The Sugar Daddy Podcast
Ready to normalize talking about money? Then welcome to The Sugar Daddy Podcast. Every episode will get you one step closer to your financial goals. Whether that is learning how to invest, budget, save, retire early or simply make better money choices, Jess & Brandon have got you covered in a way that's easy to understand, and easy to implement. Tune in as they demystify the realm of dollars, so it all makes cents, while giving you a glimpse into their relationship with money and each other.
Brandon is an award winning licensed financial planner, and owner of Oak City Financial, with over a decade of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the United States.
New episodes published the first three Wednesdays of every month.
The Sugar Daddy Podcast
104: No More GoFundMe Funerals | The Life Insurance Talk You Can’t Afford to Skip
GoFundMe should never be your family’s financial plan.
In this episode Jess & Brandon break down why life insurance is a non-negotiable part of smart financial planning, no matter your age, income, or relationship status.
They share a powerful, heartbreaking story of a brilliant friend who passed away at 38, leaving behind a wife and young child with no coverage, and no financial protection. It’s a harsh wake-up call and a reminder that life can change in an instant.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why everyone needs life insurance, even if you're single or child-free
- Why employer-provided coverage is usually not enough
- How your health and age impact coverage cost (and why timing matters)
- How to set up beneficiaries correctly for estate planning
- Why life insurance isn’t about fear, it’s about love and legacy
This episode isn’t just informative, it’s personal. Whether you're building wealth or just starting your financial journey, this conversation could be the most important one you hear all year.
Watch this episode in video form on YouTube
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You can email us at: thesugardaddypodcast@gmail.com
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Notes from the show:
Episode 59: Wills & Trusts: Essential Estate Planning Tips from Attorney, Nicola Rochester Robinson
Episode 7: Protection Planning: Why You Need Life and Disability Insurance
In today's episode we talk about why you need life insurance. Hard stop Doesn't matter if you don't have kids, if you're not married, if you don't own a home. You need life insurance. Tune in to find out why.
Speaker 2:Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
Speaker 1:Today we are going to talk about no more GoFundMe funerals. They are like breaking my heart. You need life insurance. Today, we are talking about why you need life insurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately it hits home for so many people and it hits home for us. We know people who unfortunately have had, you know, family members pass away that didn't have life insurance and then, like she said, ends up being a GoFundMe in order to simply bury them, and then, on top of that, you're not even thinking about the ongoing finances that the remaining family members you know may have. Unfortunately, someone that was a close friend of my brother's passed away unexpectedly and, you know, wasn't even 39 years old yet and, you know, is married with a wife and kid and unfortunately doesn't have any life insurance and there's currently a GoFundMe to help out with the expenses.
Speaker 1:And unfortunately he left behind now a widow and a four-year-old. And this particular person had a PhD, was highly educated, worked in the university system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not due to a lack of intelligence, because I would say he's always been a very intelligent person, and this is often with a lot of people. I've always said before that financial literacy doesn't necessarily correlate with your you know intelligence in other areas. I would say all my clients are extremely intelligent people and some of them even more intelligent than myself. In you know many areas, yeah, many areas, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they understand you know. It doesn't mean that you necessarily understand your finances and things that you need to do from a preparation standpoint when it comes to we refer to this as risk mitigation, but it's basically putting protection in place in case you aren't there, that you'll have some type of money coming in to help your family.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think if we start from the very basics right, let's say you don't have a house, you don't have a family, you don't have a partner, you don't have kids, you will still need to be buried Hard stop. Whether you have a big, lavish funeral or not, something will need to happen to dispose of your body, and that alone is going to push $10,000.
Speaker 2:That's without a casket. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't realize how much a basic funeral is, and that's where it starts. But one of the reasons that I always push for individuals to get a life insurance policy as soon as possible is because there's also you have to pay for it. You have to be able to pay for the life insurance policy Also. You have to pay for it. You have to be able to pay for the life insurance policy, and the sooner you get it, the younger you are, the less it costs.
Speaker 2:So, if you are somebody that's fresh out of college, so you're 22 years old and you're like what do I need a life insurance policy for?
Speaker 2:It's going to cost you like 17 cents. You might not need like for the traditional reason that you think of a life insurance policy like you're not married, you don't have kids yeah. Insurance policy Like you don't. You're not married, you don't have kids yeah, you don't need it for those reasons. But do you plan on having those one day? There's going to be reasons in the future and you're getting it now, while you're healthy and it costs less, because, when it comes to life insurance, these are the factors that come into play determining how much it costs for you to have life insurance. Number one your age. Actually, number one is your health, I apologize. Number one is your health, I apologize. Number one is your health.
Speaker 1:normally, the younger you are, the healthier you are we understand that there are exceptions, so we're talking about best case scenario when you're young and I'm also talking about you could be a healthy person.
Speaker 2:You just have, like, things that come with age right that are they're going to happen, so normally it's easier.
Speaker 2:The younger you are, normally healthy you the healthier you are. Second is age. Life insurance pricing is based off of your probability of dying. You have a significantly lower probability of dying when you're younger, so you pay less as compared to if you get a policy when you're older. Your probability of dying is increased because you are now, say, in your 40s instead of in your 20s. So it's going to cost you more. Even if you have the same health rating. Even if you are literally just as healthy as you are at 40 years old as you were at 20 years old, it's going to cost you more because you are 20 years older and a higher probability of dying.
Speaker 2:All right, real quick. I want to speak to the person listening who feels like they can't work with a financial planner yet because they're carrying a lot of debt. First of all, I see you and I need you to know you're not broken, you're not behind, you're just in a tough season. I created something just for you because I've had people reach out who are serious about changing their money story. But the full financial planning package just wasn't the right fit yet, so I built a new service through Oak City Financial that's focused completely on debt reduction. No fluff, no shame. You'll get a one-time planning session, a personalized payoff strategy, your own financial dashboard and monthly coaching. If you want extra support while you climb out, it's $300 to get started and $100 a month if you want that ongoing guidance, that's it. This is about helping you get unstuck, not making you feel. If this sounds like what you've been needing, go ahead and schedule a call with me. The link is in the show notes. Let's take the first step together, all right?
Speaker 1:I mean, we've said this on numerous episodes, but I in particular am so glad that we got our insurance policies when we did, because we put those in place. Then I had my thyroid removed. I have some chronic inflammatory things with my back. I've had two C-sections. I've now had a shoulder surgery. Like life has been lifing and I know for sure I'm at least 40 pounds heavier. I mean, all of those things would have prevented us or prevented me.
Speaker 2:Or just increased the price.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from getting the policy that we have or made it much more expensive. So I'm very grateful. And even then we could have started younger.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we still could have gone younger. I had older policies that my mom had gotten me when I was a kid that I still have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you're never as young as you are today.
Speaker 2:No, and the thing is is that unfortunately still the majority of people don't have any life insurance in America. And then a lot of people that have life insurance are underinsured Because I would say majority of people the policy that they have in place, that they do have one, is through their employer, which is great, 100%. Take advantage of that, and I would always applaud someone for doing something rather than doing nothing. But if we can improve upon that, why not? Because normally with your employer you maybe have one on average, maybe two to three times your income. So, for example, say you're a 35-year-old, you make $100,000 a year. Maybe you have $300,000 in life insurance. However, I guarantee you that if I did a financial dive on your life, you could probably qualify for at least $1.5 million and your situation might call for that, especially if you have a wife, kids, stuff of that nature. So you do want to obviously take advantage of that employer one because it's easy. You do want to obviously take advantage of that employer one because it's easy. Normally the underwriting is the process that you have to go through to determine if you're eligible for life insurance policy. Normally, the underwriting process is either very limited or not very much at all. So take advantage of that, but then also take that extra step.
Speaker 2:You're listening to this podcast. Contact me. We can go through this and see if it makes sense for you to have more life insurance. One of the things that we did because, like I said before, you have to be eligible for life insurance, so there could be things that happen that make you ineligible for it, and one of the things that we did is that we put policies on our kids, and the policy on our kids, the main purpose of doing this was that it has a feature that allows them to buy additional life insurance up to a certain point in the future, even if they're uninsurable, so they could have something that happens, god forbid. Something happens where they're going to live a healthy life, but it maybe made them uninsurable. You know, we have friends of ours that unfortunately, were diagnosed with MS very early in their 20s and that makes you ineligible often, or close to it.
Speaker 2:Or very expensive or very expensive for life insurance policy. So things like that can happen. But we have something in place where our kids can at least get a certain amount of life insurance without having to worry about that medical aspect.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think too, you have people all the time that reach out because they know they need it and then never follow through. They don't actually schedule the unwriting, they don't finish the process, and that's the problem, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the tough part the individual that we were talking about earlier that passed away, you know, leaving a wife and child behind me, and him had had conversations about, you know, leaving a wife and child behind me, and him had had conversations about, you know, putting a life insurance in place. I followed up with them numerous times and, unfortunately, I can only do what I can do on my end. I can't, you know, I can bring a horse to water, but I can't force it to drink, and so, unfortunately, we never got a policy put in place. But that, just, you know, just knows, for me, like this is something that, like I have these conversations with all of our friends Because I never want to have something happen to one of our friends and I didn't have the conversation with them. Or like we have a friend that passes away and they don't have any life insurance, and it's like for me, I'm like this is what I do for a living, like how could I not have had this conversation with them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's so crazy too, because I've literally had family members text to say, hey, do you know somebody who can do life insurance? Do you know somebody who can do disability insurance? And I'm like, yes, brandon, brandon does that. He does it every single day. Like, even if you're not ready for financial planning, even if you don't want to do debt reduction, like you can go to Brandon for insurance policies, lots of different insurance vehicles.
Speaker 2:And also if you are, if you're all of our friends, if they list, they're listening and they know this because this is true and any new friends that come to our life. I have that conversation. I'm not saying you have to do life insurance with me or whatever, and this isn't for me like self serving, is trying to put money in my, my pocket, because, in all honesty, I don't make a lot off the policies that I do. This is not the main portion of my business at all.
Speaker 2:But the reason I do that is that it brings the topic up, makes them hopefully think about it. They do have something in place, great. If they don't, maybe they'll do with me or maybe they'll do with somebody else, whatever it may be. But the biggest thing is that, like I said, I don't want to have someone close to us pass away and they don't have anything in place to take care of their family. And I could have made a difference in putting something there, because then I'm not going to feel good about myself.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think too, the big thing is, yes, you will need. You don't want to pass away and then be a burden in some way on your family, right, which is man, we should be grieving you, but now we're having to raise money so that we can bury you properly. That's step one. Right, we have to bury you. But then the second part is living expenses, right, like what if you were the breadwinner? What if you were the person bringing in the bulk of the income? In a family situation?
Speaker 1:Life insurance is there to cover the expenses that your income would have normally covered. So you're thinking about your mortgage, your car payments, your light bill, your water, your school tuition, all the things that you pay for every single day. That is what insurance is in place for. And, I'll be honest, I'm so grateful because you know, we had, um, this person recently passed away and I had a former colleague unexpectedly pass away.
Speaker 1:This is it's starting to happen more and more for a variety of reasons, and what I'm really grateful for is that I know I wouldn't need to go fund me, right, if Brandon passed away, if I passed away. But also I'm most grateful for the fact that I know if something happened to Brandon, I would be able to step away and take the time to grieve, to take care of our children. And take the time to grieve, to take care of our children, to spend time in therapy, to spend time crying my eyes out without getting out of bed. Whatever I need to do, it's not going to be setting up a GoFundMe and worrying about where our food is coming from. It's not going to be worrying about how we're going to pay the bills, and that's the kind of comfort and security that I want other people to have, because that's really what it's about. It's about covering those daily expenses for X amount of time. We have young kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So thinking about okay, let's get them to, let's say, 18, 20 years old. You know, that's another 13 plus years for our children.
Speaker 2:Most people don't realize that their most valued asset is literally their ability to continue working and bring in a future income, and so for a lot of people, the life insurance policy being put in place is an insurance against that. So, for example, just think Just easy numbers Like say, you make $100,000 a year, you have a two-year-old. Now you want the two-year-old, you have a wife and a two-year-old and you're bringing in $100,000 a year. You want to make sure that if something happened to you today, your income is there to support your family until your child, at least, is out of the house. So, 22 years old, let's just say so.
Speaker 2:That's 20 years, 20 years, 20 years. A hundred thousand, that's $2 million right there. $2 million right there. And that's not even taking into account inflation. You know, and also you know any type of raises or salary bumps that you would get throughout the years. Easy, right there, just 2 million. And people don't really understand that. So, like you might think that like I only make a hundred thousand dollars, I'm not going to have a large life insurance policy, I can show you You're worth at least $2 million right there.
Speaker 1:What would you say to people I know online? A lot of times people are like you need at least 10x your income. Is that a good number?
Speaker 2:That's a good starting point.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But then you honestly really need to get more into the details of your personal financial situation Because, as I said before, there's a lot of factors actually go into determining what you would properly need for life insurance. So what is the amount of money that you're bringing in currently? How old are you? What is the what percentage of the income that you're bringing in like funds? Your household, you know, for example, so like if you're the only income in your household and you got 20 more years to your child's other house, you might want you probably want to go more than 10x right right as compared to, like you know, for example, like in our scenario, where it just makes more than I do.
Speaker 2:Maybe I don't need to go full max, but you still want to have enough. As you said, that you take like that. You don't want to add that additional financial burden on top of the emotional burden that comes with losing someone that you love, and that's the biggest thing there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's where I find the most comfort, Not that I would get a big check, but knowing that I could take the time that me and the kids would need to grieve to navigate.
Speaker 2:The thing is too, is that you won't have to worry about uprooting their life either, because in a lot of these scenarios, if you, if the person passes away and the finances you know now, it's a hardship, maybe if it's still the house change, change now you're going to move to a different location, put your kid in a different school.
Speaker 2:So, on top of losing their parent, now they're losing their friends, they're losing the house that they were used to, they're losing the room that they were sleeping in. So it's all those things that are added to it and, in all honesty, if you are a healthy individual and you are, you know, especially if you're like in your 30s, even your early 40s life insurance is so affordable.
Speaker 1:We're talking about term life insurance.
Speaker 2:Yes, term, this is what we're talking about. I don't I this. I obviously we're talking about life insurance, but this conversation I want to focus on term insurance, because whole life is not bad. It's implemented in the wrong scenarios, which is why people think it's bad, but we're focusing on term. Term should be the first type of life insurance that you do get as an adult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like a 20-year term.
Speaker 2:Yes, 100%.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the people who are, like I'm overinsured.
Speaker 2:That's not possible Because, at the end of the day, it's still a business. The life insurance company is still in the business of making money, so they're not going to insure you for more than what they deem you quote, unquote to be worth. They've done the numbers, they have all the data. It's in their favor. And also, too, with term policies. Majority of term policies do not pay out, which is the good thing.
Speaker 1:I mean it's insurance. You hope to not use it.
Speaker 2:I mean it's less than 5% term policies that pay out, because the main purpose of a term policy is premature death. Most people still die of old age. That's why life expectancy is between 84 to 87 years old. These policies a term policy is put in place if something happens to you and you die before that time period, and they're there to help take care of your family because the money that you were bringing in is no longer there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about, for a second, beneficiaries and making sure that your beneficiaries are up to date and that minor're up to date? Reason being is that we're in the season where you know we have friends that are getting married, friends are getting divorced, all the above, and the last thing you want to do is some have something happened to you and the beneficiary and your policy is incorrect because you never updated it where you were married before got divorced and you need to change your beneficiary to your new wife, and you didn't do that, and it's still your ex-wife and legally to your new wife, and you didn't do that, and it's still your ex-wife and legally there's nothing I can do about that I just saw.
Speaker 2:I've had scenarios, I've heard of scenarios having that happen yeah, that's a, that's a moral dilemma.
Speaker 1:We'll have to do a separate episode on like what would you do? Or?
Speaker 2:but also on top of that, you shouldn't name a minor as a beneficiary directly. Why. Reason being is that then it would go through probate and it's a legal process in order for them to get the money, because the money can't go straight to them.
Speaker 1:So who do you name as the beneficiary if you want it to go to your minor children? So what I would?
Speaker 2:honestly recommend doing, especially if you have children.
Speaker 1:this is part of the whole financial planning is that you also need to have a will, so within your will, you can also dictate who would get your children in the event of something happening to the both of you. We have an entire episode on that estate planning and, yeah, coverage for your children and within a and within a will.
Speaker 2:You also do have um normally a testamentary trust, and you can name the trust within the will as a beneficiary and, with the trust, would dictate, in the language of the trust, what how the money would be um handled in regards to who's going to handle it and all the rules that you want to.
Speaker 2:You know whatever rules you want to put around in regards to the money, but that's what I would name as the beneficiary. So, to make it easy, the way that we have our setup is that Jess and I are the primary beneficiaries of each one of our policies. All right, now you also have the ability to name a secondary slash contingent beneficiary. So if something happened to both of us at the same time, what would happen to our money? As a secondary beneficiary, on both of our policies, we have our trust named and our trust is dictating how the money would be used to raise our children and also has, within our will, tells who will get our kids and also who would be in charge of giving out that money to make sure that it's used wisely.
Speaker 1:And, just as an aside, the people who you would maybe designate as guardians of your children do not also have to be the guardians of the money, correct?
Speaker 2:You can't name somebody else that maybe is just really so. You have somebody in your life that's really good with money but, like, obviously they may not be good with raising your kids. They could be the person that helps out with that. Or vice versa, yeah, you can also name financial institutions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there are options. I know this episode is supposed to be about life insurance, but, coming back to do not name the minor as the beneficiary put other processes in place to ensure that that money goes and operates the way you would want it to, so that you know that teenager doesn't blow through your life insurance because they think that they need, you know, new sneakers and new outfits and things that aren't going to matter five years from now. So I think really we don't want to beat the dead horse, but there's just been too many examples this year alone of people not having proper protections in place and again, you hope to never use your insurance, just like you hope to not use your homeowner's insurance or your car insurance or our postnup or a prenup right.
Speaker 2:I hate seeing the money come out. I don't hate it. I don't hate money. It's not fun. Yeah, it's not fun. Yeah, but that's also part of being an adult. You got to be an adult about certain things and, in all honesty like I might sound mean or whatever, but like if you are married and especially if you have kids and you don't have these protections in place, you're not being responsible. You're not. You're not loving your family, you're not Like. The last thing that I would want Jess to have to deal with if I passed away is also having financial hardship because of this also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and vice versa.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, for all the reasons we just mentioned. So reach out if you Need life insurance, if you have questions about life insurance, obviously get what you can through your employer. If you're not utilizing that, when open enrollment comes up, make sure that you're signing up for that. And then there's other insurances as well. I know you're really big, for example, on disability insurance, because you're actually much more likely to become permanently disabled.
Speaker 2:Not even permanently disabled, to experience some sort of disability that prevents you from working for a certain period of time, right, most of the time, you're not permanently disabled, not even permanently disabled, to experience some sort of sort of disability that prevents you from working for a certain period of time right like most time. You're not permanently disabled when you go on claim versus accidental death, right?
Speaker 1:so there are different kinds of insurance vehicles is what they're called in the financial services industry that you can put in place to just make sure that you are covered. And if you are, you either don't have those or you're like, oh, this isn't important, I don't need this anymore. Please reach out.
Speaker 2:I also want to stress this too, because within the black community, insurance has not been that good for us All right, historically. But things have changed and you can't carry over what your great-grandfather or great-grandmother was telling you into today.
Speaker 1:Or even your cousin Pookie. You don't know what that person's experience was, how educated they were, who they were working with, were they reputable? There is absolutely something to be said about non-reputable people in the financial services industry, and we all know people who've gotten screwed in some way or another.
Speaker 2:I think it's funny. You say a cousin pookie.
Speaker 1:Everybody has a pookie. You don't Everybody has a pookie and you've got like 45 first cousins. Everybody has a pookie. Everybody has a pookie. Listen, it doesn't matter what happened to somebody else and what their story is. Don't take that into your scenario.
Speaker 2:Speak with a professional.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And when I say a professional, I always preface this with when you go to meet, especially when it comes to life insurance, disability insurance. When you're speaking with someone, they should be asking you a lot of questions off the bat to understand what your situation is and what would be best for you. If they're already trying to offer you a certain product, certain amount, whatever it may be, without asking all these questions, then you need to talk to somebody else.
Speaker 2:As I said before, this is one of the things that I do. Feel free to reach out to me, but there's a lot of other people out there that do this the right way also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can ask if they're a fiduciary, meaning they have legal obligation to do the right thing for you, not for them. We have another whole episode on red flags and things to look out for when you're working with somebody. But don't let somebody else's bad story impact you, not taking care of yourself and your family.
Speaker 2:Stop putting it off, because I think like I don't when people don't have life insurance, I don't think it's on, I don't think it's from bad intentions, right, I think that they want to do it, but then, like everyday life gets in the way and it's just like, oh, I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it. You need to make time for it. Like it's going to take some time to do some new things. You're going to have to set aside dedicated time to do it, but once you have it done, you don't have to worry about it Now. Obviously, you revisit your plan periodically, but like we have peace of mind, like God forbid, something happened to either one of us that part of our financial plan is taken care of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give yourself peace of mind, give your family peace of mind. Get it done, prioritize it and stop putting it off because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Reach out if you have any questions. Brandon can answer your questions. He can also get you the life insurance that you need and give you quotes and pricing and all of that. But please prioritize this and do not put it off.
Speaker 1:Share this episode with a friend because, like we said, it doesn't matter who you are, what you have family, not family, house, no house. You need life insurance, even if it's a small policy to bury you. We'll talk to you soon, don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest you just got paid Until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with your friends, family and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media. At the Sugar Daddy Podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our. Pass the Sugar segments at thesugardaddypodcast at gmailcom or leave us a voicemail through our Instagram.
