Life Insurance in Retirement with Sheryl Moore

Does life insurance make sense in retirement? If so, why? What are some creative and useful reasons for retirees to retain coverage? Also, what should policy owners and their agents be doing to properly maintain these policies over time? On this episode of The Retirement Power Hour, host Joe Allaria will be joined by insurance industry rock star Sheryl Moore to discuss all of the above and more!

About our guest
Sheryl Moore is the Founder,  Creator, and CEO of Wink, Inc and Moore Market Intelligence, where she and her companies serve as consultants to major insurance companies on how to better structure insurance products for the future. She is also an educator to both consumers and agents as her website winkintel.com offers news articles, basic education, and analytical tools for insurance agents.

Resources mentioned in the show

1. Click to schedule a free life insurance policy analysis 
2. Click to schedule a free retirement analysis

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Disclaimer: All material discussed on this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as individual tax, legal, or investment advice. Investing involves risk of loss and investors should be prepared to bear potential losses. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Joe Allaria is an Investment Adviser Representative of CarsonAllaria Wealth Management, a Registered Investment Advisory firm. Information discussed on this podcast may be derived from third parties that are believed to be reliable, but CarsonAllaria Wealth Management does not control or guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of such information and disclaims all liability for damages resulting from such sources. Any references to third parties are provided as a convenience and do not constitute an endorsement.

Transcript

Speaker 0:03

Welcome to the Retirement Power Hour Podcast, where you'll hear direct financial insights from financial planner, writer, and consultant Joe Allaria, as he and his guests uncover key wealth management strategies to help listeners invest wiser and retire better. Now, here's your host, Joe Allaria.

Joe Allaria 0:25

Welcome everybody to the Retirement Power Hour. My name is Joe Allaria, and this is episode seven. Today I'm going to be joined by Cheryl Moore. We're going to be talking about life insurance. Does it make sense in retirement? If you have it, what should you be looking for? What are some uses for it? So stay tuned. It'll be a very, very good discussion today. And before that, if you're out there listening and you've been enjoying the podcast, please go and leave a review on Apple, on Spotify. Make sure you you scroll down on the on the show page and write a review. If you do that, it really helps us in spreading our reach to other listeners. So if you can do me that favor, I would very much appreciate it. Last show, we started doing something new listener questions at the beginning of every episode. So it's something I want to continue today. We have a really good question today, and it's about Social Security. So I'm going to get into that now. So the question says, My wife and I are 61 and 60, and I will be eligible for Social Security soon. I figure if I started receiving Social Security at 62, I can retire on my pension and Social Security. If not, I would have to delay retirement. For that reason, I would like to retire and start receiving Social Security this year, but I have heard from some that it is better to wait until I'm 66 or 67. I don't want to wait so long that I don't actually get to pull out what I paid into the system. And it seems like waiting will keep me from doing the things I want to do now. What are your thoughts? Well, first of all, thank you for sending that question in. Such a good question. And it's one that I get all the time. When should I take Social Security? But the answer to that question depends on a lot of factors. So the answer is not necessarily the same for everyone. So I'll point out a few things that you might be able to benefit from. My first question back to you would be do you have any other investments like IRAs, Roth IRAs, or 401ks? Because I often see this where pre-retirees feel like they need to start taking Social Security immediately when they retire. And it's just not the case. This causes some internal conflicts, obviously, because if you want to retire at 62, or maybe even before that, you know, at 62, if you started taking Social Security, you'd have to take a major discount. And obviously, if you want to retire sooner, you're not even eligible to start withdrawing from Social Security. But if you delay, you obviously need to fund your expenses from another source. If you want to retire and you're going to delay Social Security or you're not eligible, you have to fund your expenses from another source. And that's usually your investments. People are often averse to doing this because it means taking money out of your own pocket and keeping money in the government's pocket or in Social Security. And I get that. But let me share a few reasons why you might want to consider delaying Social Security and using your own investments to fund your expenses for a few years. First off, Social Security is the only income source, retirement income source out there that's specifically linked to inflation or the consumer price index. Other products, pensions, annuities, et cetera, they might have a cost of living adjustment attached, but nothing, to my knowledge, is specifically linked to the consumer price index. What this means is the strategy of delaying Social Security is going to be one of the best strategies for hedging against inflation. Because you might get a cost of living adjustment that's 3%, but if inflation's at 6%, well, then you're not even keeping up with the rate of inflation. Also, you're married. It's not just about you, it's about the last to survive between you and your spouse. Let's say you're you're gonna pass away first and you're worried that if you do, you're not gonna get all that you put into the system. Well, if you do and you're and your working benefit is higher than your spouse's, well, now your spouse is gonna take over your benefit. So it's not just about you and how long you live if you're married. It's about how long you or your spouse, whoever's last to survive, how long you or your spouse are going to live. Because the surviving spouse will get that higher benefit. Next, the the downside of dying early and not drawing as much as you could have from Social Security is way better than the downside of taking Social Security early and running out of money later in life because you took a reduced Social Security benefit, and it just wasn't, you weren't able to keep up with the rising cost of prescriptions and health care, and you can't go back to work. You maybe you need long-term care help, and and so that's an extra cost. The downside of dying early and not drawing as much as you could have, again, way better than the alternative. And on our last episode, I actually talked about that. I was joined by David Blanchett, who's the head of retirement research for PGM DC Solutions, and he shared a highlight from a recent piece of his research where he worked and compared seven different strategies for retirement income. And David shared on that episode how the strategy of delaying Social Security came out as the top strategy when tested against all of the others. And it came up multiple times in our discussion. So when should you take it? There, there's no right answer because nobody knows your exact life expectancy. But my thought is that it's better to plan for the worst in this case in the financial world that that means that you live a long time. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. So if anything, I hope it I at least opened your mind a bit to hey, you still might be able to retire, but you don't necessarily need to start taking Social Security. What you need to do is sit down and have someone go through a retirement plan, a detailed retirement analysis to see what the best route for you is. And it might be that you still are able to retire, that you might use your own investments for a few years and then turn on Social Security and start taking those benefits a few years down the road. So thank you again for that question. If you have a question and you're listening, please send it in to Joe at Carsonalaria.com, Joe at CarsonAleria.com, and we will do our best to get to your question on the upcoming shows. So today I want to introduce our guest. Again, our guest is Cheryl Moore. Cheryl is the CEO and chairwoman of Wink Intel. She is also the president and founder of Moore Market Intelligence. Cheryl and her companies act as consultants for major insurance companies. She is has one of the most unique roles in the insurance field. And I'll just say this that she is one of the most connected and well-known people when it comes to life insurance and when it comes to annuities. So we have a great discussion planned for you. I know you'll get a lot out of it. So here it is, my interview with Cheryl Moore. Enjoy. Cheryl, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Cheryl Moore 7:28

You bet. Thanks for having me, Joe.

Joe Allaria 7:31

You do so many awesome things and you've got you got a lot going on. So what exactly do you do?

Cheryl Moore 7:36

That's a good question, Joe. I started off working in a life insurance company 23 years ago and worked my way up until I was an executive at the insurance company. And then I decided to start my own business. Really, what fueled me was having an experience where someone in my family did not have proper life insurance coverage and also did not know about annuities. And so having that personal experience in my family and thinking, gosh, you know, I work for an insurance company. How can my family not know about this? Really motivated me. And it made me realize that there are a lot of consumers who don't have all the facts when it comes to life insurance and annuities.

Speaker 2 8:19

Sure.

Cheryl Moore 8:20

I'm sure you're familiar with that. So I started a business with the intent of educating people about life insurance and annuities. What I do today is I go to insurance regulators' offices and pull the filings for life insurance and annuities, read those contracts, and then break them down into easy to understand terms so that financial professionals can come to my website and say, I don't have time to read this 300-page document. Let me read the three-page Cliff Notes version of what this is.

Joe Allaria 8:54

But you also are the president founder of More Market Intelligence. So tell us a little bit about that, if you would.

Cheryl Moore 9:01

Yeah. So More Market Intelligence is a company that I started to help with competitive intelligence. So assisting insurance companies and making their product offerings and their marketing more attractive versus their peers.

Speaker 2 9:15

Yep.

Cheryl Moore 9:15

I'd like to say I'm an insurance spy. That's the sexy way of putting it. Um, but I just basically spy on insurance companies using public information. No espionage or anything like that. But um, it helps my clients to make their product offerings more competitive.

Joe Allaria 9:34

Awesome. Well, like I said, you have such a unique role in the insurance industry. And I think the insurance industry itself is pretty unique because if you think about it, insurance can benefit people in such a major way when they need it. And when they need it, they're super glad they have it. But any other time, they view insurance as an expense. And I think it has a negative connotation. I think people shy away from it if they can at all, especially when it comes to life insurance, and especially when it comes to life insurance near retirement. So, why do you think that is? Why do you think people shy away from life insurance?

Cheryl Moore 10:13

So I really think that one of the biggest reasons people don't buy life insurance is that consumers don't want to face their imminent death. And buying insurance means I'm going to have to deal with the fact that at some point I will not be here anymore. And so that aversion to death, I think, is one of the primary reasons. How sad, you know, because everybody dies. And making a claim on your house insurance or your auto insurance, like you're required to have those kinds of insurance. You're not required to have life insurance, which is crazy to me because everybody's definitely going to die. You won't necessarily have to make a claim on your homeowner's policy or on your auto insurance policy.

Joe Allaria 10:57

Well, I think it's the same reason why people don't plan for retirement sometimes is that it just kind of means, man, I have to talk about Medicare now and Social Security. And that means I'm getting older and I don't want to get older because after my work life, you know, is my retirement. But after my retirement is the end of my life. And I don't want to talk about that.

Speaker 2 11:16

Right.

Joe Allaria 11:16

It's just more comfortable. Keep doing what you're doing. So, you know, the psychology of money, the psychology of retirement, the psychology of insurance, it is a real thing. You said you had a family member that that wasn't insured. And you also told me a story about your grandpa, which I think was was is that I don't know if it's the same story or so I was probably about eight or nine years old.

Cheryl Moore 11:41

I knew that my grandfather was a life insurance agent.

Speaker 2 11:45

Right.

Cheryl Moore 11:45

And I didn't really know what it meant, except for when somebody dies, you get money. So I remember grandfather being gone most of the weekend, this one weekend that we visited, and then coming in late one evening, and I had the opportunity to listen to him talk with my grandmother about where he'd been the whole time that we'd been there. And he said he'd had to make his first death claim. So one of his clients had passed away and he had to deliver a check to the widow. And he was explaining to my grandmother how this woman had held his hand throughout the whole funeral service and was just getting to points where she was like almost leaning on him because she wasn't able to stand on her own.

Speaker 2 12:30

Right.

Cheryl Moore 12:31

And he's talking about this in a way that's very emotional. And when the time came and the funeral was over, and he gave the check to this woman, she broke down crying and said that she was so grateful to my grandfather because she'd had a discussion with her husband prior to him passing, right after their first appointment with my grandfather. And in the meeting, she had kind of objected to the sale of the life insurance because she said it was too expensive. And she broke down crying, telling this story to my grandfather because she said, I told him not to buy it. And it's only because he put his foot down over the things that you had said when I said it's too expensive. He had overcome her objections with several rebuttals, right? And those things were enough to convince this gentleman that he should purchase the life insurance. Sure. And he died less than a year later after purchasing it.

Joe Allaria 13:29

The emotions of this and the emotions of planning and the things you have to think about. But um, one of the things that I get posed this question quite a bit is do people even need life insurance if they have enough money to retire? And so, what are the reasons that someone might want some coverage in retirement?

Cheryl Moore 13:49

Well, how about to leave a legacy if you want to um leave money to your loved ones? Or maybe you have a charitable organization that is near and dear to your heart that you want to benefit. That's one reason to buy a life insurance policy, and I think it's a huge one. It's one that I believe in. The Shriner's Hospitals for Children have helped my oldest child to have dozens of surgeries. And to thank them, I wanted to make sure that they received a sizable gift. And my money goes to purchase or leverage the amount that they receive on my death. So I purchased life insurance on my life so that when I die, they will receive a million dollars.

Joe Allaria 14:31

Wow. That's awesome.

Cheryl Moore 14:33

Yeah. Yeah. But that's that's just one reason. I I think that so many people just think of life insurance as, oh, it pays my family when I die. And they don't think about some of those other creative reasons why you might want to use life insurance. You had a great story, Joe. You relayed a story about one of your clients who had to pay estate taxes upon the passing of their parent.

Joe Allaria 15:00

Yeah, exactly. So here in Illinois, we have an estate tax exemption amount of four million dollars per person. The individual estate tax exemption amount is over 12 million at the federal level. So at this point in time, you have to have over 12 million per person or over 24 million as a married couple to pay estate tax or death tax. And so, you know, a lot of people that doesn't apply to, but here in Illinois, it's only $4 million per person. So you might not owe federal estate tax, but you it's it'd be a lot easier to owe Illinois estate tax. And most of our clients are what I would say are the next door millionaire type of people where, you know, I I kind of consider them normal people, even though I tell them, hey, you're still you're in the top 1% of the population, no doubt. You know, if you have enough money saved up to retire, 750,000 to 2 million, which a lot of our clients are in that range, you're in the top um few percent if if nothing else. But yeah, you don't have to have that much to owe estate tax in Illinois. So one of our clients, he passed away and uh he had about 4.4 million all told in his estate, which is which is a good size estate. And his beneficiaries ended up having to pay about $400,000 in taxes to the state of Illinois, just in estate tax, not income tax. That's totally separate. This is a tax for dying with too much money, and it was over $400,000. And so you might use life insurance to cover some of that bill. If you know you're gonna be over that amount, you could estimate how much you're gonna your beneficiaries might owe, and you could get insurance to cover that. You could get insurance to hedge on your your life expectancy. If you live a long time and you purchase life insurance, you keep paying your premium, the insurance company wins in that case, right? You're paying your premium for a long time. But if you don't live a long time, you had a shorter lifespan, but financially, you won big because the rate of return is going to be enormous. And that's something that a stock and a bond portfolio that it cannot provide, right? That can't provide that hedging. So sometimes people do that with life insurance and annuities, hedge on both sides, you know, just to make sure you're spreading your risk out. Another potential benefit would be long-term care. And you can have long-term care that is attached to a life insurance product. And so with you know Oh, I love those. Yeah. So talk a little bit about maybe how those work.

Cheryl Moore 17:34

Yeah. So I think long-term care is one of those types of insurance that really gets a bad rap. Um, we hear about rate increases or people not using it. And that's a huge objection because if you think about how expensive it is, relatively speaking, to purchase long-term care insurance, you don't want to pay all that money in. And then if you don't get confined to a nursing home, you don't have the opportunity to benefit from it.

Speaker 2 18:00

Right.

Cheryl Moore 18:01

You know, if you die prematurely, it's just money wasted. And so one of the great things about having a long-term care feature that's combined with your life insurance is that you lose that use it or lose it mentality.

Speaker 2 18:15

Right.

Cheryl Moore 18:15

Um, you definitely get to use it. And if you don't, then you still have the death benefit coverage. So this is um what we call writers or optional benefits that would pay out in the event of uh critical illness, chronic illness, or terminal illness, and advance you your part of your death benefit effectively while you're still living to pay for some of those nursing home expenses or some of those hospital bills that you maybe couldn't afford to pay for without that coverage. I I personally just love the fact that you don't have to use it or lose it. That's my favorite part, Joe.

Joe Allaria 18:54

Yeah, there's one pool of money that can be used for multiple things. And yes, I've heard the same thing. The biggest concern about long-term care insurance is I never get to use it. Well, that may or may not be a good reason to not get it. And it all starts with a with a plan, a retirement plan, um, a financial plan to see if you really do need it, you know. And what we do is we show people this is what it would look like to fund a long-term care stay yourself if you have enough money. So when we show that scenario, you again, we have to use averages, average stays, average cost. We don't know if it's assisted living or if it's advanced memory care, which the costs range pretty widely between those as well. So we just show them here's what it looks like if you were gonna fund an average stay yourself. And it's if it takes too big a chunk out of the portfolio and or gets makes the portfolio go to zero, well, then you might want to get some insurance to help fund that potential stay. So another good, another good reason. I want to, if I can, I want to switch over to to talk about the insurance industry. How has the industry improved in terms of products and things that you've been helping companies on over the last you know five, 10 years?

Cheryl Moore 20:11

Well, really, I'm disenfranchised a little with the life insurance industry just because we do such a bad job telling our story and getting credible information out in front of consumers.

Speaker 2 20:24

Right.

Cheryl Moore 20:24

And so that's one of the things I get the most frustrated about is that we're doing a bad job of advocating for ourselves and helping consumers find the credible information. And it's even scarier in the financial services industry, Joe, because there are bad actors out there. It's not like there's a ton of them, but there's a few bad apples out there, but it's your money. And so you want to feel secure in that I'm working with somebody who I trust or I can feel confident about this information.

Speaker 2 20:56

Yeah.

Cheryl Moore 20:57

And that's why I think it's even more important. But I personally live my life in a way that I just do what's good and what's right. And I always know that it'll come back around to me, just like you were describing you do.

Joe Allaria 21:11

100%. Yeah. We we do our best to be the best news source, the best information source, definitely for our clients. And obviously, this podcast is open to the public. So we're trying to start there. And like you said, hopefully, you know, some of the listeners out there that don't work with us directly or don't have an advisor will take some of this information and it'll help them get in a better situation. Um, and and I want to talk too about and kind of not only about the industry, but about insurance agents and and practices. And one thing that I was very intrigued by whenever we spoke, you've got temporary insurance, which is term, and you've got permanent insurance, which is permanent. And it doesn't mean it's whole life, but you know, whole life is one type, universal life, variable universal life, index universal life. There's all these types that are permanent, they're designed to stay in existence for the life of the insured. And term quotes, very straightforward, right? A 20 year commodity. 20 year commodity, 20-year term. Okay, what's what's it cost? And I if I go and look at five different quotes or illustrations on term coverage, and they're all 20-year term, you know, I don't have a lot of things to evaluate. I'm pretty much looking at the price, I'm looking at the strength of the insurance company. But when someone looks at a permanent insurance product, I think that notion of it's well, it's you know, it's kind of the same. I just need to look at the price.

Cheryl Moore 22:35

Oh, that's a mistake.

Joe Allaria 22:37

Yeah, it all it all comes down to the illustrations that are run by the agents. So I'm gonna tee that up for you. Talk about the pitfalls of what happens in that illustration phase.

Cheryl Moore 22:50

Yeah. So for those who are watching and are less familiar, an illustration is just a um paper document that kind of projects what your policies, cash values, and death benefits may look like in the future. But the pertinent word that I said is may look like because you have to make assumptions. Right. The interest rates that are in effect right now may not be in effect next year or certainly not 20 years from now. And insurance companies have the ability to change what amount they're charging for the insurance within certain variables that are approved by insurance commissioners. So there are several things that could change from the point that you purchase the life insurance until the point where you need to take money out for retirement or certainly until you die. And so these projections are made with certain assumptions that usually, honestly, Joe, I'm gonna keep it real, are best case scenario.

Joe Allaria 23:53

A lot of times they are.

Cheryl Moore 23:54

Yeah. So when you get it and you see that best case scenario, and you don't have a great understanding of how complex this product is, you get that piece of paper and you go, okay, I will file this away. I know this is how my policy is going to perform, and that's all I need to know. And unfortunately, that can lead to a lot of pitfalls. And I would even suggest you need to be reviewing your life insurance probably annually if you own some kind of permanent insurance, just to make sure that those variables haven't changed, because the only thing that an illustration does is prove that ink sticks to paper.

Joe Allaria 24:35

And I love that that phrase. I'm glad you said it again. And uh, I'm gonna have to write that one down to remember that because that's so true. And two things that you just touched on there. The first one is the agent or the advisor is the one who gets to ultimately choose what assumptions are used. And the insurance companies will just run current assumptions. Like if you don't tell them, they'll just say, Oh, well, the current interest rate is four and a quarter. Well, I mean, I'm making up a number.

Cheryl Moore 25:04

Uh so right now it's 2.9.

Joe Allaria 25:06

Yeah. So yeah, so so we're gonna run it at 2.9, right? Well, if you don't say anything, they won't do anything else. So what we do, just like in our retirement planning, we always want to take a conservative assumption. So take the current environment, make it a little less favorable in our assumption, and then use that in the illustration. Because what that does is it says, okay, if things get a little bit worse from where they are today, then we we're still gonna have enough premium dollars running going into these policies so that they can stay in effect. Because I'm sure you've had you've heard stories of this, Cheryl. But what happens if you assume too high of a rate of return or whatever it may be inside the policy? What happens if you don't review it and time goes on? Uh, so there's there's an event that happens, you get a letter in the mail. What does that letter say?

Cheryl Moore 25:58

Okay, so I this is actually the situation that motivated me to start my own company and educate people about these products because my job when I worked for an insurance company, my very first job was to work with policy holders who had their agent pass away or get out of the business or disappear for whatever reason. And at that time, you had a lot of people who had purchased universal life insurance policies that assumed that the credited rate would be 12%. But the insurance company really had the ability to change that rate all the way down as low as 5%. Now I'll tell you, 5% is a lot better than what you can get today, but that was worst-case scenario back then. And what happened was interest rates came down big time. The insurance companies adjusted what they were crediting to those policies. And so people were getting five instead of the 12 that they thought they were gonna get when they purchased the insurance. And what happens with a permanent type of life insurance where you have a change in those assumptions is that I had policyholders who were calling me saying, I just got this letter that says I have to pay $20,000 a year or I'm gonna lose my life insurance. I'm on a fixed income. What do I do? You know, and so what you don't realize is that these little ladies or old gentlemen, they're now uninsurable. They have chronic health conditions, which would make it so that they couldn't get life insurance. And so that exposure to consumers and those experiences is really what motivated me to do what I do today, just because people don't understand what they're buying so often.

Joe Allaria 27:45

Right. Yeah, so you you need to, I think, you know, you need to understand the assumptions that are used and the possibilities, you know, that could happen. And and then, you know, you said it and I get it. You said uh for you insurance uh policy owners, you need to uh review your policies annually. Well, most people are not doing that, and so I as an advisor say your advisor should be doing that for you because you don't know how to do that. I mean, most people know no clue where to start. Your advisor or the agent should be doing that. Um, I had I had one you know recently where ran into the exact same thing and looked at all the the insurance policies and actually found out that the person wasn't even paying any insurance premiums. That they had a they had a cash value that it was they were just using the cash value. And guess what? It was on schedule to lapse. There's multiple policies on all on schedule to lapse within a 12 to 24 month period because the the annual review just wasn't being done. So it's up to the advisor, the agent. We do that in-house. We you know, many of our clients may not even know that we do this because it's a back office sort of thing, but we track the original illustration with the current cash value and then make sure that it's on track. Because if it's not on track, it's much easier to make a slight adjustment now rather than get that letter in the mail that says, you know, by the way, you owe $20,000 to keep this policy in force. If you don't pay it, then it then it's gone, you know, then it elapses.

Cheryl Moore 29:21

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, back when interest rates were in the double digits, there were so many life insurance policies that were sold, making the assumption that you only have to pay for 20 years and then you don't pay again.

Joe Allaria 29:34

Right, right, exactly.

Cheryl Moore 29:36

But that was an assumption that was made by the insurance agent. You know, there's still insurance charges that come out every year, no matter what the type of permanent life insurance is.

Speaker 2 29:45

Yeah.

Cheryl Moore 29:46

And so um, you're right, there's a lot of people who might think they're paid up and going to get an unwelcome surprise in their mail before too long.

Joe Allaria 29:54

Well, it happens with a lot of products that are sold as guaranteed, but they're not guaranteed. You know, I think some. Sometimes, you know, like whole eye, for example, I think is consumers think, well, no, this is sort of guaranteed or can't fail or can't blow up. That's not true. So you just it just needs to be reviewed. And really, your advisor needs to do that for you. You know, we would do that if you're out there listening and you have a policy, you don't know, you know, you're hearing what we're saying, you're like, I have no idea what they're talking about, then just reach out to us and we're we'll be happy to review those for you. So I have one more question for you. And we kind of already touched on it, but if someone's out there listening and they do want to evaluate for themselves, how can they best use your your site at winkintel.com to look up things like annuities, life insurance, and to really evaluate them. How can they best do that?

Cheryl Moore 30:46

Well, thanks, Joe. I appreciate that. I'll tell you that there are several ways that one can educate themselves on life insurance and annuities on the Wink Intel website. First of all, there's a tab at the top that says industry news that um has every article that I've written. And I think I've written over 500 articles over the past 17 years to educate people about these products. So anything under the, you know, Cheryl's articles tab would be a credible source of information because I don't endorse any company or product. Um, another good place is just the annuities 101 and life insurance 101 that I created on the website under the basics. And those are just areas for me to educate people on at a high level what are these products and how do they work? But honestly, Joe, I have a lot of consumers who contact me through the website and just email us and say, I have this, I don't understand it. Can you help me? It happens more often than not, and I'm always happy to help people if I can.

Joe Allaria 31:49

Yeah. Well, thank you again for your time, Cheryl. This is something you know, I understand why people get overwhelmed when they're getting into retirement because this is one topic. And I could talk on this topic. Um you and I could sit here for hours upon hours upon hours, life insurance annuities. There's so many layers to that. It's just one topic. There's so many things that retirees are faced with. And you know, we're doing our best to get the information out there. But I think, you know, if you're out there and you you're unsure, I think you just you need a plan, you need someone that can help you to sort through all this. But I we we covered a lot of good ground, Cheryl. I don't know if we answered the question, does life insurance make sense to retirement? I think it could, definitely. And you you brought up some good points too, but it's all about evaluating, getting good information. Any final words, Cheryl, that you'd like to leave our listeners with?

Cheryl Moore 32:41

No, I just want to thank you, Joe, for doing what you do because I have run across some bad actors in this business. And certainly, as I said, there aren't a ton of them, but I'm grateful for the people who do act in their clients' best interests and really want to help people. So thank you so much for what you do.

Joe Allaria 32:58

Well, I appreciate that. And uh, I cannot take credit. We have a great team here, and a lot of those practices around insurance. Yeah, I learned from my my partner Scott Carson, who you know many of our listeners and clients will know, and uh been fortunate to have some really good mentors. So, again, I I have to give credit where credit's due for all of them as well.

Cheryl Moore 33:17

That's awesome.

Joe Allaria 33:18

Everyone listening, if you're watching on YouTube, you can check us out on Spotify, on Apple to listen to the podcast. And same way, if you're listening to the podcast, we have videos on YouTube. We have other videos on YouTube that that cover additional topics that you won't hear on the podcast. So check that out or go to Carsonalaria.com for more resources. Thanks to Cheryl Moore. Thanks to everybody for listening. That does it for this episode of the Retirement Power Hour Podcast, where we help listeners invest wiser and retire better. Until next time, take care. Hey there, everyone. This is Joe Allaria. I hope you enjoyed today's show. But if today's show left you with some unanswered questions, I want to encourage you, we are here to help. If you have a life insurance policy that you would like someone to review, please reach out. You can email me at Joe at Carsonallaria.com or you can go directly to Carsonallaria.com and schedule a free, no obligation, 15-minute phone call to see if we can help. The same goes if you're planning to retire or hoping to retire in the next few years and you'd like to get a free retirement analysis. Again, go to Carsonallaria.com or you can email me Joe at Carsonallaria.com and we will do that free analysis for you. We look forward to helping you and answering those questions. We'll see you on the next episode.

Speaker 34:39

Thank you for listening to the Retirement Power Hour Podcast. All material discussed on this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as individual tax, legal, or investment advice. Investing involves risk of loss, and investors should be prepared to bear potential losses. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Joe Allaria is an investment advisor representative of Carson Allaria Wealth Management, a registered investment advisory firm. Information discussed on this podcast may be derived from third parties that are believed to be reliable, but Carson Allaria Wealth Management does not control or guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of such information and disclaims all liability for damages resulting from such sources. Any references to third parties are provided as a convenience and do not constitute an endorsement.