The Get Ready Money Podcast

The Get Ready Money Podcast: Why Disability Insurance Is The Best Kept Secret In Financial Planning

• Tony Steuer

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On this episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, I was joined by Maxwell Schmitz and Keaton Modleski, the co-founders of Dingo Technologies to talk about changing the way we think about money and why disability insurance is the best kept secret in financial planning. 


Here’s what we discussed: 

  • Disability insurance is for everyone. 
  • If you’re dependent upon your income, you should have disability insurance. 
  • The importance of looking at the big picture of how a disability impacts future income
  • How Dingo helps people focus on big picture.
  • Dingo is simplifying the process of quoting and applying for disability insurance for insurance agents.  


Maxwell Schmitz, MSFS, CLTC is a third-generation DI specialist.  He is co-founder of Dingo Technologies, Inc. and President of Yetworth Insurance Solutions, a disability-focused insurance agency.  He also currently serves as President of the International DI Society, an association of the nation's top DI minds. Max also serves as the chair of his town's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. He is a sitting member on the board of The Plus Group, America's Premier Disability Insurance Marketing Organization. In his spare time he is also the father/coach of three energetic/athletic kids (ages 7, 5, and 3), husband to an amazing wife, and is a thru-hiking junkie.


Keaton Modleski is the co-founder of Dingo and while not having an insurance background, has spent the last 3 years learning the ins and outs of the DI world in order to create a platform optimized for DI sales and application management. He sees DI as a piece of the insurance market that is undersold and under advanced and believes Dingo could be the key to growing that market. He is also the President of Modleski Web Design, a software development company he started 6 years ago. He has developed applications for businesses ranging from Mom and Pop shops to Fortune 100. Keaton graduated from Purdue University in 2023 with a degree from the Daniels School of Business. In his free time, he competes as a powerlifter and holds his private pilot's license. 

Connect with Maxwell Schmitz:

LinkedIn (here) https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellschmitz/


Connect with Keaton Modleski:

LinkedIn (here) https://www.linkedin.com/in/modleski/


Connect with Dingo Technologies: 

Website (here)

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The Get Ready Money Podcast and its guests do not provide investment advice. All content is for educational purposes. Guest opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Get Ready Money Podcast and Tony Steuer.

Speaker 1:

Are you looking to get ready, be prepared and transform your financial future? Then you've come to the right place. This is the Get Ready Money Podcast with Tony Stewart, where Tony has insightful conversations with financial experts who are changing the way we think about money. Catch up on the latest financial trends and hear practical advice from Tony and his expert guests so you can build healthy habits that work, Be empowered with tips for implementing small changes that can have a big impact on your financial future. So sit back and get ready to hear from today's guest.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast changing the way we think about money. I'm pleased to be joined today by Keaton Medlewski and Maxwell Schmitz. Keaton and Max are the co-founders of Dingo Technologies and, as a disclosure, I'm honored to be an advisor to Dingo Technologies and, as a disclosure, I'm honored to be an advisor to Dingo Technologies. In this episode, we'll be discussing Keaton and Max's insights on how we change the way we think about money and the future of disability insurance. Keaton and Max, welcome to the Get Ready Money podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 4:

Thank you yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, let's jump in. You know, tell us a little bit about yourself. What are your origin stories?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I can go first. Thanks again for having us on, tony. My name is Keith Modleski. I'm 23 years old. I grew up in central Indiana. I graduated from Purdue University with a degree in management in 2023. My background is in technology. I started a web design company when I was still in high school and that's expanded into a web app development and mobile app development company where I build custom software solutions. Max approached me in 2021 and had an idea to build out a disability insurance or disability income insurance platform and yeah, since then it's just kind of been history. We've been, we've been working on it ever since and really honored to have been a part of that journey.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Well, that's a great journey, and I mean disability insurance probably not something you thought much about in college, right? Definitely not. It's cool that you're here. So, Max, what's your origin story?

Speaker 3:

Well, it is something I thought about a lot in college because I'm actually a third generation DI specialist. My grandfather started the agency back in the late seventies and my mom and dad really built this thing up through the 80s and 90s and I came on board in the spring of 2009, which we used to claim was the worst recession since out of school and, you know, sort of learned through osmosis through a lot of that stuff. We were talking about ONOC at the kitchen table quite a bit through high school and college, but it was a focus of mine, you know, right out of the gate. I've always, you know, believed in this product.

Speaker 3:

Unfortunately, as things have matriculated through career and life, we felt the sting of actually using this product when my mom went out with a disability in 2020.

Speaker 3:

Her lung was dying and just right amid this brand new respiratory pandemic we were having in 2020. So that took her away from the workforce. We experienced firsthand what disability insurance is all about. Kept her income afloat, made it so that our business didn't have to make that really tough decision on whether or not to pay her or, you know, find some sort of clandestine way to do that, or pay my dad twice as much or something to that extent, something to that extent so that we could just keep the money in the business, reinvest in new personnel and new technologies. And that's actually how Dingo Technologies was born is because all of that suddenly fell on me when she had to step away and we realized we were going to need to implement a system that was a little bit more adept at addressing the tedium that's involved with submitting disability insurance applications, and so, fortunately, keaton helped me build out a system that was way better than anything I could have dreamt of, and, yeah, that was the starting point for Dingo.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's awesome and you know I've been honored to work with you pretty much since you came in the industry. You know I've worked honored to work with you pretty much since you came in the industry. You know I've worked with your dad and mom since as long as I've been in the industry. I think your dad was one of the first people I met who mentored me, so it's really cool to be able to continue the relationship.

Speaker 2:

But I think you said a couple of things that are really important is what disability insurance can actually do. Is it made a difference to continue to keep the agency going and to allow you to evolve the industry I mean the agency to the next step? But I think the other thing that you're talking about is for those of us in the insurance industry hello, people who place disability and long-term care insurance policies and loving those 50-page applications, 20 or 30-page quotes that having all of this simplified, I think is good for everybody across the process, whether it's a consumer, whether it's a financial planner helping their client interpret it and, of course, for the agent who's trying to explain this whole thing to the client. So it's a powerful mission. But you know, let's back up. You know, because we talked about disability insurance, what is disability insurance?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's really just a form of income replacement when you are unable to work due to an injury or an illness. And there's obviously different gradients maybe not so obvious, but not all disability plans are created equally. You think about group disability, for instance, where they have a two-year period where you're really protected in your own occupation but then after that they're typically going to need to see your inability to work in any occupation thereafter to continue receiving a claim. And a lot of people miss that because they're just not reading their group disability contracts, which is understandable. It's like 120 pages of legal jargon. But you know, for those who do have that awareness level, typically they're going to look to, you know, subsidize or not subsidizing, but supplementing their disability income plan with some sort of individual disability policy as well.

Speaker 3:

So that's a little bit of a primer and you know, really, when we're talking about income replacement, I think everybody thinks, oh, I can just get 100 percent of my income and not have to work. Oh, I can just get 100% of my income and not have to work. And there are ways that carriers make sure that that number comes in lower than your take-home pay. Of course, the benefits are received tax-free most of the time, unless your employer or the business is deducting the premiums for that. So that means if you're making $100,000 and your take-home pay before taxes is $83.33 a month, you might be eligible for a disability benefit of like $5,000 a month, which would cover 60% of your take-home pay, but that's tax-free, whereas your $83.33 is going to be taxable. So still it's not quite, you know, a full replacement, but it's really invaluable to making sure that you can pay for the normal bills continue.

Speaker 3:

And really where I think a lot of people overlook this part of the insurance planning process is shoring up your financial goals down the road. I mean and that's where this term yet worth came from, which is the name of our agency is, you know, we want to make sure that we're protecting your financial future, that income that's yet to be earned. So your future net worth, your yet worth, is being protected down the road because you need to still reach all those markers to ensure that you can have a retirement at some point down the road, if that's part of the cards. I know we're trying to rethink retirement too and what that looks like, but you really got to be able to set yourself up for success down the road, and that only can happen with an income. That's really the foundation for all investment plans, and I think advisors lose that awareness sometimes because we just assume income is automatic until it's not, and then you have to figure something out, and this is DI. Is that something?

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. You know, kim. Do you have anything to add on that?

Speaker 4:

I don't. I think Max explained it really really well and I think that you know, as I've learned a little bit more about DI, it's really become something that is important to me. I mean, I'm 23 and there's not really anything in the near future that I could see that might affect my income, but I already have a DI policy because I know how important it is to maintain that stream of income for the future retirement plans and for everything else that I'm looking to do later in life.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's awesome, yeah, and I think the eye is really important, but I think part of the problem that people may stay away from it is, you know, max, as you went through all the different things, as you were talking about ONOC and the period covered and all these different things is like, do you think that's part of the reason why people don't talk about DI? Is that, you know, there's a long list of things you have to think about.

Speaker 3:

No doubt, no doubt about it. I think the whole idea gets overwhelming pretty quickly when you start looking under the hood. Idea gets overwhelming pretty quickly when you start looking under the hood. But that doesn't mean it's insurmountable, especially with the right, you know, team behind you and partners behind you. And you know, I think, that the insurance industry at large has done a massive disservice to clients, and I'll actually say the financial services industry at large has done a massive disservice to their clients, Because when you look back at your portfolio of 100, 200 clients, something like that that you've seen over the years, a good amount of those folks are going to endure some type of medical leave scenario and that's really the language that I like to use with a lot of people is really thinking about this as medical leave, because disability is such a loaded term and I think people have these preconceived ideas of like getting hit by a bus and being on life support and that's what a disability means to them.

Speaker 3:

Or using a wheelchair, Like.

Speaker 3:

There's just these preconceived ideas, typically from life experience, right, so you'll think about, oh man, that disability scenario.

Speaker 3:

That's what's, you know, raising the alarm in my mind right now that neighbor who got, you know, taken out and was in a catastrophic situation. But when you look at the data and I think I'm a big fan of this, I know not everybody is but when you look at the data, it comes down to musculoskeletal issues, cancer and heart disease, along with now, of course, some sort of mental illness components, which could be anxiety, depression, bipolar, and those are things that keep people away from work too, and in fact the majority of cases, and so this medical leave is really important to understand from that context, that a shoulder issue might not keep a you know, a white collar financial service professional out of work, but it will keep a surgeon out of work or a dentist, and so there's other. There's just more components, I think, to this than people truly realize, and so anybody who's dependent on their income really should be looking at some form of disability income, because nobody is completely immune to the illnesses or injuries that occur to a large swath of the population.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I completely agree. I think it's one of the things missing from so many plans is disability insurance. So you know, let's talk a little bit further about that. I mean, you gave us a really good example in the opening about the importance of disability.

Speaker 4:

You know, eden, why was disability insurance important for you? What the income I need is to live month to month and to continue to build up my retirement funds. And I think that you know, if something were to happen and I was to get in even a simple car crash, and you know my hands get bent in the wrong way and I can no longer type on a computer, that means I can't do my job that I've spent so much time specializing in, and that means I have no way to generate income, you know, without going to find a new way to do that. So DI, to me, is a way to be able to maintain that income and be able to still pursue the goals that I have for both short-term and long-term, you know, and just have a safety net in case one of those things does happen.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's awesome, and I think that correlates with what Max is talking about is that you're talking about your hands, which is not what people would think of when it's a disability. It may keep you from doing the job you had planned to do. Now you might be able to do some other things. It's not going to keep you out of the workforce, but it's not. It's going to change your occupational trajectory, and I think that's the reframing that we need to have. It's not always a big thing. It can be a small thing, exactly.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I love that Keaton kind of emphasized the lifestyle needs there because it's different for everybody, right? I mean, he's 23 years old and live in that lifestyle which you know, I don't want to oversimplify it, but it's pretty simple compared to the expenses and the mission creep that really kind of sets in when you start building a family and things like that. So you know, it's the mortgage, it's the daycare, it's the education expenses, it's the travel, it's all these things that you grow accustomed to utilizing from your income base. And you know, even if you aren't paycheck to paycheck, you're probably using that entire paycheck to put to stash some stuff into savings too. So we don't want to minimize that part of the of the usage of your paycheck as well. You know you're like, oh, I could get by on half my paycheck, but then if your employer cut your pay by 50 tomorrow, do you think you'd actually stay there? Would you actually be okay with that? Or would you try to find a different situation so that you can continue to live out your lifestyle and make sure that your family is taken care of?

Speaker 3:

That's really the name of the game for a lot, I would say the vast majority of professionals that we're working with in the DI space. They typically all have a family or a business that they really care for and they want to ensure that their baby whether it's a literal baby or their business baby is going to be in good shape, or even their employees. There's a lot of compassionate business owners out there who are looking around saying how can I set up a plan that's going to make sure that I don't have to make that tough decision to fire an employee who's undergoing a medical leave scenario? When do you make that call? As a business owner, that's? I mean.

Speaker 3:

You know, there's something like 90 plus percent of businesses or small businesses. People are making that decision every day on when to pull the plug on their employee's income and sometimes, especially if it's a family business like ours was that can be an excruciating decision, and so why wouldn't you just leverage the policy from some sort of insurance company to make that decision and then also fund that decision so that you don't have to withdraw their income, that they have access to this ongoing income stream through the disability carrier? So there's all kinds of reasons to do it. It's just it's different strokes for different folks and we want to make sure that we're, we're touching on, you know, all those, all those those points where it's going to be important to to make sure that we're, you know we're, we're thinking in their shoes is that we need to think about it as a risk protection tool instead of getting bogged down and you know all the details.

Speaker 2:

The details are very important when you're actually selecting the contract and optimizing your contract, but really at the core it's the decision is like, okay, do I have a risk? Do I need to protect against it? And I think people blow by that and they start talking about, well, like, am I going to need ONOC? Am I going to need an inflation rider? Instead of like, do I even have disability insurance? You know paralysis. By analysis, you know if you don't have a DI policy, you're not protecting against a risk. And then it doesn't matter if it's ONOCk, non-auk. You know auk for five years. I can't even remember all the different permutations, but people who've looked at a DI policy and gotten a quote know that it's pretty crazy to go through. So I think this leads into the next question is why is disability insurance often overlooked in the financial planning process?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I can't really speak a crazy amount to the financial planning process. It's not really something that I have a whole ton of background in, but from what I have experienced, it is something that, without working with Dingo, without you know, kind of having Max give me insights onto why DI is so important, I don't think I really would have ever thought about it because it's just not really a mainstream insurance line. I think you know a lot of people tend to focus on the home and the auto and you know the very physical things that they come across every day in their lives. But, like we've talked about here, you know in the past few minutes, the eye is something that you know. You don't really see it coming, but when it hits it becomes a reality very, very fast and it can change the way that you live your life very, very fast. So I think it's something that you know a lot of people for financial planners they're wanting to focus on, you know, the here and now, rather than protecting against what might come in the future.

Speaker 3:

Great point, yeah, and I think it also comes back to this inability to zoom out on things. You know to your point, Tony, it's really easy to get struck by that paralysis when you're looking at every single line item on a DI policy. And you know, while I do encourage and advocate for people to know their policy inside and out if they can like, there's just you got to be realistic that there's not a lot of capacity or will to do that in the mainstream public. So having an advisor who can speak that language is incredibly valuable. No-transcript consumer with indecision. But to really just kind of put things into sort of an apples to apples basis and then list out the writers, which all the definitions are included in the summary as well. So there's an invaluable resource to distill all this information into its most functional components. That's what we tried to build out with Dingo here. But the other piece of it that's really powerful with Dingo especially and again back to this point of why do people overlook it is they're not zooming out, they're not seeing the big picture, and so we built in a very simple function that allows you to compute what somebody's future net worth is going to be with and without a disability scenario and it's all customizable so that you can see and play and interact with those different components and values. So you set the amount that they have in retirement saved up right now. So if that's like 1.5 million, for instance, you'd enter it there and then you would add the continuing retirement contributions as a percentage of income. So if they're making $200,000 a year and they're able to stash away 20% of that income, then you'd be looking at $40,000 annual contributions to this plan and then you set the interest rate and watch that number go up over time. So if that's a six, seven, eight, depending on how conservative or how freewheeling you want to get with that number, it's all customizable right there and so you can extrapolate.

Speaker 3:

Okay, here's what that income is going to look like at age 65 or age 67. And it's going to be, you know, six and a half million or something like that, depending on the age of the individual and when they set their retirement age. And if there's a disability scenario, even for just three to four years, that could reduce by 40 to 50%. And a lot of people don't realize that, A lot of advisors don't realize that, because what happens when you have an income loss.

Speaker 3:

You don't just live your life with no expenses. You're going to be pulling that income from somewhere and it's going to come in most cases first, hopefully, from an emergency fund that's a non-starter, non starter, and then, second, it's going to typically be some sort of retirement asset, unless they're able to liquidate something else which is also going to hold value. So the trade-offs are pretty significant here, because if you're going to continue to fund that $200,000 lifestyle in that example, you're going to probably be pulling somewhere between $10,000 to $20,000 a month'm sorry, 10,000 to 20,000 a month from that retirement fund, which, of course, is going to have a major impact if that's prolonged for three, four, five, 10 years of a disability claim scenario. So we've got to keep an eye on the big picture here, and Dingo really helps to analyze that very easily.

Speaker 2:

And Dingo really helps to analyze that very easily.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome, yeah and I think this is so important is that we spend so much time in the financial planning world talking about the very micro issues that we sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and that this is a very basic thing that I think we don't think about is like okay, well, not only are you losing your income, you're not even going to be able to contribute to your retirement plans. Instead of contributing, like you said, there's going to be a negative drain on your retirement plans, which means what are you going to do? Maybe, you know, wait until you reach 62 and can take social security. I mean, that's not a great plan for most people, so you know. Or, if you get a partial income, you know, but, like you know with keaton's examples, maybe it's something where he's only able to work four days a week, you know, four hours, a hours a day, you know 50% income and he's not doing his peak earning occupation because he has to take another occupation. You know, then, all that has an impact. So I think that's brilliant.

Speaker 3:

That's the. I'm just thinking about Keaton's example too, where you know the reality of that situation could be that you'd be dictating C++ or whatever code language you're speaking. You can imagine how frustrating and slow that would be, with all the punctuation requirements and line breaks and et cetera. I mean, you don't have to be a coder to really figure out how much that would slow down the process going from typing to dictation, so that four hours a week could be very real.

Speaker 4:

It might be four hours a week, but it would be 20 minutes of productivity.

Speaker 2:

And that's a big change. So you know, I mean for the advisors and agents on this, you know it's really. You know, I mean, think about this for your clients, but also just think about this for yourself. What would be, you know? So you have one or two other advisors that you work with, so you're a lot like Max's family agency. You know, you have another advisor partner, maybe you've got an admin and a portfolio assistant. So you're running a small business. You're facing those same issues. You know it's. It's like the cobbler taking care of their own shoes is, you know? Do you have DI in place for yourself? You know, financial Planning Association I will give a shout out does have a pretty solid DI program for financial planners, but it's not going to be enough. So let's you know before we start to wrap up, I mean, max, tell us about why some of these association plans and employer plans are not enough DI.

Speaker 3:

Oh boy, there's kind of a laundry list not quite literally a checklist that I go through with each plan. So the main thing I'm always looking at top line is going to be what's the total income replacement here really, starting with that percentage? So it'll usually be 60 or 66% of base salary most commonly. So anybody who receives incentive comp, distribution income for S-corp owners huge loss there. That's not included with most group DI policies. And then you also got, of course, equity comp. That's a huge thing for anybody who's working with people who are in a publicly traded company.

Speaker 3:

So those are all factors that are not included in that salary replacement. And so it really is salary replacement, if you can think about it like that. And then again that's only 66% and it's fully taxable because the employer is going to be deducting the premium, which means Uncle Sam needs to get paid from somebody and that's going to come out of the benefit. So that means that maybe let's call it 10,000 a month 66% up to 10,000 a month is actually going to be reduced by an additional 25% federal and state if you want to go there. So you know you're actually looking at a benefit of 7,500 a month for somebody who probably was making upwards of 250 in that equity comp scenario. So you know those RSUs aren't getting. You know they're not getting, they're not continuing because they're no longer with the company upon disability. So you got to account for that when you're building out the retirement plan and kind of building in that function that it's going to be this ongoing set of income even though it's highly variable.

Speaker 3:

It still is contingent to the plan, so that's gone. I could go into more, but there's that ONOC definition. There's the portability aspect as well, which meaning you know, I think the I don't even know what the what the stat is anymore, but I know that people jump around from company to company quite a bit throughout their career, and so that's always going to be a factor too, especially if they want to create their own startup or do their own consulting wing. They're going to be out on their own, they're going to lose their disability coverage and then they're going to be. If they're 52 and they're going on that venture, there's probably something in their health history that might make them uninsurable or have an extremely rated or modified policy due to that health history. So we've got to get ahead of this stuff just as a planner that's kind of your job plan and get ahead of it and make sure that we're thinking about these things before push comes to shove and you're putting your client in a really tight spot.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think the other part of that too is to further that somebody jumping to a new position if they don't have income in their new position, they can't get DI because they have no income to replace and bonuses aren't always covered and there's a cap too on group and association DI. So you combine all those things with what you're talking about, max and you, and there's a pretty sizable gap, and I think that's often overlooked and I think that's one of the most important things we don't talk about in terms of financial preparedness and financial literacy. Is this gap? People think, hey, I've got DI at work, I'm good. Not really, it's like having you know a little bit of group life. It's not good, and I think we recognize that with the group life. So you know, let's start to wrap up. You know the first question to wrap up is what do you both feel is the future of disability insurance? I mean, you're a big part of it with Dingo Technologies. Where do you see disability insurance going?

Speaker 4:

Truthfully, I see you know, hopefully in the next five years I would I hope that carriers start to incorporate more technology into their processes. I think it's still a very much so technologically lacking industry and you know, at Dingo we would love to be on the forefront of that. But truthfully, whether it's with hard to sell first and then it's so hard to apply for and it's so confusing to apply for and each carrier has its own siloed way of applications which makes it incredibly difficult for the advisors. So that's where I would love to see it go is just more technological advancement which I think will allow for a lot more people to have access to it and be able to see it, and allow for a lot more people to have access to it and be able to see it, and then, obviously, a lot more people will have their income protected.

Speaker 2:

Awesome Max, you got anything to add there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I too hope that the carriers continue to develop their technology stack. I think you know they really were kind of slow on the uptick to do the e-application stuff, which is why we came in with Dingo as kind of like the first generation at least was we created a drop ticket system so that you could apply for any carrier using the Dingo drop ticket. But as they kind of developed their own e-apps and their own silos, it would still be nice to see a way for DI carriers to kind of work together to make sure that this is a simple, seamless process. I mean, it's actually regulated law on the property and casualty side to use accord forms, so every carrier in every state every compact state at least, I'm pretty sure has to use this accord form, which is like a two-page document. So wouldn't it be nice, right? But there's still risk assessment and things that need to be done. You've got electronic health records now, so things are happening in that space. It's usually behind the scenes, ideally to save the carrier money. But I think Keaton's point about making this an easier interface for consumers and easier process in general would be really helpful.

Speaker 3:

And I think you know, quoting APIs, it kind of is mind-blowing that there still aren't that many out there. Carriers really kind of try to hide the rates from the rest of the marketplace. I just don't think that's good for consumers either. I think we, you know, having that transparency is really important and I hope that they'll open up on that front sooner than later. And then I'm hearing some buzz about some pretty interesting product concepts out there where people can just come through on a more simplified issue. There are smaller limits and everything like that. But as long as the process is easier and we have more and more access to these products and solutions, then I think consumers will be far better off. Is trying to get things approved at the state level when the departments of insurance have very rigid formats for their existing products? So an open mind across the board would be really nice and not holding my breath, but there's certainly a lot of hope and optimism that goes into that. So we'll see.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome, yeah, and I agree with both of your takeaways on this. So just to close out real quick, what is your number one takeaway for people about disability insurance and future disability insurance?

Speaker 4:

I would say my number one takeaway is you know, just be vigilant about it. I would say, you know, it's something that, whether you know you have it or you haven't heard of it, whatever end of the spectrum you're on or anywhere in the middle, I would say it's something to very much so pay attention to. It's no matter what stage of life you're in either. It's just something that everybody can use, everybody can utilize, and really there's no downside to having it. You know, there's maybe downside to having it. Maybe there's a certain limit where you don't really need to replace 120% of your income, but I would say, at the least having 60% of your income be able to be replaced in case of a disaster is something that everybody can very much so benefit from.

Speaker 2:

Awesome Love that EI is for everyone. Max, what's your quick takeaway?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I love that, keaton, because it's, I mean, really the primary qualifying question for people is are you dependent on your income in some fashion?

Speaker 3:

And if the answer is yes, you know that they're probably in need of some sort of disability income policy. Because you know, things can change from a health perspective on a dime, sadly. But I, you know, just to give a little bit of a different deliverable for this question, I think you know what I would encourage people to do is just zoom out, focusing so much on the monthly benefits and the annual premium and all the different definitions. Just look at the overall plan and review what their future net worth is projected to look like and look at what the average disability scenario, which is about five years, the average DI claim with, according to some carriers. Just extrapolate that based off the average and of course nobody's average by definition, but it's a helpful metric for determining or pressure testing.

Speaker 3:

You know these plans that you guys are putting together and helping their clients implement. So just look at that five-year income loss situation, see what that does to the plan and if you see something that needs to to the plan and if you see something that needs a little bit of attention. Feel free to reach out to your closest or most trustworthy, friendliest insurance advisor who actually knows how to spell the I.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. So where can people connect with ETU? Where can people connect with each of you? Where can they learn more about Dingo and join the pack?

Speaker 4:

Dingoinsurancecom is our website and, yeah, I mean connecting with either of us on LinkedIn would be another great place to be able to reach out and talk more about it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, LinkedIn's great Dingoinsurancecom, obviously, and then you know you can find me at yetworthcom as well, which is where we do more of the agency stuff. So if you're a financial advisor, an insurance broker and want to just sort of get up to speed on this stuff, you can reach out to me through that channel as well.

Speaker 2:

Definitely and for all our watchers and listeners. You can also reach out to me about Dingo Technologies. If you're curious about Dingo Technologies, glad to talk with anybody as well, and I will give a shout out Max to your LinkedIn. Max is very active with some great stories on LinkedIn that helps really put you help put these insurance issues into perspective. So I'd encourage people who want to learn more about disability insurance related issues to definitely follow Max or connect with him on LinkedIn. Keenan Max, thanks for joining us today on the Get Ready Money podcast.

Speaker 3:

Such a pleasure. Thanks, Tony. Appreciate it, man.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was a great conversation and thank you. Everyone is always for tuning into this episode of the Get Ready Money podcast. If you learned something today to change the way you think about money, please be sure to subscribe and tell a friend. Until next time let's change the way we think about money. Thank you.

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Tony Steuer

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