On the Spectrum with Sonia Krishna Chand

Beyond the Diagnosis: Financial Planning for Special Needs Families

• Sonia Krishna Chand • Season 2 • Episode 35

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Michael Pereira, an insurance specialist and father of a son with autism, shares critical financial planning strategies for families with special needs children. He offers insight into comprehensive insurance planning that protects dependents with special needs if something happens to their caregivers.

• Michael's strong passion is helping special needs families after his son's autism diagnosis
• Three key areas of focus: income protection, funding special needs trusts, and long-term care planning
• Financial planning gets more expensive and difficult to qualify for as you age
• Special needs trusts protect government benefits while providing for children's futures
• Building an "A-team" of professionals is essential: attorney, insurance advisor, accountant, and specialized coaches
• Different insurance carriers have different qualification requirements, offering options for varied situations
• The Autism Voyage blog provides resources for parents researching special needs topics

For more information or to connect with Michael, visit www.theautismvoyage.com where you can read blog posts, subscribe to the newsletter, or book a call with Michael or his team.


Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of On the Spectrum with Sonia, where we discuss autism spectrum mental health challenges and highlight stories of anybody who's overcome adversity. That provides listeners feeling connected, encouraged and filled with hope and love in a world that continuously wants us to feel disconnected. Hope and love in a world that continuously wants us to feel disconnected. Today's episode is going to take a little bit of a twist because yet we are talking about autism and special needs, but from a different angle. Many people who may be listening may have kids who have special needs or is on the autism spectrum, is on the autism spectrum, and let me ask for all of those listening who have kids with special needs are you covered financially in the sense of do you have protection in the event something happens to you so that your kids will be taken care of, so that your kids will be taken care of?

Speaker 1:

Today we have Michael Pereira, who deals with life insurance. He's a father of a son who is on the autism spectrum. He is based out of Florida, but he's coming here to talk about the main overall concepts that people need to start thinking about if you are a person who has a special needs child. So, michael, thank you so much for your time and for being here today. Why don't you tell us a little bit about you, and then we're going to delve into topics that you feel that everybody needs to know.

Speaker 2:

Of course, of course, and first of all, thank you so much for having me, sonia, it's very, very, very excited to be here. I would say everything started when my son was diagnosed three years and a half ago. He's six, he's seven next month. Well, I was in corporate America, traveling a lot and I was never home. And based upon that lifestyle, my wife and myself, we wanted to build a family the American dream. So we got married, bought a house, christian came along, our firstborn and around one year old, we started to notice several symptoms that we knew that needed to be addressed. But obviously a lot of things happened in our mind, from denial, from not you know, procrastinating, and we just decided to give it some time to see what would happen. Covid came by, didn't need to travel anymore, so I was able to be present and a lot of those symptoms just reduced. And I don't know why, if it's again because maybe I was here, maybe the attention was a hundred percent to him, or because I'm stricter than my wife, but regardless it reduced. But when COVID uh released that I needed to travel again, my intensity of travel started. A lot of those symptoms reduced, um, increased and increased full force in the sense that, um, he was non-verbal at that moment. Well, he started hitting him, his head against the wall, tippy-toeing, uh, aligning stuff, and even though he was, I would say, non-verbal, slash verbal, he was starting to say a couple words. Um, you know, we started noticing that, that type of regression, right, going back, right. So, um, long story short, tried to look, uh, for another employer, or two other employers, to see if I can do the same but travel less in order to be at home. I did, obviously, get into other employers, but when you go into startups you do different type of hats and not not necessarily the role you were contracted for and not necessarily the role you were contracted for.

Speaker 2:

And along that time, I would say, I started asking myself very deep questions around hey, okay, what's going to happen if I pass away? What's going to happen if my wife in her pregnancy, she got, you know it was hard on her health. So I started asking, hey, what if something happens to her? Who's going to take care of our son, knowing that, for example, even if it's my mom, which she adores our children, she's an amazing grandmother, but at the end of the day, physically it's very tough to be able to for her to take care of Christian and, for example, amanda, that they're so hyper. You see him on top of the sofa and you know it's tough. So I started asking myself all these questions and I started looking for my own financial advisor and planner and everybody just wanted to sell me something or recruit me.

Speaker 2:

At the same time, got very frustrated and I just decided to you know what part ways from the corporate world and try to see if I can help families like like mine. Obviously it, and everybody starts somewhere. So I started and did my own thing until I was able to align with my purpose, which is, again, helping families like mine, because there's a lot of things I would say that us, as parents, do not think about. It's not often talked about about all the unexpected issues that can happen, and even more when somebody depends on you 100%. So, yeah, that's how everything started. That's how I'm here, I was able to create the Autism Voyage. It's a blog, a blog that talks about any type of topic any parent would ask at, or research at 2 am, 3 am in the morning, like I did. And, yeah, try to just be resourceful for this community.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Well, that's a, you know, very brave thing in many ways to be able to walk away from something that you once knew and go into something different. Able to walk away from something that you once knew and go into something different, and it seems like it. You know work worked for you and it paid off in some ways, and you know you gained a lot of knowledge in that process too. You know that in skills that you were able to from first, your corporate job, you know being able, you've learned a lot of transferable skills that you were able to take into the next one and it's your next job, which you're working now is you're in insurance and you're helping families like yourself. So tell us a little bit now. What are some of the key things that people need to know? You know from your line of work, what are like, what are things that people don't think about and they need to start thinking about?

Speaker 2:

I've said this in other interviews that one of the things that even this included me at one point that you think you have time right. The more and the longer you wait, the more expensive everything is, and I think this goes in life in general. The more expensive everything is and I think this goes in life in general, but from the financial services standpoint, the more you wait to just have a conversation, it has a consequence. Why? Because the more you age, the more expensive any type of coverage is. The more you age, the less probability you have to get qualified for any type of coverage you want to look for. So what I do is comprehensive insurance planning. Basically, I would say I focus in three main areas, even though, again, there's no secret sauce. There's no secret sauce. There's no secret product. Sometimes social media tries to exaggerate something, but at the end of the day, this is old school products that have been able, that have been in the market for years. The only difference is it's being applied to a problem statement in our community. So I'm going to give you three examples of where I focus on when I speak to a family. So the first one is income protection strategy. Basically, that's a conversation that goes around around. For example, if you get a condition, an illness or injury, usually a family doesn't have a couple of years of savings just in case, right? So this type of coverage, what it does is, if you are disabled for two years, three years it would replace your income, depending on the term that person qualifies for. So, for example, why this is important? Because if Christian right now I don't know how long he's going to depend on me and I get cancer, I get a stroke, I get into a car accident, I'm two years, three years out, you know my income will get interrupted and if it's interrupted it will funnel down to, obviously, the family. So this is the type of coverage I would say that it's needed for our type of community Because, again, if you have somebody that depends on you 100%, you need to protect that income, right? So that's the first one. The second one is using life insurance to be able to fund a special needs trust. There's other ways of funding a trust. There's a special needs trust. You can use real estate, you can use a brokerage account, savings account, I believe, but for me that fluctuates, right. So having a life insurance policy as a funding mechanism for your special needs, trust. For me it's predictable. For me it's, you know, as long as you pay those premiums, you know that that policy is going to be there and it's going to pay out what it says right. So that for me is security and it's predictable.

Speaker 2:

And the third, I would say area we focus on is long-term care, more for parents. Because going back to, for example, christian, I don't know until when he's going to depend on me or us as a family and I in the elder years need help myself. I need somebody to take care of me, but he is still not independent. Nursing homes, assisting living facilities are becoming very expensive. So this is a coverage that's structured in a way to be able to have either a writer with a long-term care or a standalone coverage to be able to cater to that type of area. So those are the three areas I focus on. It's more again, comprehensive insurance planning. There's nothing just transactional. You acquire the policy and we never talk again. This is more developing a relationship, understanding what the family needs and look outside the box. At the end of the day, there's no secret product, but I think from my point of view I understand the families, I would say the pain points when talking to them around these topics.

Speaker 1:

So how do you get this conversation started? Let's say somebody comes to you and says you know that they have this, or like they have a. They're trying to figure out financially right how to plan for their family or how to plan for okay, god forbid, should something happen to me, how is you know my child going to be handled right or taken care of? Yeah, how would you even begin the conversation with people?

Speaker 2:

Just asking the right questions. I think everything starts with clarity. It's just getting, maybe even even starting with a budget sheet I have one that I usually um use and and just to understand where the family needs, to understand where they are right now, their current state, and I've had instances that I've talked to parents and after they start deep diving into what comes in and comes out of the bank account, credit cards, they notice that they can pay a membership, a double, because they didn't know. You know, it's understanding where they are, understanding their current state, and from there, after there's clarity of where they are, then talk about the needs. Right, because there's no one-size-fits-all.

Speaker 2:

There's families that have multiple family members or children, with um never divergent. If there's other families that have for example, my case, christian has autism, amanda does not. You know, there there's not one-size-fits-all and that conversation needs to happen. Right, the hard question, the hard conversations, and I would say it's very beneficial for families like ours to have an attorney, a state estate planning attorney, right, um, that coincides, this conversation coincides perfectly with uh, with an attorney that will be creating that special needs trust, because, again, one financial services obviously reinforces estate planning and vice versa. So, again, it's starting having that conversation but, at the end of the day, understanding their current state versus their objective state.

Speaker 1:

Sure. And so, like, what are factors then that you so, let's say somebody comes to you, you know they hire you, you take them on as a client. What are some factors you look into to decide what coverage would be best? Because I know with you know, know there is different kinds of insurance. There's life insurance. There's different kinds. What do you look for in order to help people to guide their decision? What are certain factors you may look at?

Speaker 2:

Of course. So, example if they're self-employed, if they're W-2, we want to know if we can complement their current employer benefits. So, if they have any short-term, long-term disability within their employer, see how we can complement that If they currently have any type of policies that usually that's the case. A lot of families already have, for example, a term. Okay, that's perfect.

Speaker 2:

But now we start asking questions around okay, does that term that you may have possibly acquired a couple years from um ago, does it also consider um a portion for your guardian right? Because, uh, for example, if if I pass away and my, let's say, I put my mother as a guardian for the children let's say Ellie and I and my wife and myself we pass away and my mom is the guardian, I need to make sure that that life insurance policy is considering her income. Why? Because if she's working, let's say as an example, and she needs to leave her work to now to become a caregiver, I want to make sure that, within the possibilities of the amount I'm selecting of that policy, it's considering a possible guardianship that may be assuming responsibility for my child Make sense.

Speaker 2:

Yes responsibility for my child Make sense? Yes, so that's what You're looking at.

Speaker 1:

W-2, whether you're self-employed or a W-2, you're looking at. Even if they're self-employed, you're probably you're going to look at okay, what's the growth in that business? Right, you're going to look at everything. You're going to look at what's the growth. Also, I know that with certain life insurances, or I think in general with life insurance, a lot of companies do this where they, uh, they check the health of a person as well yeah, yeah, that's why I mentioned that.

Speaker 2:

um, if thinking that you have time is is one of the most dangerous things because, as I mentioned, as as you age it becomes more difficult not as difficult, but in the sense that it becomes more expensive because of the age, you have probability of not getting qualified as easy as before because, again, health, you might have a pre-existing condition and so forth. So you're correct, underwriting goes throughout all those factors to see, to be able to rank you and say, okay, based on your health, your age, your occupation, blah, blah, blah. These are the factors. Okay, you rank this and that's how it's basically provided and so what happens?

Speaker 1:

like, let's say, somebody comes in and let's say they're very um, they do have a preexisting condition, but you know, they still keep active, they're still able to hold down a job, they're still you know, they may be a little older, you know, maybe they're still able to, you know, be alert and move and be out and about, and things like that. What would be alternatives to people who may not qualify for, let's say, life insurance? What could other alternatives look like for those people?

Speaker 2:

It depends because there's so many carriers. You know that at the end of the day, this is a tailored approach. At the end of the day, this is a tailored approach. They may not be qualified for some carriers but from others, maybe the risk appetite for those other carriers are more flexible. Obviously, that's going to be determined in the price, but you know there's other ways.

Speaker 2:

Not necessarily because you get rejected from one carrier, it means that you're not eligible for any other, but the plan may change right. The customization of that type of strategy that you're trying to develop may change a little bit, maybe in the price, maybe in the amount you get approved, and, if not, that there's other ways. You know, in the sense that I've heard that if there's any assets and all that I've heard and in my case I only do insurance planning I can refer them to another, for example, another department or team that I have, that if there's any assets in place, maybe they can work with the wealth management team to be able to create strategies around having any type of investments as another strategy, right Alternative to that.

Speaker 1:

And so that would include the more like prime brokerage accounts. That would include perhaps, you know, maybe a plan where you know annuities would be involved, right, so you've mentioned before special needs trust. How do you explain that to people who may not fully understand what that is?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's more obviously for an attorney to address that. But the way I see it is more that it helps, I would say, the child not to jeopardize any benefits that they do have. If they receive any type of income, for example, it protects them. So if my son inherits a bulk of money, assets, it might affect his eligibility of the benefits because he may be considered high income earner, for example, but having it in a special needs trust it's not. It waives that. So there is I, and obviously I'm just putting as a reference as my son, he's seven, he cannot inherit that because he's not older. Just putting as a reference. That's my son, he's seven. He cannot inherit dad because he's not older. But just as a rule of thumb, it's really suggested to have a special needs trust if you have any assets or want to leave him a plan, because in that trust you're going to put all the language you want and the instructions you want if you pass away. If you pass away.

Speaker 1:

And how often do you work with like do you meet with the state planning attorneys in your field?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a lot, a lot, Because again it's due to the fact that it's comprehensive what I'm trying to do with insurance planning Want to make sure that, for example, the beneficiary in the life insurance is the trust. We want to make sure that we're in those conversations so the family feels that they're, you know, being supported. And it's a plan that involves the A-team, right? The same thing with therapy. I would say it's the same thing with financial aspect. When we have, for example, the, a theme for therapy. We have the bcea, we have the rbt, we have all these therapists and everybody works together for a, for a main goal, for a primary goal.

Speaker 2:

The same thing, I would say, happens in the financial aspect. You need to have a very good special needs attorney. You need to have a very good insurance planning advisor, an accountant. I've seen even families that even incorporate, if they can, an IEP coach. You want to build that A-team that you know that can just help you brainstorm, help you think outside the box, just because the main goal is to protect either what you have now, if you pass away, or not. So those conversations are very important. So selecting a team is, I would say, essential.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a very valuable piece of information that I think everybody listening could benefit from, and I'm pretty sure they're. You know, what you said is going to leave people thinking about their own situation. Start thinking about, oh my goodness you. What are we doing right? For you know, our families right. So I think that what you had said, you know makes a lot of sense. It's very educational. Now, if people wanted to come to go and find you or reach out to you, where can people reach for?

Speaker 2:

you, of course, so they can go to the website website, wwwtheautismvoyagecom. You're going to see a lot of blog posts from different type of, I would say, categories.

Speaker 1:

you have there the newsletter, so if you want, you can subscribe or you can book a call from there so you can talk to me or or the team and michael, it was such a pleasure to have you on here today and thank you so much for imparting this wisdom and helping people you know understand the basics of what's out there and to get them to start thinking about what are we doing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, of course. No, it's been a pleasure. At the end of the day, I think that us, as parents, we're always in survival mode and being and we're day to day not being able to have time to reflect, but it's something that we need to do regardless if we want to have that care for for, for our children. So thank you so much for the opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Thank you and everyone. Thank you for tuning into this. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and review. Also, I wrote a book, dropped in a Maze, which is available online on Amazon Barnes, noble and Strand Books Barnes and Nobles and Strand books and looking forward to having you all tune in for the next episode. So thank you all and have a great day.