Being good with money is about more than just making ends meet. All of your financial decisions and activities have an effect on your financial health. It’s always important to consider what we should be doing to help improve our financial health and habits. Money management can help you have a better handle on your income and spending so you can make decisions that improve your financial status.
In this week’s episode of The New Nomad, Paul Tyler, CMO of Nassau Financial Group, talks about financial planning and annuities with our hosts, Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski. They discussed why wisely planning your finances and having several streams of income is vital to a stress-free life. Life can be much more stable if you plan your finances wisely. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the strategies smart people do regarding their finances. Remember that just because the money is there doesn't mean you can make the purchase.
[3:36] Effective financial planning to achieve financial independence
[7:50] Planning is everything, seriously
[11:10] Saving strategies: Start young
[15:23] Health Insurance: Expense vs protection
[19:08] Annuities 101
[22:17] Why we need several streams of income
GUEST BIO:
Paul Tyler serves as Chief Marketing Officer for Nassau Re, leading the marketing strategy, direct-to-consumer channel, and innovation activity. Paul drives the branding of insurance companies and affiliated asset management companies.
He built a direct-to-consumer channel for Nassau Re. In addition, he launched Nassau Re/Imagine, an Insurtech-focused incubator based in Hartford. Before his role at Nassau Re, he worked at Fidelity & Guaranty Life, and MetLife in various positions in strategy, marketing, operations, technology, sales, and compliance. He earned his A.B. from Princeton University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
LINKS:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauldtyler/
That Annuity Show: https://thatannuityshow.com/
Follow Insured Nomads at:
Instagram: @insurednomads
Being good with money is about more than just making ends meet. All of your financial decisions and activities have an effect on your financial health. It’s always important to consider what we should be doing to help improve our financial health and habits. Money management can help you have a better handle on your income and spending so you can make decisions that improve your financial status.
In this week’s episode of The New Nomad, Paul Tyler, CMO of Nassau Financial Group, talks about financial planning and annuities with our hosts, Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski. They discussed why wisely planning your finances and having several streams of income is vital to a stress-free life. Life can be much more stable if you plan your finances wisely. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the strategies smart people do regarding their finances. Remember that just because the money is there doesn't mean you can make the purchase.
[3:36] Effective financial planning to achieve financial independence
[7:50] Planning is everything, seriously
[11:10] Saving strategies: Start young
[15:23] Health Insurance: Expense vs protection
[19:08] Annuities 101
[22:17] Why we need several streams of income
GUEST BIO:
Paul Tyler serves as Chief Marketing Officer for Nassau Re, leading the marketing strategy, direct-to-consumer channel, and innovation activity. Paul drives the branding of insurance companies and affiliated asset management companies.
He built a direct-to-consumer channel for Nassau Re. In addition, he launched Nassau Re/Imagine, an Insurtech-focused incubator based in Hartford. Before his role at Nassau Re, he worked at Fidelity & Guaranty Life, and MetLife in various positions in strategy, marketing, operations, technology, sales, and compliance. He earned his A.B. from Princeton University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
LINKS:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauldtyler/
That Annuity Show: https://thatannuityshow.com/
Follow Insured Nomads at:
Instagram: @insurednomads
Allen
Welcome. Thank you for joining us on The New Nomad podcast. Today's guest, Paul Tyler, Chief Marketing Marketing Officer in Nassau Finance Group. And I think this is gonna be really an interesting conversation today because we're having Paul on because we get a lot of questions from our Nomad audience, that, how can I preserve my wealth, protect my savings, and go forward in this lifestyle? And so many of you out there who listen to this podcast are quite young. How do I get started? And then then we have another group that might be in retirement moving to as an earlier podcast, talked about rewirement, where you're using your funds to see more of the world, experience more things. How do I preserve that? How do I keep that moving forward? And certainly many of you out there have seen the widening savings gap in the world. And, frankly, we want to have a little bit of a dialogue on how we can help you with that. And I'm sure we'll be getting into a lot of different thoughts there. You know, Andrew, you've you traveled about, and one of the issues for our audience is, now as you move around, sometimes you're not there long enough to get into Social Security of the particular country, whatever they may call that, or Medicare or whatever might be the name. So it means it means that you really have to look at your finances probably a little bit closer than somebody who might live, let's say, just live in the United States for 40 years and have social security protections after they retire, as opposed to somebody who has been moving to many different locations. So I'd love your thoughts.
Andrew
Yeah, it's an interesting dilemmas as people are exploring the option of living outside their home country before they thought of retiring, or they're thinking let's, I can keep working from there. Even though I'm going to retire in three years, I can go ahead and go to Costa Rica or wherever they're thinking. But there there are a lot of factors that play the tax liability when they should do it. How What does Medicare cover? I was reading a chat that our customer service was having recently on our through our website, someone saying, Well, why should I get expat health insurance because I'm covered by Medicare, and it's so much cheaper than what you're offering me? Well, of course, yes. But Medicare doesn't cover you in that country. And it's subsidized by the government, because you paid in all these years. And so this is gonna be fine hearing Paul's take. And yeah, looking forward to having him on today.
Allen
So Paul, you and I had some conversations in the past, and really welcome you to the podcast. And you and I had kind of our first conversation was, you know, a lot of people don't really understand what they're getting into when they pack up and leave the United States entrance point about like Medicare. But we'll get into that in a little bit. But I would just love to have your opening conversation on some of the thoughts that we brought up today about, you know, protecting yourself protecting savings, retirement plans, perhaps, you know, some of the different items that you think people overlook, and maybe your journey and helping them make sure they don't make those missteps.
Paul
Know. Alan, thank you so much. And Andrew, for having me on your show. I think that, you know, building the business you're both are building is really exciting. And I think it potentially brings a lot of value to people who are, you know, building businesses and traveling in different different locations, I think, you got some really good questions. And I think we just started with retirement savings question. Point, you know, you got to think ahead. You know, you really have to, it's just like you're packing your bags carefully in your suitcases. You really need to think about your family, your finances before you start to do something more independent. I had just had dinner with a friend of mine who took his wife to Croatia and they rented a motorcycle and it drove, they must have gone like it's not like 200 miles or something. Had a wonderful trip, no rain, it was great. And he showed me a picture of this motorcycle bike and there were just two, you know, side pouches and he said he gave his wife like, I don't know three, three bags to pack her stuff in it. And they had a wonderful trip but I think it's a good analogy for what you need to do. You really need to think ahead like that. From from on your retirement savings from a number of different perspectives. One is you know if you are a US citizen and planning spend time out of the United States takes a lot easier to set these accounts up when you're actually physically in the US and it is the minute you're our outside you don't think about this much because we're you know especially if you spent all your time here in the US and you're used to one 800 numbers and people validating your your you know location without really asking why do you see 100 numbers you know coming to the firms don't have won't accept calls outside the US in fact, you know, embarrassed said number of couple of companies I've worked for cluding, our current one, it's really hard to get to the 800 call center, if you're outside the US we have issues.
Paul
So I think you need to think ahead around the service, you need to the types of services you're going to need, establish your travel habits early. And, and before you leave. And even sometimes that's a little tricky to do, because, you know, you talk to somebody, they don't really put the file on record the way they want to. And I think also it's, it reduces confusion, when you actually put money into account or open an account. Where are you? Right? Yeah, very difficult to open up an account. Even if you live in New York, you live in Connecticut, you live in Maryland, very hard to to complete that transaction if you're offshore, even though your residence is there. When you get a lot of questions from compliance departments, you just it's not worth it, it just is not worth it. So I think one is, you know, do the planning now, while you're in the US rather than try to do it remotely or do it or scheduled when you're, you're back in the US and take your finances or this may be 101 tips for you and for your audience. But it's something I've stumbled on as I've had to work with expats trying to take money in accounts or out of account. So just be aware of the logistics, setting up setting it up, and then how are you actually getting service on your accounts? And now, Andrew, you raised the question was, and I'm very US centric Social Security is probably the most valuable retirement asset most people have, they don't realize it, you know, people think well, I'm gonna get a check checks, only a couple $1,000. Well actually, you know, let's let's do the time, you know, the, let's let's do a net present value of what those payments are worth. And that's probably more than if you look at people's social security payments, and you actually value it, it's probably worth more than a lot of people's homes, it may be even more worth more than what people have in a in a retirement savings account. Now, if you don't do that, you're not going to have you're not going to be paying Social Security or paying into the Social Security income. You got to take this retirement plan in your own hands. Right? Got to think independently, you've got a plan, where will you be when you retire? What is the taxation when you retire? These are some some real important issues, you've got to think through well in advance, so you don't have a surprise and find yourself having to you know, live live off in that island by yourself once you're at age 70.
Andrew
Yeah, having having spent time and long term stays in many different countries myself, I know how hard it is at times to get money into the country. And using system thinking, oh, I'll just send it from my account to account somewhere else using Western Union. I've done that in the 10s of 1000s and then had to fight to get my money. It is a pain. And so thinking through in advance researching how easy is it to transfer funds in and actually get it and are you going to be taxed on it when you get it there. I've had to fight through to not be taxed on my own money, transferring it from one country to another. And many times people don't think about that, they think oh, I'll just, I'll just put it on my credit card. Well, the credit card company could cancel your account because they see you don't live in the home country anymore factor has some influence there. Sometimes even your bank account is canceled, because you you decide to let them know that you live somewhere else now. And rather than using a UPS Store as your address or something. So there's some interesting aspects with a lot of these things that, you know, often aren't thought off in advance.
Paul
Now, and unfortunately, a lot of the fraud detection programs will trip you up because, you know, they look for typical transactions and the minute you fall, you know, many fit, you know, fall out of that normal distribution curve. Yeah. For occur gets locked up quick. Money gets flagged on an OFAC report when it shouldn't be not good things to have happened. So you do this does require a lot of planning a lot of planning so you're in or you're right taxation of money as you're transferring across countries. Big Issue, big question to think through carefully. And you know, you want to make sure that that, you know, you think you're making as much money and put as much money in the bank as you actually are.
Allen
Yeah. So quick question for you on time value of money. So one of the conversations I have with our audiences, you know, many of them are living the lifestyle from different ways. And one of the conversations I have with many of the the younger folks that are out there, living this lifestyle is, you know, if, if, if you bought a stock now and 40 years from now, it's an excellent stock. And I'll use the example is, I saw somebody recently that if you bought one share of stock, like Coca Cola of all things, like in the 70s, it's now worth like, 180,000 bucks, or, you know, something along those lines, is maybe some of your comments about we have two different audiences, there will actually be multiple audiences, but maybe some of your tips on getting started when you're younger, and using time value of money for your, your protection, and then some of us were a little bit later on trying to play catch up, what might you be doing about protecting your savings? Or, or having a goal as long as possible in that space?
Paul
Yeah, sure. I, in my head, Allen, I, I put the, the sort of saving strategies into three buckets, you've got exactly what you described, you got your younger person who should just pay off debt, most these kids are kids, you know, they probably wouldn't call them kids. But you know, younger people up to age 30, or 32 are typically carrying huge amount of college debt right now. So probably the number one goal for sort of that that bucket is pay off all your student debt, start to save, start to save some money, pay off debt, get debt, eliminate debt immediately, because people don't understand, you know, they see these credit cards, they see the ability to roll money from one card to another, but you know, take it 15% 16% APR can eat up an awful lot earning power. So So So, so quickly, so pay down the debt, start to say bucket one. And this, a lot of what people are doing in that early stage are really just learning how to budget, you know, learning how to earn getting a job, paying down debt, starting to save kind of basic, you know, and and that involves budgeting, basic, you know, financial, just good developing some good financial habits early on, you know. Get a good credit score, okay, not they're gonna use it, but get the good credit score, you get the good credit score by borrowing a little bit of credit cards, paying them off. Middle period, and I would say probably 30 to 55 just a lot about asset allocation. So great, you got some savings. How are you allocating stuff, and, you know, the old rule of you know, put 60% in equity 40% in bonds, you know, it actually works. It actually works. Okay, maybe it's 70% 30% But you know, whatever the number is allocate your assets appropriately that that's You mentioned a stock I listen, I wish I had bought that that Apple stock instead of the my iPod. I wish I purchased the Tesla stock I've still haven't learned this, I wish I'd bought the Tesla stocks to the car. Oh, well. But you know, don't don't try to pick the stocks, just just pick the sectors, do the allocation, you know, follow the you know, the the, you know, the lot of the Max was put your money get get in some, you know, the one thing you can control is allocation and the other allocation of your assets, the other thing can control our expenses. So, find low cost funds, okay? Low Cost services, allocate your money out. Listen, if you get the Coca Cola stock, that's awesome. Yeah, congratulations. But you know what, rather than trying to you know, let's, let's get some doubles, consistent singles and doubles over the next 20 years. And you know, if you get a homerun on that, that's terrific. God bless you. But you know, it just just making contact with that bar the ball on a regular basis, you'll be just fine. Now, when you start to get into that 55 point up, you need to think a little more defensively. You know, I think about it as you're at the you're at the casino table. Maybe you start want to start like getting a little bit insurance. Maybe you want to start pulling some of those chips off the market. That's really where our core products, annuities, come in. People say to me Well, is it really is annuities. Are they good investments, they're investments, they're insurance. Andrew, do you have homeowners insurance for your renter's insurance? I bet you do. Right?
Andrew
Absolutely. Who wouldn't? Right? It's well, but we think about our car and our home before We think about our health and our life, don't we?
Paul
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. What was the ROI in your homeowners insurance? I hope at least hopefully it was poor because it didn't burn down. Right. Correct.
Andrew
Yeah. And we hope it's the same with our health and our but not with our retirement.
Paul
Know exactly in a household. Very interesting topic, because you think about how expensive health insurance is. Why is it because the care so expensive, right? And how do you protect yourself against that? So yeah, happy to answer. It's happy to talk to you more about health insurance.
Allen
And I got a question, to ties into that. One of the things in your podcasts that I thought was really an invite to our audience, Paul podcasts, very interesting, thought provoking. And something that I didn't even know in all my time in the industry is how a credit score has a correlation for life expectancy, that that you find, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that. And certainly, one of the things that we also seen in some countries is actually medical debt is the top type of debt that people have, which obviously would hurt your credit score, but a little bit of holistic nature there, my friend, but maybe your comment on that, too. Tying back to health care. Sure.
Paul
Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, the old adage, health, wealth and happiness is true, there are so linked, and, you know, the auto insurance industry was probably one of the first insurers insurance sectors to pick up on the power of credit score in predicting the likelihood Allen, that you'll get in a car crash. It's interesting, right now, and in a lot of in, and it's still today, a key factor in determining what your rates are. And there's something about credit scores and how well you take care of your car. How will you drive? Well, turns out that same credit score is exceptionally predictive of your mortality. Now, why, you know, does one car is, you know, is this a dependent or independent variable, I don't know, we can get somebody on on the you can get another guest who's a little smarter than I am on this topic. But I think, generally, you know, debt causes stress. Not paying your bills on time causes stress, makes you not feel comfortable, maybe perhaps going and getting in health care, you know, doing or getting regular checkups go into the dentist. And so we found that it's absolutely predictive of mortality better your your credit score is, the longer you're going to live. Now, credit score does not equal wealth, it means that you've paid your bills off in time, and you do take a little bit of credit, but you know how to manage credit. So it's not totally avoiding, but you're using some of it now. It's interesting life insurance world, though, states actually prohibit us from using life insurance to underwrite can't use it.
Allen
Wow. Interesting, quick, quick, other question for you on the financial side. So you touched upon this quickly is, so the difference between I like for instance, I own some stocks, but I also have an annuity, yes, that I purchased that kicks in at age 65 until I pass, which hopefully will be many, many, many years later. Could you explain to our audience a little bit the concept of annuities, and maybe even why somebody like me might want to buy an annuity that kicks in at 65?
Paul
Sure, I a couple of reasons. Now, again, you use the word annuity that can describe many different types of products. In fact, when you get into international markets, for instance, many life insurance policies actually behave like annuities. It's interesting, it's not the same product. So I don't know how international your audiences so what I'm going to describe is a fairly universal term, it just may not be called that essentially, an annuity is a guarantee against, its protection against living too long. And, you know, very, very simply, you know, started I'm trying to think of the history people probably heard of tontines tontines was one of the earliest forms of annuities. You know, we would all put our money in a table and there, you know, table together, and there's different formulas of how this would work. But whoever, you know, whichever one of us outlives all the others gets the money. That's in its simplest form, and that's an annuity. Insurance companies effectively are just pooling lots of risk and saying, Okay, we sell enough people that we've got a normal distribution of people living, some people are going to live not that long. Annuity wasn't a good deal. Some people are going to be live have exactly the way they actually say they're going to live, or they're going to die. And so, on that exactly on that date, you know what, probably broke even maybe. And then that for the few of us, though, who are on that tail end, we've done everything, right, we've had good genetics, you're taking care of so essentially insurance policy that you're always gonna have, you know, you're gonna have money if you actually live longer than you think you will. So, you know, Social Security is, in essence is an annuity, you know, you just have to decide when you take it, the longer you wait, the more you get up to a point in time. And so that annuity is a protection, but a lot of these new is also have income, guaranteed income stream. So Allen, I don't know, your particular annuity, do enough, if you have a guaranteed income provision on your
Allen
Yeah, I do. And also, if something happens to me, there's my spouse. So to our audience out there, you know, in the simplest terms, I basically gave an insurance company money. When I was much younger than 65, they held on to the money invested in it hope it went well. And then at age 65, for argument's sake, I could get $1,000 a month for the rest of my life. And then if I was to pass, depending on how it's structured, my wife could pick up that 1000, or it could drop down to like 800, to 600. Because sometimes the spousal benefits different. But to Paul's point, because you have traveling around so much, and maybe not getting the Social Security income, it's nice to have an annuity income, but also to give the insurance company that money, Paul, it means I must have had to save over the years, or invested well, to get there. And between you and me, I was very fortunate. And some of us in my age bracket, the stock market was very good in these target date funds that have been out there have been very good in the last what you say 15 years or so, as the stock market has quite a bit moved quite a bit more than salaries. So that's another issue. For folks out there. I'm sorry to get so wonky. I'll hand it back to you, Paul. But that's kind of going
Paul
well, I just got one is terrific. And it's a great way to create streams of income that you can tap into that either make up for the fact you don't have social security or create income in addition to Social Security. So layer your income. So if you've got assets, you can put people buy immediate annuities, they'll buy deferred annuities. But at the core, it gives you an ability to say you know what, I'm gonna give myself a raise in retirement. And another interesting fact , Andrew and Allen, is studies have said, people in retirement who have regular checks either from Social Security, or from pensions or from annuities actually are happier. You don't have to worry about this stuff. You don't have to worry about drawing down your your assets, trying to find its fall some kind of complicated, simple yet complicated, 4% withdrawal rule. Some of these simple rules of thumb actually turn out to be pretty complicated to manage if you really think you're what that means when you're when you're doing it. So it simplifies things. And it's nice to have sort of give somebody else make somebody else worry about how they're how they're going to write that check each month to you.
Allen
Paul, quick question in technology. How do you think things like artificial intelligence and other technologies are going to help our audience in these areas?
Paul
Yeah, no, I think it's a lot of potential. I think, probably over the last 10 years, a lot of VC money has gone into companies trying to, to create, you know, robo advisors. And I think there's been some phenomenal tools built. As it turns out, economically, it's most of these companies have found more success, actually, supplementing real advisors. And you think of all the issues we've kind of covered here. They're involved in retirement planning, your age, where you want to live, your tax bracket. I'm gonna go on and on and on like this. You got to think about health care, need to think about your assisted living. At some point, you know, we all need this. Oh, and you want to leave a legacy to somebody. I think the biggest impact we'll see is, you know, an advisor is going to be able to provide a much more comprehensive advice than ever before those who use the tools. So I think it's going to give, it's going to turbocharge those advisors who really embrace technology. And I wish I wish more did but some really good ones out there are doing it and I think until they will be the advisors you want to turn to over the next 10 years.
Andrew
Well, Paul, this is this is interesting, because I know some people plan on their annuity for their life insurance benefits. When a spouse dies, it's they just count on it going straight into an annuity, so that their, that is multiplied over time. And the, you know, and their charitable giving being utilized through an annuity and just so the organization receiving it isn't getting that lump sum, but they're getting something last over time. I think that's it's an incredibly intelligent to make your charitable giving through annuities. And it's, it's wise for the recipients as well to know that, okay, great, we could fall apart, but we have this guaranteed income coming in for the next 20 to 30 years. And a lot of times people when they're planning these moves, kind of forget their generous side. And this next generation needs to keep that in mind that, you know, a lot of our social impact. Organizations are relying on the public, keep them alive. So if we're relocating, don't forget the people that are keeping their world sustained, because the government can't do it. It takes all of us helping out. What's your thoughts on real quick, because I know we're running out of time, and you've got the podcast called That Annuity Show, is that right?
Paul
That's correct. That is correct.
Andrew
So I know that folks are going to hit Learn about topics like this, and others on there. But if you can hit that one thing, because social impact is big in my world, and that's, I think that's a great way to use annuities.
Paul
Yeah, legacy planning is an incredibly powerful way to to your approach to financial planning, right. Life Insurance also works very, very, very well, for creating endowments. And you know, turning $1 into more than, you know, more than you ever would have been able to imagine, in in your lifetime, I think it is another another great way to what you know, as you say, enter create a stream of income, that can be directed to a to a particular group or cause in a way that makes sure that they, you know, it's there, it's there for a very, very long time. I think ESG is becoming, I think people are just becoming much more conscious today, and especially travellers who've seen climate change, have seen, you know, some of the social, you know, change that we need to make around the world. And there are just a, I would say, an explosion of options that are available both in products as well as investment strategies for people who are so inclined.
Allen
So, Paul, we've come to that time in our podcasts that we've asked all of our guests, and looking forward to your thoughts on perhaps naming an overlooked person, place, experience ,product we we've got, we've actually covered an overlooked product today, annuities. Probably put that one to the side of the table. Right? It's we've done a little bit of overlooked already. But yeah, can you share with us an overlooked person, place, experience that you yourself personally, or professionally would love to share with our audience?
Paul
Sure. I think one of those one of the areas that I was at its heart take take a pic place, South Africa, I was fortunate to go pre pandemic, because this was three, three and a half years ago. I went to Cape Town, just love that place. What a beautiful, beautiful part of the world. And I think I certainly hope people are people, you know, travelled makes it make the trip. It's a long journey. But I think the people in the community and I think just the geography was was absolutely spectacular. So there's my place.
Andrew
Well, Paul, thank you. I must agree South Africa's is one of those places that many should experience if it's not on your list already. Thank you for joining us today. What is the the top place that people should find you is that LinkedIn or podcast? We'll have different links in the show notes that that of course you'll provide to us but what's a better way to reach you?
Paul
Yeah, yeah. LinkedIn. LinkedIn is probably the easiest place to find me Paul D.Tyler. I think the only one there. And yeah, we do have a podcast, That Annuity Show. We really are talking to advisors agents, anybody in the industry, you know, who or who's really passionate about the retirement space. But, you know, it's actually we've had a lot of people who are just trying to think plan out their own retirement listen to show and give us feedback and questions. So yeah, find us in either place is a place of great and or my company's website is NFG.com. So stands for Nassau Financial Group and NFG.com. And we're based in Hartford, Connecticut.
Allen
Tremendous company, I think, how many companies have been around since 1851, and almost had 400,000 policies. So well done, Paul. And I'm sure quite a few of those who are annuities given our conversation today, which is, which is excellent. That so So Andrew, we come to the point in the podcasts of what did we learn today, and I mentioned them is I just love their conversation. One thing I'm going to take away that I learned today, not only preparing for this episode, but talking to Paul is how the credit score has a correlation for life expectancy. I never saw that correlation. You've heard me in the past and previous podcast talked about playing tennis has the longest indicator of life expectancy of any sport you may play. Well now I can add a second one to that about keeping your credit score up. So Andrew, I'll let you do the close with what did you lose
Andrew
reminded once more of something that I've said many times to people and that is get out of debt before you relocate internationally. Folks like oh, okay, I've got all this going. But things can shift and then you're stuck somewhere. And you're thinking, okay, that's just the ruin of of your credit report everything else your life can be much more stable. If you take care of things before you go, your power of attorney, your will your documents, opening new accounts, all those things at least a year before you go overseas. Get it all settled. This has been great. Thank you, everyone for joining us again today. If you will subscribe. Write us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening and join us again next week. Thank you, everyone.