Thrive & Decide Guide to Divorce and Beyond

Understanding Insurance for Every Stage of Life

• Sarah Thress • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Unlock the secrets of navigating life's big changes with insurance veteran Toni Stevens. With over two decades of expertise, Toni joins us to demystify the complexities of life and health insurance. Wondering how to secure your loved ones' future without viewing life insurance as an investment? Toni offers invaluable insights, especially during pivotal moments like divorce, the loss of a spouse, or the exciting venture of starting a new business. Toni's approach is grounded in truly understanding your individual needs, starting with a client needs assessment that ensures tailored, peace-of-mind solutions.

We tackle the essential aspects of life insurance, advising on the importance of individual policies beyond group coverage and the strategic advantages of early whole life policies. Toni also sheds light on often overlooked options like long-term care riders. We don't stop at life insurance; the episode rounds out with guidance on selecting the best health insurance by assessing both needs and affordability. Whether you're facing personal or professional transitions, Toni's wisdom will help you make the most informed decisions. Tune in and equip yourself with the knowledge to thrive and decide wisely.

To reach Toni Stevens:
toni@stevensinsurancegroup.com

Hi and welcome to Thrive and Decide. I’m your host Sarah Thress. This podcast is intended to help women who are going through a divorce, continplating divorce or have lost a spouse feel seen, heard, understood and not alone. All the beautiful souls who share on here are coming from a place of vulnerability and a common belief that sharing your story will help others. You will also hear from industry experts on what to do and not do while going through a divorce.


Sarah Thress
614-893-5885
Sarahthressrealtor@gmail.com
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Real Estate Podcast Come To Find Out:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/come-to-find-out/id1704949604

Real Estate First Time Home Buyers course: https://sarahthress.graphy.com/

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Thrive and Decide. This week we have Toni Stevens of Stevens Insurance Group and I wanted her to come on and talk about insurance and how she can help people because, obviously, during a life transition where either you're going through a divorce, you've lost a spouse or really anything, maybe you've transitioned into being an entrepreneur, you know there's many different reasons why you would need, you know, someone to help you with your insurance needs. And so, uh, tony is amazing and she was connected to me with some other women, uh, that are within the group thrive and decide, which you which, if you've listened at all, you know that this group is set out to literally help women that are going through a divorce, going through the loss of a spouse, and just helping them to feel seen, heard, understood. So I really wanted to have Toni come on and talk about insurance. So, tony, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be a part of this and I'm excited to kind of take the fear and the ugly out of the insurance name. People hear the name insurance or hear the word insurance. You know it's not a good feeling. They generally think of bad things. And you know I'm I guess I'm a little bit of a weirdo. I find insurance fun. Um, I find it exciting because insurance inevitably helps us. Um, and there's so much about the industry. Um, I am over 20 years in the industry. Steven's insurance group is over five years, but I'm over 20 years in the industry and I've seen so much in these 20 years. Um, and just to take the fear out and make people understand and help people understand that during these big life transitions which I've been through personally myself, that it's okay, insurance is here to help and, you know, working with a team that knows what they're doing, it's it's a good thing to to be able to understand how this all works.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. So I know, whenever we first met um, we were talking about like the insurance you cover, and you were like everything except property and casualty. So so, yeah, so obviously you're not going to be doing the um, the house and the car, but you're everything else. So I guess could you walk me through what are all the different um, you know things that you, that you do cover.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. When you think of the insurance industry, I like to think of it as three bubbles. Okay, first of all we have what's called the P and C bubble. That's property and casualty, like you mentioned, that's home and that's auto. Then you have the bubble that is your, your financial bubble. Those are the folks that are going to help you with your 401ks, some annuities, different Roth, just that whole financial world. Then you have what's called the life and health bubble, and that's where I focus on, and that life and health insurance bubble is pretty big because it ranges from every type of life insurance product to disability insurance, health insurance and whether it's group or individual. You know Medicare falls under that bubble. You know we get into the supplemental world of insurance the accident, the cancer plans, the critical illness, hospital plans, dental vision. So it's a very big, beautiful bubble. Again, here's this excitement coming out of me and that's what I have focused on.

Speaker 2:

You know, all of these years, initially, in the beginning of my career, it was mostly working with groups. You know meeting with employers and meeting with, you know, the decision makers of companies, mostly smaller, 200 lives and under, but you know putting plans in of companies, mostly smaller, 200 lives and under, but, you know, putting plans in place for all of their employees. But as time has progressed, and especially with Stevens Insurance Group now, we focus a lot on individuals. So a lot of my partners will send clients my way with the most, you know, obscure situations. Hey, I have this person who is going through this, or they have this going on or whatever. Can you help? And what I love about what I do is no day is ever the same and we are able to take on so many different cases and situations and with all the partnerships that I have out there, I'm able to find a solution for somebody, no matter what the situation is. There's a solution in this industry. But those are the three bubbles that are in my brain.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I love the visual of the bubble of the different things and I appreciate you kind of breaking that down and letting us know which things that you focus on in those bubbles. So I know you used to work with groups, which I think you probably still I do, yes, I sure do. Yeah, you still work with groups, Perfect. But if someone individually was like man, my situation's changing or I'm leaving corporate America and I'm going to go be an entrepreneur, I need to have insurance, all of that stuff, what is your process Like? Does someone reach out to you? Do they have to fill out an application? Like you know? Just walk us through what you do.

Speaker 2:

You know it's pretty simple. They reach out to me and I welcome that all day long. They reach out to me and explain their situation and we kind of talk through some things and I do just like with anybody. I do an assessment. I have a client needs analysis form that I have them fill out. It tells me their personal information. Are they worried about their paycheck? I like to find out what kind of group benefits they have in place now. What are they losing? Are any of them portable?

Speaker 1:

Can they?

Speaker 2:

take them with them. Most people don't understand a lot of the plans they have in place at a group, with the exception of health insurance and dental vision, but they have supplemental in place. A lot of them are portable, so just a complete assessment of what is going on in their world. What do they want? What are they looking for? What is their health situation like? Do we have, you know, circumstances on things that we need to really look for and to protect them? You know? Are they going through a divorce?

Speaker 2:

You know, there's just so many things. It's a complete needs assessment. But they reach out to me, we start the process. I think what's really important to point out right away is there is no cost to work with me as a broker. I think that's very important. We are here to consult, to guide, we assist in the writing of any business they decide to partake on. We are paid directly from the carriers, so there's no broker fees, anything of that nature, and I get asked that a lot, so I think it's important to understand that we like to do the legwork yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I I love that you pointed that out, because, uh, I get asked that a lot too. You know, like as a realtor, like what, you know, what is your fee for me to sit down and talk with you? And I'm like nothing, like I will just talk to you, um, but yeah, so I love that you, you know, mentioned that. And then I know that whenever people because I went through this, whenever I went through my divorce I realized that the life insurance I had at my employer once I switched, I thought, oh well, I'll just keep paying into that and didn't realize that there were other options.

Speaker 1:

Thank God for my financial advisor being like, hey, sarah, that actually is not the best. Here's what we can do and what I thought I was getting great coverage for. I want to say at the time it was like $250,000 and I was paying like $75 a month or something. And I was like, oh, this is so great. And then he was like, sarah, I can get you a million dollars and it's, you know, $50 a month. And I was like, oh, oh, okay, well, yeah, I want that because I want to be able to take care of my child, you know, if something was to happen to me. So I'd love for you to kind of walk us through what is the difference in life insurance that, like you get through your employer, versus you know, having something separate.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well, the beautiful thing in life insurance is one of those products that I love so much, because there are so many options out there for life insurance, the different products, the different types and I'll touch on those in a minute but the riders and everything you can include it's.

Speaker 2:

It's such a versatile product. What we want to be careful of is with group life insurance is you know, it's great, you get to a place of employment and you've got this insurance and it's great and it's payroll deductive or whatever. But what most people realize is it's not portable. And if it is portable, it's a conversion and they're going to conversion. They're going to convert it. At your new age, your rates are going to be way different than what you're paying now. I can't tell you how many situations where I've had people come to me. They've lost their job. They've been there for 25 years. They forgot, you know they they had this life insurance but they can't take it with them. They had nothing on the outside and so now they have nothing. And guess what? Now they have health conditions. Now they're much older. A couple of my very dear friends bought life insurance when they were younger and they bought a term policy, and we'll get into this in a minute.

Speaker 2:

But they bought a term policy and they let it expire and now they can't afford to have another one just because it's so expensive and they've got health conditions. So there's different things that we can look into for that. But I think the big thing about group is understanding that it's not going to be a portable situation and if it is, you can convert it and it's going to be very expensive. When we talk about life insurance, there are three basic types of life insurance and again, these are all available outside of a group situation. So many wonderful companies, so many wonderful products. We have term insurance.

Speaker 2:

Term insurance is a death benefit. It's going to do what you want a life insurance product to do. When you pass away, you pick a $100,000 benefit, it's going to pay your beneficiary that $100,000. Done. There's no building of cash value. There's none of that other fun stuff that can happen, but term insurance is very affordable. This is the kind of insurance where, yeah, at the age of 50, you can get a million dollars in coverage and it's not going to cost you a whole lot. Yeah, the caution with term insurance is it is going to expire at some point. Maybe it's a 10 year term, a 20 or a 30 year term. So we need to be cognizant of your age and how long you want to have that policy. So with life insurance it's kind of cool because you can have 20 different life insurance policies from different carriers.

Speaker 2:

So it's. It's the product where you're going to want to have the most coverage depending where you are in your life.

Speaker 2:

At my age right now, I am so over covered on life insurance. My son is a lucky little guy. When I pass away, I am worth more dead than I am alive, unfortunately, but I have peace of mind knowing that he will be able to pay off all of my stuff and have a nice cushion to do what he wants to do with. Everybody has a different purpose for life insurance. My purpose was to pay stuff off and leave something for my son because my parents unfortunately, that's not the case in their situation.

Speaker 1:

That generation.

Speaker 2:

It was a different situation when they were looking into life insurance back in the day, and it's just not the same now. So, but anyways. So term insurance, all right. The next one is what we call universal life insurance. So this is where it gets a little bit more interesting. The rates are going to be a little bit more expensive. With universal. It is going to play with some cash value opportunities. So you know your policy is going to work for you and build a little bit of money that you can pull out at the age of 65. And you know you'll still have your death benefit. The universal life insurance is probably the riskier of the life insurance that's out there, because you do have changes that can happen to your rates and your death benefit. So it's things that you do need to pay attention to with those types of policies. But again, those are policies that are going to last until you're 80, 90 years old. They have some different age groups depending on what carrier we go with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Right. So it's nice when you can combine the different policies together. We'll talk about that in a minute. It's nice when you can combine the different policies together. We'll talk about that in a minute. The third bubble or the third type of life insurance is your group whole life.

Speaker 1:

This is my favorite.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now it is more expensive, but you have great stability and you have death benefit stability and it's going to last until you're 121 years old, whole life. All right, wow, it's going to build cash value that you can pull out penalty free at age 65. So again, you're building a little bit of a fund. Yeah, you know, by no means I'd like to state this, by no means. Life insurance policies should not be used as investment tools. Many people are like I want a life policy that's going to be my retirement policy. That's not how they work.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

You know, it's great when you can get a policy that is going to build some cash value, because that's always nice. But the point of a life insurance policy is to provide your loved ones with a death benefit and not leave them with your debt. That's the purpose of it, and to have money to bury you however you want to do that. The average burial today can range anywhere, depending on what you want to do anywhere from five to 20 grand.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's crazy. So it's not a cheap situation and you know, every I kid you, not every week I have a client. Well, why do I want to get a life insurance policy? And I'm going to be dead, so who cares? It's like, okay, so you want to stick your, stick your loved ones with an expense, right? No, that they shouldn't, you know, yeah, so it's. It's kind of crazy the mentality that people have with life insurance policy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But what is nice about them? Like I said before, you know, we taught we started with a group and that's great, but there are so many individuals and I always tell everybody if you have a group policy, that's awesome, get something on the outside, because if you lose that job or if you're on a spouse's coverage and you are getting divorced, guess what? They're going to take you off of that policy. Right, you need to have your own policy, right? Um? And there are just so many opportunities and you know, like I said, we do a full assessment. We talk about budget, we talk about you know what is your goal.

Speaker 2:

Is your goal just to have that death benefit? That's great. Is your goal to be like me, a little psycho, because I'm an insurance professional and I'm insurance poor, believe it or not? Um, to to provide your family with funds after you pass, knowing that they have money? You know, you know there's just so many different needs out there, but those are the three kind of buckets of life insurance. Um, you know, and it's, it's beautiful. Yeah, I personally, it's so funny I have. Um, long-term care was always a big concern in this industry. It was the one policy I didn't have and and I purchased a life insurance policy for myself a few years ago with a long-term care rider on it, you know.

Speaker 2:

I have one child Something happens to me, I don't want him having the burden of taking care of me and if I need to go into a home you know this is a plan that's going to pay $8,000 a month until the death benefit's gone Wow To take care of my facility cost and if I never go into a facility. Guess what? It's just additional life insurance. You can never have too much.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that, and I love that there is even a writer available for that, so many different writers out there.

Speaker 2:

It's a lot of fun. And again, that comes to figuring out what are the needs. What do you want in a life insurance policy? You know I talk about, I love, you know writing whole life. You better believe anybody that's in their early and 20, early twenties or thirties, that is the product that I'm going to highly encourage because, as you know, life insurance is a product. Unfortunately, as we age it gets more expensive. Yes, so somebody that's in their fifties and sixties, that comes to me. I'm not putting them on a whole life, it's not affordable. We're going to go with a term, something that's affordable. But if they come to me in their twenties and thirties, oh you better believe I'm going to push that whole life and someday they'll think of me when they're in their fifties and they have this 50,000 whole life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's still doing its thing, still building cash value. It's going to last them forever. You know they don't have to worry about it, yeah, so.

Speaker 1:

I love that.

Speaker 2:

So it's great, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

No, and I think that's so smart and I really appreciate you kind of breaking down the different you know types of it, because it is kind of confusing. You know, especially, you clearly are very passionate about this, which I love and uh, but not all of us are, and so nobody is.

Speaker 2:

if you're not in the industry, you're not.

Speaker 1:

Well, yes, and if we're not like passionate about it, you know it's probably harder for us to understand and we're not going to take the time. So I think it's so great that you have that passion and you also are able to explain that to people in like layman's terms so that we all can understand Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So then, um, with health insurance, is it just kind of the same way? Uh, you would look at them, Um, you know, if they're an individual coming to you, you would look at their needs and then kind of price out what's going to fit.

Speaker 2:

It is the same way. And that's another thing is, you know, with health insurance, there are options out there. It's very scary and I was in this situation myself, you know, um, before losing corporate group health insurance. And then you know, going out on my own again and I'm like, oh my gosh, you know what do I do? I'm going to stay on that Cobra forever, because it was safe, because it was still the same health insurance and I was paying a ridiculous amount of money. Oh yeah, but I did it because it was safe and I was introduced to a broker partner who is a very dear friend of mine and strong broker partner to me to this day, who was just like Tony gosh. You know, there are short-term medical plans out there that people can go on. Or, you know, if they have health conditions, it's okay. We look at marketplace. Marketplace should not be considered this scary beast. Um, there are great plans on marketplace and it's beautiful because if you have a pre-existing condition, guess what?

Speaker 1:

You're covered with health insurance.

Speaker 2:

And a lot of times. First of all, it's going to be less expensive than what COBRA is going to be. So, again, my job with any client is to take the fear out of insurance and say, ok, what do we have going on, we're going to look at all of our options. Um, because we have options, yeah, um, and it's. It's a good thing. And it's taken me years myself to go through things personally to understand that it's okay.

Speaker 2:

Going from that transition from group to to the broker world, the individual world 1099, the 1099 world right. It's. It's okay, we have those options out there.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, to answer your question. It is the same process. We assess, we figure out what's going on. I have a simple question sheet that gives me the answers to things so I can figure out. Okay, this is going to be a better plan for you or this. But what I typically like to do is I like to show both options of short-term medical versus marketplace and I like to let people make the decision on what's going to make them comfortable. Do they want a plan that maybe costs a?

Speaker 2:

little bit more but is more co-pay focused? Or do they want a plan where they can just pay that deductible and, once it's done, everything's covered? So again, I try to break it as easy as possible. Yes, I try to break it as easy as possible. Yes, yeah, I try to make it fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I think that's uh. Hopefully that has come through to everyone else, because to me, uh, I can tell that you enjoy it and you know when someone enjoys what they're doing, especially whenever it comes to insurance, which most people, you know, just are like their eyes glaze over, you know, when you start talking about insurance. So I love that you have that passion and you have that. You know that servant heart where you really want to just educate people. You want to give them all the options and then they get to make their decisions Right.

Speaker 2:

That is our goal, for sure, and the same comes with Medicare too. You know, for my senior clients that are out there. You know we don't want to forget that. Seniors, you know and I hate using the word senior because I don't like to think that people 65 are senior, right, you know, it's still so young and vibrant, um, so much life to them. But you know they are going through divorces now.

Speaker 2:

Um, you know all the kids are out of the house or you know people change. You know these life changes that we go through, um, but you know I have a big market of folks that are over 60 that are going through these changes and you know getting ready to hop on Medicare.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Medicare is another very scary term. It's a very confusing thing. This is the time of year when they're seeing all these commercials on TV and it's so confusing and it is so fun to be able to take them and say, okay, here's the deal. You got part A and part B, which is Medicare, and you got basically two options after that. So let's break down this option and this option and you tell me what you're more comfortable with, and then we're going to hone in on that option. So it's fun to dissect. Yeah, you will dissect the insurance world once you figure out what the needs are. But definitely we don't want to leave out our seniors because, again, they're going through life changes as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come on and explain all of this, and thank you for your passion for insurance and, you know, for everything that you do for people, so I really appreciate that, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

Thank you again for this. This is wonderful. I appreciate the time.

Speaker 1:

Of course, and as usual I will um, I'll put in the show notes, um, your information and, um, that way, if people you know want to reach out to you, they're listening to this and they're like, oh my gosh, like I need Tony in my life which you do, by the way, I would love to be a part of your life so I'll put all of that information in the show notes and then, that way, people can reach out to you. Great, thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely Thank you, and we will see you next time on Thrive and Decide.