Can your finance stand a disabling event

We plan for death—but most people never plan for the scenario that’s statistically more likely: a catastrophic illness or injury that leaves you alive, but unable to work. In this episode, Vendarryl Jenkins breaks down why insurance isn’t optional “extra”—it’s the foundation of wealth protection and succession planning.

You’ll learn why your greatest financial asset is your income and how losing it can unravel everything: mortgage payments, savings, retirement contributions, your child’s college fund, and even your ability to keep health coverage. We walk through the three pillars of protection—income replacement (especially long-term disability), health and catastrophic medical coverage, and asset/liability protection—plus the real-world gaps that destroy families financially.

Episode 15 also covers what to do in the first 48–72 hours after a medical crisis: what to ask HR, how to deal with hospital billing, and how to organize documentation to prevent billing errors from turning into long-term damage. You’ll hear a relatable story of how quickly life can change—and why basic succession planning (beneficiaries, will, POA, healthcare proxy) is not morbid, it’s responsible.

Bottom line: It’s great news if you don’t die—but if you can’t work, the bills still come. This episode is your call to order to protect your income, your health, your home, and your legacy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

This is episode 15, episode 15 of the Zero to One Million Podcast. What if you don't die? What if you don't die? You know, most of us plan for death with some type of policy to help us in the event of death. But most people never plan for the scenario that's statistically more likely. A catastrophic illness or injury that leaves you alive but unable to work. In this episode, I will break down why insurance is an optional extra. It's the foundation of wealth protection and secession planning. What if you don't die? What happens? Ladies and gentlemen, what if I told you that I have developed a cheat code for economic empowerment? Sounds too good to be true, right? I call it the Amasi technique. In this podcast, we will be learning about taking one stream of income and creating three more. Let's learn to make money while we sleep. I see you, I have been you, and I want to empower you. Now, my name is Vendero Jenkins, and my greatest accomplishment in life was my financial comeback. Where I went from a negative net worth to a million-dollar net worth. Now I'm an author, public speaker, real estate investor, business owner, and life coach. But I never will forget the faces of people that are just trying to make ends meet. I know that 60% of middle class people cannot cover an emergency expense of$1,000 without going to a credit card. Only 8% of people in the US that look like me make over$100,000. Most middle class people at retirement age have less than$100,000 in their retirement accounts. These stats are alarming. And I want to build a community so that we can talk about it, educate each other about it, and make real change. Now that's economic empowerment. Let's learn to make money while we sleep. I see you, I have been you, and I want to empower you. Subscribe now. Today we'll recognize why your greatest financial asset is your income. It's your income, and how losing it can unravel everything. Can unravel everything. Even when I retired, it gave me like a a little snapshot of it. Because when I retired, it took about six weeks before my retirement check started coming and hitting my bank. So it was no money coming in, no income coming in. I thought, oh wow, with no money coming in, life can eat up savings pretty quickly with no money coming in. You got mortgage payments, savings that you're not able to do, retirement contributions, your child's college fund, and even your ability to keep up your health coverage. We walked through these three pillars of protection: income replacement, especially long-term disability, health, a catastrophic medical coverage, and asset liability protection. Plus the real-world gap that destroys families financially. Episode 15 also covers what to do in the first 48 to 72 hours after a medical crisis, what to ask HR, how to deal with hospital billing, and how to organize documentation to prevent billing errors. You know, turning this long-term thing into uh something that you can survive after a catastrophic accident. You know, the bottom line, people will be saying, Amen, praise the Lord. God is good if you don't die. But if you can't work, the bills still come. This episode is your call to order to protect your income, your health, your home, and your legacy. I'd like to give you a quick reality check. A quick reality check. According to the Social Security Administration, about one in four of today's 20-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement age. Let me say that again. One in four of today's 20-year-olds will become disabled before reaching retirement age. In plain terms, a disabling illness or injury is more likely than a premature death for many working people. I have heard many people say, once I'm dead, I don't care what they do. So I'm not getting insurance, I don't worry about that because once I did I'm dead, I really don't care. My comeback to that always is, what if you don't die? What if you don't die but are just prematurely disabled? Then what does that do to your family, idiot? Medical bills remain a leading cause of financial distress and bankruptcy in the US. A single major hospitalization can leave families with six-figure bills. Six-figure bills. Long-term care costs routinely exceeds$100,000 a year in many parts of the country, and Medicare won't cover most custodial care. These aren't abstractions, they are numbers that obliterate unprepared plans. I know that because my parents, we have to pay out of pocket for people to come in and be with them when they were sick. That was out of pocket. And luckily, my siblings and I had the funds to be able to get together on three three ways to pay this off. But many times there's people who say I can't afford to pay my own bills, let alone to be given four or five hundred dollars a month towards to help somebody to come in and help mom and dad or uh the sibling or something like that. So this is something really, really to think about. A friend of our family, uh, I'm gonna call her Keisha. She works uh as a nurse and she has two kids. Oldest son is a senior in high school, uh, and a daughter is a sophomore in high school. She worked uh a lot of shifts to try to get these kids to college to have a better life and was really, really doing well. She had a car accident and a back injury put her out from work for like six months, and she did not have a long-term disability, so her savings evaporated, the mortgage slipped, credit card balances climbed, her daughter's college fund was rated. Had to, we gotta live. So just for living expenses, they took all of the college expenses for the daughter. Now the son went off to the Marines, but the c the girl stayed back to help her mom because financially everything had changed, so these things really hurt the long term of the family because now the young lady could not go to college uh for a long time, and so but Keisha's story is not rare. This is the kind of thing that happens quite often because people don't think about these things, and if something happens to take you out of work for six months, I just want you to think about what would that do to you? Think about this story, and are you ready to do something like that? Are you prepared? Luckily, Keisha was able to get back to work after six months, but being out of work for six months and you don't have any type of long-term disability, and you have to go through your savings and stuff like that. I just want you to think about that. Hey, let's make money while we sleep. I see you, I have been you, and now I am trying to empower you. This is the Zero to One Million Podcast, and I am your host, Vendero Jenkins. And today, hey, look, this is a somber talk about catastrophic events where you are seriously maimed and disabled, but you don't die. What if you don't die? Let's look at how this causes tremendous financial hardship to the family. If no plan is in place, man, this can destroy your family. Hey, let's take a quick commercial break. Take a quick commercial break. This commercial break is paid for by Old Gold Consulting. www.oldgoldconsulting.com.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Feeling stuck on the financial treadmill? My 0 to 1 million podcast and my two books, Coaching Keith and Zero to 1 Million, are like a secret map guiding you through the jungle of personal finance, real estate investments, and building streams of income. It's like having a wise old friend whispering golden nuggets in your ear. Quick, easy insights that turn confusion into clarity. Coaching Keith's The Amassi Technique Book was just released? It's the cherry on top, breaking down complex strategies into bite-sized pieces. Imagine turning dreams into reality one page at a time. Take coach's advice and grab your future today. www.oldgoldconsulting.com.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

If your family has a sudden illness or injury that maims or keeps them from being able to work, your first goal is clinical survival. Let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, and make sure that that person is able to survive. But the second is financial survival. Financial survival. Being alive doesn't automatically mean you're financially safe. The bills and the lost income can hit fast, and what you do in the first few days can prevent long-term damage. See if a person died, you just get the death certificate and start trying to work with some of these creditors and saying, hey, they dead, they dead, they dead, they dead. Well, if you're not, then we gotta, we still got these bills. Here's what you do in the first 48 to 72 hours. First call the employer, HR department, ask three things. Do we have paid sick time, short-term disability, or long-term disability? And what paperwork is required? What happens to health insurance while the person can't work? And when would the next paycheck or partial paycheck actually stop? When is that money gonna cut off? We need to know that. The second call, the hospital bill in office, and ask for itemized bills, cost estimates, and the hospital's financial assistance or charity care policy, something where we could try to work something out with those hospital bills. If anything was out of network, ask what can be reprocessed or reduced. Believe me, uh with my dad's uh surgeries and all of these things where he was not able to work in on long-term disability. We had to do all of these things to try to get some of those prices down for him. Now, this third one, somebody's gonna help you with it, or you gotta try to get this done. Um medical money folder. Today, every bill, every explanation of benefits, um, every receipt, every phone call log, I mean, all the phone call logs, billing mistakes, billing mistakes are common, and documentation is how you fight back. You need to be able to look at all of those bills because when you have so many of them, the hospitals start putting things on there that they probably shouldn't. And remember our anchor story one unexpected hospitalization uh for hey, two weeks, six months. Man, it takes away a paycheck, triggers thousands and thousands in out-of-pocket costs, and creates new caregiving expenses, which is something that you've got to look at in your state. Where I live at in the state of Alabama, they are very strict with that, they do not pay for in-home caregiving that is on the family. I do not know how people are able to do this because it is a very, very expensive for my family to do this, so um, I can't even understand how this you can do this for long term. You know, this is all at the same time. Acting quickly is what keeps medical crisis from becoming a financial disaster. These types of catastrophic events that most people don't think about can derail generations of planning in just a single day. This is a single day that happens. Let's make money while we sleep. I see you, I have been you, and now I'm trying to empower you. For generations, it's been taboo to talk about wealth, secession planning, and death. So slap that fool that says, if I die, I don't care what happens. So I don't prepare or think about it. They never think about what if I don't die? What if I don't die and they need long-term care? They don't think about when they are laying up in the bed and with no income and they have to be given shelter and food and what it costs the family. Let's be blunt. That type of ignorance destroys wealth faster than anything. You know, I was thinking about why it is taboo. I guess fear and denial, people avoid planning because it forces them to imagine their own frailty and mortality. I guess it's cultural discomfort. In many communities, talking about death or money with family is impolite. Even though silence leads to confusion and conflict. Then there's the silly misconceptions. I'm not rich enough. I'm just not rich enough to be thinking like this. That's backwards. You're exactly the one who needs a plan. Without a will, beneficiary designation, a power of attorney, a clear instructions, your assets can be tied up in probate, legal fees eat into the estate, and your family fights over a mess that could have been prevented. Let's think about the consequences of this ignorance. Delays and access to funds when a survivor needs the money immediately. Hey, they can't get to the money because you have not prepared, and that's when they need it. They need it immediately. Assets going to unintended people because beneficiary designations were never updated. You hear about these horror stories all the time. Your ex-wife is getting the benefits when you have a new wife with three kids, that craziness because you never updated it. Estate taxes, legal fees, and probate that reduces what you intended to lead. Family conflict that fractures relationships built over generations. This is the 0 to 1 million call to order. Call to order. Let's get this done. Get a disability quote and a term life quote today. Prioritarize disability for income protection. Confirm your health insurance coverage and understand out-of-pocket network and catastrophic limits. Review beneficiaries on retirement accounts, life policies, and any payable on-deaf accounts. Create a simple estate plan, at minimum a will, a durable power of attorney, and a healthcare proxy. If you have assets or minor children, consult a plan about revocable living trust. Talk to five people: your spouse, your partner, your adult child, siblings, a trusted friend. Start the conversation, use this opener. I want to make sure that people I love can survive if something happens to me. Can we as a community say that we're gonna spend 30 minutes this month to go over our accounts, beneficiaries, and who will make decisions? Especially if I don't die. If I don't die, can my family survive and make decisions? Hey, this episode is not glamour, I get it. If you are serious about wealth, not just for yourself, but for your children and your children's children, start here. Remember, update your beneficiary designation, draft a will. Again, schedule a 30-minute family meeting this month. Make it this month. Let's make money while we sleep. I see you, I have been you, and now I want to empower you. Let me know if this episode helped you. The 0 to 1 million family working together to help protect what you have started to build. This is your boy Vendero Jenkins, and I'm out.