A Wiser Retirement®

303. Pilot’s Guide to Financial Turbulence: Planning for Medical Disabilities

• Wiser Wealth Management • Episode 303

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In this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast, we discuss the importance of commercial airline pilot medical disability planning and why it’s often overlooked compared to life insurance. We explain how airline disability benefits work, the differences between short-term and long-term coverage, and why “own occupation” policies are essential. The conversation also covers supplemental insurance options, union vs. non-union benefits, and strategies to ensure your financial plan can withstand a sudden loss of income.

Related Podcast Episodes:

- Ep 173: Making the Most of Your Airline 401k

- Ep 253: Navigating the Future of the Airline Industry

- Ep 273: How Early Retirement Affects Pilot Benefits 


Related YouTube Videos:
- New Delta Airlines Nonqualified Deferred Compensation (NQDC) Plan for Pilots

- Tips for Airline Pilots Approaching Retirement

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This podcast was produced by Wiser Wealth Management. Thanks for listening!

Understanding Pilot Disability Coverage

Speaker 1

You have DPMA for the first year you can get. You get two years worth of it. So if you come back to work but something happens, you have to go back out. You can get another year, just not consecutive.

Speaker 2

Just not consecutive.

Speaker 1

But the Harvey, white and the ALPA policies. They pay on top of the Delta policy, so you're not doing one or the other. Where sometimes policies like well, they have to pay out first and then we'll only cover up to the difference we know up. Where sometimes policies like well, they have to pay out first and then we'll only cover up the difference when up to a maximum. That's not what's happening here. Welcome to Why's your Retirement Podcast. Are you curious about how to plan for medical disability as a commercial airline pilot? I'm Casey Smith. Today I'm joined by Shauna Theriault. Each week we bring you practical advice on retirement, investing and planning for your financial future. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. Let's get started. Hey, shauna.

Speaker 2

Morning.

Speaker 1

So, just to be clear, I mean, yes, we're talking to airline pilots today, but I think the principles here apply to anybody, of course, in any career. But airline pilots are a large segment of our client base and I think this is a topic that's come up in a lot of our planning sessions on how to handle disability, and a lot of firms, a lot of wealth managed firms they totally gloss over this, right, but it's really important. You're more likely to be disabled than dying early.

Speaker 2

Right, and everyone focuses on the life insurance, but really, statistically, you're more apt to become disabled. And then and I don't mean this in a rude way but if you're not working and then you're still here, we hope, um, we hope, but then you could have medical issues where now your loss of income and the expenses go up even yeah, you know, so that's where it's usually, you know, maybe expenses go up because you have healthcare issues.

Speaker 1

I find that most people who are coming to a wealth management firm probably are pretty good with budgeting. They live well below their means, um. But for people who are spending every dollar that comes in and don't feel like they have extra, uh, this is. This could be really debilitating for your family If, all of a sudden, you had a 50 percent pay cut.

Speaker 2

Well, and if you can't afford the disability because you're spending every dollar, that won't be good either that won't be good, either that's right. So it's like one of those rules like with long term care. It's like the people who need it can't afford it and the people who can afford it don't need it because they can self-insure, kind of thing.

Speaker 1

But true, you know yeah, and also too, we, you know, we don't work with as many people who work at regionals by airlines, partially because they're building your careers or typically younger, they're invincible, you know, uh, but we, we have a couple of clients that have medically retired from from regionals and they're basically receiving nothing from the company.

Speaker 1

Uh, it only paid out for a certain time period. So if, if you're just beginning your career, uh, you don't really think about things like this, but there's, they were good savers, thankfully, uh, they, they worked a long time at a regional but they received no benefit. Uh, so it's really just a major airline Delta, american United, united, alaska, southwest that have these type of benefits and they're all a little different in how they approach it. I think I would note here that Southwest probably puts more burden on the pilot as far as payment for that, where American andults United have more company paid coverage. But they all kind of slice it up differently about how much is sick bank in the beginning and how much is insurance and how much is just self-pay, but after that first year or two they all kind of gravitate to that 50% number.

Speaker 2

Yeah, 50% of pay.

Speaker 1

Um, but anyway. So so continue this conversation.

Speaker 2

And why is this so important for pilots, and specifically Well, that's their livelihood, but they have the medical, the rigorous medical, each year and if they can't, you know, pass that or something happens, then they can't fly, they, they can't make their income. So I mean, you know, they can go work somewhere else potentially, but that's not what they've trained to do and the income is so high for a lot of them it's just covering their loss of income.

Speaker 1

Yeah. You know, I would think the biggest thing is because of the medical Right, and occasionally there's, there could be simulator jobs where those sometimes those require you to keep a medical even though you're flying a box. Simulator jobs where those sometimes those require you to keep a medical even though you're flying a box. Um, there there's management positions. There's, um, uh, working in in training or, or you know, admin and not admin, but more administrative type type positions.

Speaker 2

Some of them do like flight, school teaching and things like that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Um, not so much flight school. You've done that already but, but yeah instructing the training department. But there's also people who work in safety, who who do um uh, who are writing the manuals for the airplanes and updating manuals, things of that nature where it's more of a desk job than it is a flying job, sure Uh.

Speaker 2

but sometimes I'm assuming that doesn't pay as well, though.

Speaker 1

No, it does.

Speaker 2

It does Okay. Sometimes it pays better, okay, okay, well, that's good to know.

Speaker 1

Sometimes it pays better, but so a lot of times those jobs are taken Uh but but yeah, there are, but I wouldn't depend on any of that.

Speaker 2

Well, there has to be a job opening right.

Speaker 1

That's a job opening and in some cases in some airlines you have to be a qualified line pilot or else the the contract basically puts you on disability. So it depends on how your union contract is written to and what your options are. At a smaller regional, yeah, you could probably do that just fine and take that position, but the bigger airlines have more guardrails up.

Speaker 2

But the medical is so rigorous, so I mean, there's the definitions are.

Speaker 1

so I mean they should be. I mean they're flying planes. The first thing I would say is make sure you're going to the right doctor. I never went to the young guy who just started. I always went to the. I always went to the old guy. That was like rinse and repeat. Absolutely you don't want, you don't want someone trying to find a reason why you can't fly Right, right, but, but. But I'm not saying do anything dishonest, you know, disclose disclose all your events.

Speaker 2

We care about the safety of people.

Why Disability Insurance Matters for Pilots

Speaker 1

That's what the whole point is Just make sure you're going to a person who's not going to be too cautious, so all right. So let's talk a little bit about understanding the risk. So obviously there's short-term and there's long-term disability, so it is exactly what it sounds like, right?

Speaker 2

Right, it just covers you for a shorter period of time and then the long-term, and that's that's true for all industries, right? So you have coverage for something happens, you know if you have that in industry. So if something happens for a shorter period of time versus something that's going to be longer over a year potentially, um then the long typically the long-term kicks in and usually last to age 65 so in the in the airline major, airline world, short-term disability can cover you for up to two years yeah, pretty, yeah pretty well, right uh and they refer to it as like temporary disability instead of short-term.

Speaker 1

I think it's a similar definition right, uh, long-term would kick in after the year in the just normal jobs typically, typically short terms, you know a few months, yeah, and then a few weeks.

Speaker 2

Right, right, right.

Speaker 1

Short term, short term disability. I think the most common use for that is when moms go to have babies, right, right. Otherwise, you probably have enough. You should have enough savings to cover a couple of months worth of expenses.

Speaker 2

It really just gets you through that elimination period to get into the long term. Right. And helps cover that gap for you.

Speaker 1

You do have union versus non-union. There are benefit differences. So what I would say is that typically at non-union shops I see the disabilities being much, much less. It's not as focused on. I feel like those airlines focus maybe a little more on pay. No one really thinks about this stuff. That's why we're doing a podcast on it. Sure Right, but even at some of the union shops like Southwest Airlines, it's still there, but I've noticed that there's a lot more burden on what you pay.

Speaker 1

You can make it very expensive to get the same coverage as what the majors are offering.

Speaker 2

Well and honestly, the main difference between paying it yourself and having the employer paid obviously is the cost. So the cost is that's really rich if an employer pays it. But how it's taxed is different too. I think it's important to note so you know if you are paying it on your own, any portion that you pay on your own, whether you're getting adding more or the company just doesn't offer it. If you claim those benefits or if you need those benefits, they become tax free to you because you paid the premiums versus an employer provided that's still really great they're providing it, they're paying the premiums, which costs more.

Speaker 1

The chances of actually being on disability.

Speaker 2

You'd rather the company be paying for it and just pay the tax when you get it, exactly Because then it's taxed to you.

Speaker 1

But if you have to get your own policy, then yes, it would be tax-free.

Speaker 2

Exactly, at least if you get benefits, it's tax-free.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Disability Explained

Speaker 1

So let's talk about the loss of medical. Why is this essential for pilots you touched on a minute ago is because we you know pilots have a annual physical.

Speaker 2

Yes, right.

Speaker 1

Or every six months In some cases. You have a physical and if you have high blood pressure, you have high cholesterol. There's excess of that. You're not going to be able to fly. Right, If you have to go on certain that, you're not going to be able to fly. Um, if you have to go on certain medications, you're not. You shouldn't be flying.

Speaker 1

So these are all things that can set you to the sideline, uh, pretty quickly and uh, I think most pilots know this, but I would never just go into your normal doctor and say, hey, we're going to prescribe this. I run everything through my um through my air. Uh, uh, uh. The pilot doctor is what I call it, I would have run everything through the pilot.

Speaker 1

the AME, I guess is, is a designation Uh, but I would run everything through him or her to make sure that this is. This is good Uh, Alpa has an airline pilot association. They actually have a medical section that you can contact them and get advice on. Yes, you can take this, but no, you can't take this. Um, I think even AOPA may even offer uh, that's more for private pilots. I think they may even offer some guidance on on the medical front as to what you can and can't take, but you definitely need an advocate.

Speaker 1

Uh, oklahoma city is where um all the positive stuff or all the medical stuff is handled for the. Faa and they're really behind, and so if you don't do it right or if you don't have a doctor who can help expedite the process, you could be unnecessarily sitting on the sidelines for a while. We have an American pilot that I think he was out for an extra almost year just because people couldn't coordinate things very well.

Speaker 2

Wow.

Speaker 1

So you have to be, you have to be careful that you stay on top of it. Unfortunately, you just can't go over there and knock on the door. They won't see you. So you just have to be very careful and and and the steps that you take after you've gotten a diagnosis of something Interesting. I also will say I remember when I flew at a regional airline. I remember being shocked when one of our clients, who is also a fellow pilot of mine, went out with heart surgery and I found out that our insurance, our disability insurance, the older you got, the less they covered.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Speaker 1

It was the opposite. He was getting hundreds of dollars per month in his early 60s he was getting hundreds of dollars per month in disability because the older you got, the less they would pay out.

Speaker 2

Because they just assumed that you're aging.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you're assuming you're aging out, I guess, I don't know, it should be really the opposite, because your pay should be higher.

Speaker 2

Well, your pay should be higher. And then then of course, if you're getting older, that's when you get sicker.

Speaker 1

right, correct, but there was a percentage, but then there was a max and that max kept dropping and I guess the union.

Speaker 2

In the long-term disability policy.

Speaker 1

So I guess the union negotiations just didn't pick up on that. I think it was corrected later on, and further contracts possibly. But I was shocked by that. I was like holy cow.

Speaker 4

This is a big problem.

Speaker 1

That's when I started paying very close attention to disability policies and retirement plans.

Speaker 2

Yeah, definitely need to read the fine print to understand what it is you have?

Speaker 1

Especially the union negotiated ones. That's not normal If he worked at GE or Home Depot that would not be the case, but yeah, someone someone did not, did not handle that well in negotiations. So disability insurance, let's talk about this own occupation. Explain that to us.

Speaker 2

So there's own occupation or any occupation. So this is true with pilots and also any corporate job if you have this. So own occupation is if you cannot do your own job, it will pay out. So the function of your own job obviously flying planes. If you can't do that, then it would pay out. Any occupation is if you can flip burgers or do something else. That's you know, it depends on the definitions. If you can do another position or another job, then you may not be considered disabled.

Speaker 1

Correct. So that is what.

Speaker 2

And that's huge for anyone. You want to know if it's your own occupation.

Speaker 1

So that means when you, if you buy a supplemental policy, you're going to want to make sure that it's not that Right, that it's related to your specific job.

Speaker 2

Yes, definitely ask that question. Make sure it's own occupation, meaning your own and not any occupation.

Speaker 3

Before we continue, do you want to make the most of your airline's 401k plan? We've created three 401k allocation guides for most major airlines to help you do just that. Download yours for free at pilotretirementcom. Now back to the episode.

Speaker 1

There are a couple of companies, including the Airline Pilots Association, that offer disability insurance specifically to pilots Harvey Watt is one of them, right, and then obviously buying it through ALPA is another, and we'll kind of come back to that in a minute. Let's talk about a little bit about why we, why we, why we need this. Why do you need to add it? Why would you need to add disability insurance on top of what you have already?

Speaker 2

On top of the disability you already have. If it's not enough, well, you need to look at a financial plan to say, okay, because everyone's situation can be different. It's not one, you know, just like anyone. We run any client's financial plan. How much life insurance, how much disability, all of them can be different. If someone is a super, super saver and they don't spend that much, they may not need to add different. You know we want to make sure.

Speaker 2

So what we typically do in the planning and your advisor should do this, and if they're not, then you know, maybe seek another is to let's say you go on disability and your income comes out of the plan, what do you need to drop in to make sure that you don't have a change of lifestyle? You still, you still need to be saving for retirement. I don't know that you need all of the necessary excess. So a lot of pilots I'm speaking about pilots generally are saving a lot in their retirement plan but also to taxable accounts, because they just the income that they have generally, unless they spend more, a lot of them are have more income than they need. You don't necessarily need to be building the same huge nest egg that you were to have a bunch of excess when you die at age 95.

Speaker 2

It depends what your goals are Right. So it really depends. If you really I want to leave money to kids, then maybe you do need to do that. But, and looking at the full financial plan, if you do have a disability, you still need to make sure that you can cover your current expenses, that you're still saving for retirement, you know, because eventually that income will stop from disability and then you have to live off. You know, investments, pensions, social security, whatever that is for you.

Speaker 1

And the Delta Airlines plan. They have a great benefit that they're still going to contribute the 17, soon to be 18 percent. Right. Regardless, not based on what the disability is, but based on what you'd made the years prior. So you'll continue to get that percentage going in. You won't be able to put in your 23,500 or 30,000, right Right, but you at least get that going in for you. That's not normal. No, other airlines don't do that.

Speaker 2

Well, and most companies don't do that. You know, most companies don't even put in 17, 18% for you, whether you contribute or not or even if you do contribute, and then they certainly don't continue it if you become disabled.

Speaker 2

So it is a benefit of being an airline pilot, for sure, um so, but you still want to make sure that what happens in your plan you want to emulate in your plan. Let's say, I have a disability, a short-term or a long-term disability. Short-term, normally, like you said, you can, you know, get through that If you can go back to work, right, um, you should have enough savings or be able to bridge for a period of time, and then you know, correct, going forward. But if you can't do that, what does that truly look like, you know?

Speaker 1

I mean, that's really important to look at it, the easiest test is cut your income in half your aviation income if you're a dual income family, and can you live on that?

Speaker 2

But see, even if you can live on that, are you still putting enough away that, when it stops that you can live?

Speaker 1

It depends on the situation.

Speaker 2

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1

Some of the majors yes. Other situations, normal people no. That's right. You're still not going to be able to save money Right, your savings, your retirement savings, would probably come to a stop.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so okay, you're're getting half that income and you're living off of it, but then it's going to stop eventually, and where are you going to take the income from?

Speaker 1

I think a lot of people assume that it's temporary. You get back to work eventually, yeah, but if it's a permanent disability, then, yeah, your whole life is changing at that point. Right, there are ways to supplement it, though, again, we don't sell any of these policies because we're a fee-only firm, but you can buy additional disability. I have very few people that buy additional disability.

Supplemental Insurance Options and Costs

Speaker 1

Agreed, most don't Small business owners will buy a disability policy themselves, right, but not regular employees. That's not normal. And also regular employees, I would say meaning just normal everyday, usually cover 65% of your income, not not regular employees, that's not normal. And also regular employees, I would say meaning just normal everyday, usually cover 65% of your income, not 50%. Yeah, uh, and there's, but there's a max, so you have to pay attention to that max.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so even in our own policies here one day, I think it was like two years ago I was going through.

Speaker 1

it was like, oh, we have great disability for a long-term disability for everybody, and then I realized that the max was like $2,000 a month. I was like oh no wonder this is so cheap. It's like no, we gotta, we gotta change this. So we have, we have. At my company we do two tiers. We have tier for what I would call staff and then advisors.

Speaker 2

It pays much hires, and so there and you pay for it for us, so we appreciate that.

Speaker 1

Our company covers a hundred percent of it, but we have two different tiers so that way I can have two different fees. So it drops the cost a little bit. Someone who's making 60 grand a year versus somebody making 200 grand a year that premium is very different. So you want to segregate the category. So small business owners that are missing are listening. That's a. That's one technique to get everyone fully covered, but but have two different classes of of disability. We had a client airline pilot client that said hey, his grandfather had this medical issue, His dad had this medical issue. Chances are he in the next 15 years.

Speaker 1

He could also. He's a young guy. He could also have the same medical issues, hereditary he he wants to make sure that he's got coverage.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Cause he could pass all the tests now, right. So so we started looking. It was very interesting that, um, in his situation he didn't feel like 50% was enough. He wanted to close that gap. To close that gap, uh, like a Harvey white policy. Even at his he was middle-aged, I guess, uh, or or almost middle-aged, uh, it was going to be about uh $350 a month and then and then that does that's not a level premium. As you get older, you know you pay. You have to pay a little higher, depending on how far you take out the policy.

Speaker 1

Uh, they had policies that would go 10 years, 20 years there's policies take all the way to. Yeah, they had policies that would go 10 years, 20 years. There's policies take all the way to retirement. Those are really expensive, like $600 a month. Right. So if when you start going down this road and you start looking at these subliminal policies, they're not cheap?

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So even even the airline pilots association, their policies, I would not call them cheap. If you're young they're cheap, yeah, but when you really start thinking about this stuff in your forties, when you're not invincible anymore, it's not going to be. You know, it's probably easier to figure out a way to live on 50% of your income than it is to have to pay monthly for these things.

Speaker 2

Well, and this is a good point, especially if you have something medically in your family and you know this.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And the insurance is expensive. Maybe you split it, maybe you do cut back expenses, but you do buy the insurance for now, and then you just save as much as possible and invest as much as possible and live. You know I'm not saying don't live. You know we have to live today too, but there's a good balance there, you know. And that way you just know that you need to save more. You can always reduce the insurance or cancel it later. It's just harder to get later.

Speaker 1

Yeah, correct. So every family is going to have their own unique challenges. I would argue that if I had a stay-at-home spouse, that you probably wouldn't want to pay the premium.

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Because, you're the sole income provider. You're the sole income provider, and if it goes away, then you're having to make up that difference. Yeah.

Speaker 1

That's just like anything else in financial planning. There's not general advice that you can give. It really comes down to each individual family.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

It's really hard to give advice to the masses other than this is something that should be addressed in your financial planning, and I think most companies are not looking at it, or you talk to an insurance agent and they want to sell you everything right, and so you should not get disability advice from the person who's selling the disability policy.

Speaker 2

Right, you should see how much you actually need that's a huge, that's a huge conflict of interest.

Speaker 2

Well, I tell you the the common denominator in all of those things how much do I need to retire? How much life insurance do I need? How much does? All of it has to do with your spending and your saving. How much do you spend, how much do you save, right? So if you're a good saver and you don't spend that much you know percentage wise then maybe you don't eat as much because you saved a lot. It just depends where you are in that cycle. Sure, it just completely depends. So, to your point, it's not one size fits all. It can't be, because somebody over here may be spending 90% of what they're making and somebody over here is spending 40% of what they're making, so that means they're saving a whole lot.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And they're, you know, maybe their expenses are reasonable. But what is reasonable depends how much they're making, I suppose percentage-wise. So it has to be customized and everyone has different situations with how many children or illnesses, or every situation is different.

Speaker 1

I mean, think about this. So what if you had a young person who was coming in who had some debt to eliminate, was a young pilot, yeah, but they're living on almost all their money. I mean, would you, would you and there is a need for this would you say you should buy additional disability, or would you focus on the other things first?

Speaker 2

That is hard. I think it would depend if they're married, have children, all of those things. But we know that their income is increasing exponentially in the next couple of years. So I would say focus on paying on the debt in that situation. If they're young, pilot and generally healthy, you know.

Speaker 2

I mean if you're so early in their career, they may have to retrain to do something else. You know eventually. I mean, if you're in your early twenties or mid twenties, I mean it may be that you trained to do cause you have a whole life ahead of you, so go back to change it to it's a mid-career pilot who's the primary breadwinner in their family. Yeah, I would. That's in debt. Yeah, I would say cut back on expenses but add the insurance, do both but cut back on expenses, and that in and of itself would help pay down the debt yeah I mean you'd have to do both.

Speaker 2

That's where. That's where that is hard. Hard conversations have have to be had, right, you know. But the stress of the stress of debt and just living in that situation anyway, that just eats away at your health, yeah, that can drive you towards more disability, just the stress of that distress of being in debt. Now sometimes you can't help it because something happens or you know it's not like they may not just be overspenders, it could have been another situation that was out of their control and you just have, yeah, or something you just have to work through that. Yeah, you know the only way out of that is through and it's hard. That's that's where you know you won't be in that situation again. If you go through that, because you're going to work your way out of that hopefully, and realize how hard it is.

Speaker 1

One thing I want to note that we haven't covered yet is the. In the Delta world you have DPMA for the first year you can get. You get two years worth of it. So if you come back to work but something happens you have to go back out, you can get another year.

Taking Action and Finding Support

Speaker 2

Just not consecutive, just not consecutive, but the Harvey, wyatt and the Alpa policies.

Speaker 1

They pay on top of the Delta policy. Right, so you're not doing one or the other where sometimes policies like well, they have to pay out first and then we'll only cover up to the difference when, up to a maximum that's not what's happening here you can cover a good chunk of your income. So if you're getting 50% covered and you're going to buy another 20 or 25% or 30%, you can do that.

Speaker 2

On top of On top of.

Speaker 1

I don't think they'll let you go over a hundred percent of your income?

Speaker 2

They will not. They will not and no insurance companies will do that. They see what other policies you have and you can't go over it because then you're not incentivized to work.

Speaker 1

Right, exactly so. Just keep that in mind that these are the supplemental policies built for pilots are done on top of what your company is paying, right, and probably a good exercise kind of a boring exercise, but it's a good exercise to go in and understand what actually happens if you're disabled and the number one place to go is your company's retirement insurance committee.

Speaker 1

Like everybody the guys and girls in those committees they shouldn't understand what's happening with us. Um, and then after that, obviously you'd have company resources to go to. Uh, probably in your intranet somewhere there there's going to be um, uh, a, uh. A chart showing how this works. Hopefully.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Uh, or when open enrollment comes around, you're staring at short-term and long-term disability options. Either you're a pilot or not a pilot. That's when you need to address this. When we really started focusing this in our financial planning, I found that our existing clients been here for years. When I said send me your short-term disability and long-term disability, because if you say, do you have it, they say yes. And then when I ask, I say well, send me the details. And when they send me the details, a lot of the email responses were hey, I thought I had it, but I have to elect it during open enrollment and I didn't do it. So then my team sent a scheduled email for October of whatever year it could be.

Speaker 1

eight months away it says don't forget to sign up for short term, long, long-term disability during your open enrollment. So we have lots of scheduled emails to remind people during open enrollment that they need to make some changes now and, like I know, specifically in the Delta plan. Um, you're not making any changes in open enrollment cause it's all just. This is all set for you.

Speaker 4

Uh.

Speaker 1

Southwest plan. I know that you have lots of options inside open enrollment and it goes from very inexpensive to very expensive, Same way with other airlines. You have to make these choices during open enrollment periods. So, that's a good time to evaluate that Open enrollment should not be a period where what's the? Cheapest I can get all this stuff. No, no, making sure you have enough coverage Things that a good financial planner is focusing on because we know that we have our clients on track for retirement. But what are all the things that can derail?

Speaker 2

The plan.

Speaker 1

Yeah, derail the plan. It's not just dying Again, it's stuff like this too. Absolutely so I think some of our action items for pilots is hey, go and understand what your policies are, review these policies, identify if there's any gaps. Remember, if you're disabled, you're probably not riding your jet skis. You're probably not doing all these different things, right, you're probably focused on your health. I would think so. In that case, maybe your costs come way down, and that's good, right, or otherwise you need to figure out hey, how do I eliminate some of this debt?

Speaker 1

Maybe my mortgage is too big, maybe I need to be rethinking about some big picture stuff and make things a little more conservative for me so that if I get in trouble then I have a much easier time of it. Yeah, so being disabled and having to sell my home.

Speaker 2

Right Right During that time period?

Speaker 1

Uh, obviously, uh, speaking with your financial advisor who understands aviation, right, all of our advisors here are real versed. We were joking yesterday Uh, I can't do this, I don't think I'll get, I'll get in trouble with the SEC, but we should have, like, um, uh, our own designation for all our, all our advisors, especially our new ones, and say that, that, that they're they're, they're pilot certified. Certified pilot advisors right, oh, there you go.

Speaker 2

CPA oh, that'd be CPA. I don't know. Yeah, that's true. Maybe you mean wiser, put a W in front of it Wiser.

Speaker 1

certified pilot advisors.

Speaker 2

I don't know why you can't do that.

Speaker 1

Well, if you use it in marketing, I think that's where people get a little cross. But yes, all of our pilots here, or all of our advisors here, have been well-versed in pilot lingo. Nobody's going to ask you what route you flew. I think the most common thing recently that I've heard about in our meetings has been pilots being told by other advisors that their 401k contributions aren't correct and they contact HR to get the real number. I'm like no, they actually put 16, 17, 18% in.

Speaker 2

There.

Speaker 1

That's a real thing and they don't understand it. And that's when they end up calling us going.

Speaker 4

Hey.

Speaker 1

I saw you on the on a chat board or saw, saw that listen to your podcast and I need to come in and talk to you because no one understands this. This lifestyle, uh, probably the biggest one. Uh, there's a really nice family. Uh, son son's a delta pilot, dad's a delta chief pilot and he told me that, um, he had a niece or something at northwestern mutual that told, told him to stop contributing to his 401k plan altogether and then take all the money and put it into a whole life policy.

Speaker 1

He's like. He's like, let's just. I'll listen to some a few of your podcasts. This doesn't sound right, so I thought I'd just call you up and go through your planning. Uh, go through your planning service.

Closing Thoughts and Additional Resources

Speaker 1

Oh, that just makes me French and I kind of forgot about it and oh, that just makes me cringe and I kind of forgot about it. And at the end of the session we do it over three meetings. So at the end of the third meeting he kind of joked and said so you don't think I should buy this whole life insurance?

Speaker 2

I was like no, absolutely not, you don't even have to tell them. They figure it out during the process. They don't want their money locked up, right yeah exactly, but yeah.

Speaker 1

So if you want to get quotes for Harvey Watt or Alpa, alpa is really easy. Go to your Alpa login. It'll have a couple of different options. One is like a 10-year payout, the other one's a longer-term payout and then Harvey Watt has a.

Speaker 1

They actually have a tool on their website you can get your own quote without having to talk to anybody, and it'll tell you approximately how much, how much a monthly benefit would be. We don't obviously aren't endorsing any of those companies. I'm just I'm unfamiliar with any other company that would cover a pilot. That's the only reason why we're talking about those. Or they will cover a pilot, but they, they won't cover your medical loss of medical Right.

Speaker 1

That's a big deal, right. And then really, if you don't have a financial plan, you really should have one. We did 157 pilot plans last year. These are now 157 families that have a clear path and blueprint going forward.

Speaker 1

Probably another hundred pilots came in and refreshed their plans which is really important, you do that every year or two years and and just know that this stuff is in place and you don't have to worry about it. Go live your best life, right, but you got to do some adult stuff in the process. Anyway, anything else to add, shauna?

Speaker 2

No, I think that was great.

Speaker 1

You and Michaela work with a lot of pilots we do. Every time I walk by, I was like I think I recognize that guy. Um, all right, so thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're interested in learning more about Wiser Wealth Management, I want to schedule a consultation meet with one of our fiduciary financial advisors. You can do so by go by going to wiserinvestorcom or click the link in the episode notes.

Speaker 4

Thanks again for listening and we'll see you guys again next week. Thank you. The host and or guests may personally own securities, digital assets or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast. Neither the host nor guests of the show are compensated for their participation and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients, listeners or similar interests. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional and or legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. No-transcript.

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Casey Smith

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