if you put in 40 hours
or 40 quarters. Sorry. Of payments into your Social Security.
Okay. Or if you're, if you're like a stay
at home spouse and your partner did that, that qualifies. Like
because you filed jointly or whatever, it qualifies you.
So are there exceptions on that? What I'm wondering about is like
you had a spouse who did that, but you get remarried too early. I've heard
that can cut it and not make it happen. Or if you're
working past 65 or what are their, are there like
devil in the detail stuff? There are some exceptional
circumstances that can make part A not free.
And there's a lot of people who
had to take early SSI or you know, but they
didn't quite qualify for disability. And so their part
A isn't paid for. And I looked it up for one
gentleman just about a week ago and his would have been
$253 a month. And he's like, I don't
want that. I said, you know, you don't need it
because he has, he just has prescription drug coverage.
So that's the one that's required. You don't need
part A and part B if you're in
some interesting bind. Yeah. So you have to basically get a
part D pretty much as soon as you turn 65. That's, that's the
requirement. And the other ones you can pick and choose from.
Yeah, right. Yeah. It really comes down to your specific
case. You know, the majority of people are going to want to
have A and B and D
because most people want to make sure they can go to the hospital, the doctor
and pick up prescriptions, right? Yeah. So A is
hospital and that's generally free. B is the Doctor and
that's $185 a month. Yeah. And
then D is prescription drugs and that's generally free. And then part
C, what is what, that's the supplemental for what isn't
covered at a hospital or that that's
for the 20% that's not covered. Right. So part
C is different from a supplement plan we've got. That's
like the delineating factor here. Okay, so the supplement, supplement plan,
those are over here. This is Medigap,
Medicare supplements, things like that, that covers the
20%. Okay. If you join part C over here,
what part C does is it actually combines
A, B and D all together
into one plan. And that's called a Medicare
Advantage plan with prescription drug coverage.
And so that, that does come down to a county by
county basis. Every county will have its own
Medicare Advantage plans. A lot of them will look very similar to
the county next to them. But if you're in a very rural spot,
they might not even be available. If you drive 100 miles
outside of Reno, where we live, there's not going to be
any Medicare Advantage plans offered. You have to be on
a supplement. They just don't have big enough
populations to support that type of coverage.
Okay, if you, if you've ever heard of a PPO or an
HMO health insurance, that's
how Medicare Advantage plans work. So they're a
managed care organization. You know,
they're the big names in insurance. If you ever
you think of a health care insurance company, they probably do
Medicare as well. And they'll have a
specific network of doctors, hospitals and
specialists that they will work in.
For a lot of people, this is going to be
the route that they take. It's about 60%,
50 to 60% of Americans are on
Advantage plans. And the reason is, is that
they for the most part have no additional out
of pocket cost above your part B premium.
So most of them are built around a zero dollar monthly
premium. They cover your prescription drugs with
some small co pays. They have a fixed
maximum out of pocket cost that you can build into your budget
in an emergency type of situation. And then
they have set co pays for all of your visits to the
doctor, you know, routine stuff.
And then they also provide or can provide
supplemental benefits like dental, hearing, vision
or other things like a lot of people hear
about Flex cards, those are always associated with
Advantage plans or part. C. Okay, what's a flex
card? Oh, that's a good question. Thanks.
Flex cards, as most people refer them to,
are usually over the counter spending cards.
And each individual company will determine what
you can and can't use them for. But what
they'll do is they'll load up a certain amount of money on
it looks like a Visa debit card or something like that.
And they'll give you that on a monthly basis or quarterly,
depending on how the company works, to go to the store
and buy over the counter supplies. Some of them let you buy
groceries like healthy foods. Some of them allow you to
use it to pay for power like utilities or
even gas at the pump. There's quite a variety,
but each company has, you know, different restrictions and
how they work. And so that, that's part of the Medicare
Advantage plan for some. Some things. All right,
so I am curious. I know you have stories about people
who've bought a Medicare Advantage plan from someone who maybe
doesn't know their area and that hasn't worked out for them. Why might that be?
Yeah, so every Medicare Advantage plan
has networks that they work in.
Just this week, I met with a gentleman who had been
sold an Advantage plan that he did not know
he could not go to the preferred hospital or his preferred
doctor that he's been going to for years. They just said, oh,
yeah, this, you know, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And he's
like, sounds good. He didn't even think to ask or
know that he should ask about networks.
Okay, so that's a big piece of it. The other
piece is that networks can change. In
July. Yeah, July, I helped a couple who had been with
one insurance company for many years, and they.
That insurance company lost a major contract with one of
the largest cancer centers in Northern Nevada. This
happened back in April of this year. And the husband
is going through treatment. He had to leave his network
provider, go to a different place, wasn't having
the type of service that he really wanted. And so
when they found out that there was a
different organization that could still visit that original
cancer center he likes so much, they were
obviously overjoyed that I would be able to help them make that switch.
Yeah, I can imagine that's. Yeah. Making a mistake with this can.
Can be devastating, which is part of the reason why I wanted to have you
on, because I do think people get. They just don't know
who to ask the questions to. And they don't know if they're going to be
sold a bill of goods that. That isn't true. So I
certainly, by doing this, would like to have everyone and, and also
I've seen, you know, my mom and aunts and stuff
really kind of like get. And uncles and stuff like that that
are in that boomer age get frustrated and, and
concerned that they're making a bad decision or what which decision should I
make? And that's like, because you know, then you're relying on
someone that you want to have a very honest person in front of you like
yourself, which is why I wanted to have you on to just, to, to just
talk through it and you know, this is an. Explain it all
accurately. Yeah. And kind of with what the expectations
should be. Yeah. So there's a big piece there that
you touched on. And I think it's really important
to be working with someone like, like myself who's
a broker with a lot of
moral integrity and here's why. There's a
lot of telemarketers that are brokers, but they may
only contract with three or four
different nationwide organizations and they don't
even know what is happening in your market.
And so if you live in central Texas or
southeast Florida and you're getting a call from one of these
telemarketers and they say, oh well, I've got better benefits for you
on this plan. Get you to switch and you find out that like
you said, it's not the bill of gold goods you were sold.
It's really important to, you know, just find out someone
who's either willing to do the research for you. Right. If
they don't live in your area or somebody who knows your area
like the back of your, their hand. Yeah. My services,
a broker does not cost anything extra out of your pocket.
We're compensated by the insurance companies that we work for and our
compensation is set at a federal level. So one
insurance company can't incentivize me over another. I
want to do what's best for my client because it helps with retention
and that long term relationship that I'm looking to build with
the people that I serve. And so if you find somebody like
myself who has that type of integrity and, and wants to
do the research, they're going to ask you the right questions.
Yeah. And that's a big way you can find out are they asking you
questions or are they just selling you benefits?
Yeah. Can you explain? I think a lot of people probably do know the difference
between a captive agent and a broker. But can you explain that?
Yeah. Yeah. So a captive agent would be somebody
that works directly for a single insurance company.
There are some captive agents that work for
an organization that may contract to two or maybe
three. They're not really a broker because they don't have access
outside of their system. They're like captive to an agency
even though the agency brokers but that the
captivity keeps them from even being able to
explain what the competition could be doing,
how they may be able to be better served from a different
organization. And what they're going to
focus on is their benefits, whether they're
greater or their cost is less. They're going to try to sell you
on something like that rather than making
sure that the solution you choose fits your needs
best. Right. So if you do choose to work with a captive
agent for some reason or talk to one, probably the best idea would be to
get more than one person to talk to. So
here come have more than one person to talk to. But yeah, I
do like the broker in general and insurance for that
reason, because you have the, the ability to go to different
insurance companies and, and
just pick and choose what's best for the client. I have generally really
preferred that myself. So that is.
Yeah. And I think a lot of people are intimidated. Um,
you know, I've had people just talked to somebody this morning and, and I
was telling her, hey, have your friend give me a call and
I'll walk her through a couple, you know, different questions and make sure
that whatever, even if she doesn't choose to work with me, the plan
that she picks is the best one for her. And she
said, well, what does that cost? What, what are you going to charge her? I
said, nothing. I'm just out here to do the right thing.
And, you know, that's not how compensation works in,
in our field. That's interesting because I wouldn't even
have thought to that. That would be something people would be confused about. But of
course, if you don't know, you don't know. So there's not a cost to have
you come talk to you. You get paid basically by the
government or the insurance. The insurance companies, you know. Yes, the government
pays the insurance companies to pay you. So. Yes. Yeah. Big, big thing
that we have to say. We are not federal employees. I do not
work for Medicare. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Because it is interesting. It is, it is like that. Maybe people don't know that
either. So the government contracts with the insurance
companies. Correct. And then the insurance companies deliver the
insurance. Yes. So that the government isn't in the
business necessarily of insurance. They are in the business of paying insurance
companies to make it happen. Is that accurate? That's.
Yeah, that's accurate. When it comes to part C.
Okay. Right. If you are on original Medicare with a
supplement, the federal government pays the
doctor directly through
the Medicare billing, you know, portal
or whatever, however they do that. Right. Okay. And then
what's left over, you turn over to your Supplement company
and they pay the leftover. Okay.
So I appreciate you if I'm confused about that.
I imagine maybe someone else is, because, you know, I'm really so. No,
I'm just kidding. Yeah, that's. That's good to know.
So, A, again, is the hospital and the government
would directly pay that bill. And then B, is the doctor, and the government would
directly pay that bill with Medicare supplement.
Medicare Advantage plan or supplement plan plan would
tell me if I'm right. So that the part C Medicare Advantage plan
would be the government paying the insurance company who pays the claim.
Yes. Accurate. Yeah. So it. It
in. In a Advantage plan, if you're not with
original Medicare anymore, you've joined an Advantage plan,
the federal government pays them a monthly stipend
essentially for each of their members. And
so then when you go to the hospital, it's up
to that insurance company to pay that claim. And here's
one piece that it really makes me like
Advantage Plans from an outside perspective. I'm
obviously not in Medicare as a recipient or a
beneficiary, but one of the things
that I have seen, which with some of my own clients, is
that the Advantage Plan, that they are
incentivized to keep you healthy. They are more
profitable as a company if you're not going into the
hospital, you know, every other week
because your health is so poor. So they do
supplemental benefits that are there to help you
be healthy, help you be happy, taken care of.
That way you're not having to use the healthcare
system excessively. And they make, you know, they don't
make more money off of you if you, you know,
they're. If you're. Yeah, right, right. Because,
like, here's your stipend. So, like, they're. They wanted to. And isn't. Silver
sneakers. Is that Nationwide? Yeah. No.
So, like, that's an example. That is. Surprised I know
about that. That's one of those little benefits that most Advantage
plans have. A gym, free gym program
where you can go in and get your. Get your workout
on, get healthy, take classes, and you're not even
committed to just one place. You can go nationwide or just
across town to a different one if you want to try it out. Yeah.
That's awesome. I know my mom, she must be on. I don't even know. I
don't handle her insurance, but an Advantage plan because she said
that sometimes she'll get bonused, you know, a little bit of money for doing
certain activities. They'll just send her a little bit of money and
stuff. So. So that's her little flex card. And many of the
insurance companies will give you extra money on your
flex card for doing routine
preventative stuff like oh, did you get your mammogram done? Oh, did you get
your flu shot? Here's $50. You know, go
spend grocery store, have fun. Get some Oreos.
Get some Oreos. That's not, not
there's, that's not healthy. We're not, we're not.
Yeah, the, the, those little
like boosts have less
restrictions on what you can. What you can get with it.
Yeah, just do, do the thing that want you to do to stay
healthy and then you have some spending money kind of thing. Yeah, exactly.
Well, this was an enormous amount of good information. And I
know you're licensed in a few states beyond Nevada,
California, Texas and Florida. Is that correct? That's
correct. I like to say I'm coast to. Coast, coast to
coast, proud of myself, remembering. And then you know, in
any other state that you're in the, there are people to help you with
this. Exactly. And this is one thing that I, I'd
love to leave your audience with is that,
you know, ask a lot of questions, visit
with a broker, see if you like
their personality. If you think, is this person going to return your
calls when you have a question. Because we are
compensated to service our clients.
Don't be afraid to sound stupid. I
love answering those questions. And if you're trying to work with
somebody and they're not trying to be overly helpful like that,
go find someone else. There's somebody out there who wants to do an
excellent job to make sure you're taken care of the best way
possible. And if it doesn't cost you anything out
of pocket, you might as well take their services and, and
be well informed and taken care of. Yes,
for sure. That's such good advice and such
great information. So Sandra, thank you so much for coming on today
and I appreciate you as a human and I appreciate you coming on. So
yeah, this was awesome. Thank you, Mary. Yeah, you're welcome.
All right, see you everybody.
Thanks for joining us on Healthy Happy, Wise Wealthy. If you believe in
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