Protecting Your Paycheck

If you fail to plan, plan to fail.

How do you want your future to look? We want you to plan for success. Welcome to Planning Matters Radio. Hello and welcome into the program. This is Rich on Planning and Planning Matters Radio.

I am Peter Rochon, founder advisor for Rochon Planning along with my lovely wife. Amber Rochon here again, another beautiful Saturday morning for you guys. Appreciate you joining me on the program. Always bringing some life to the show, some energy.

Over here bobbing and leaving. Folks, we want to help you protect your paycheck through all walks of life and a lot of times on the program we're talking about investments, we're talking about the growth of your assets for the purpose of retirement planning and then protecting your standard of living in retirement. Today we're going to talk a little bit more about protecting that paycheck throughout your working career and some steps that you can take, some protections that you can have in place, some products that you may want to consider that will help you make sure that your standard of living, your lifestyle and your family is protected regardless of what circumstances you may encounter. And so we do help people again through all walks of life, whether you're already retired and you're just wanting to make sure that you're protecting your standard of living, your comfort, the quality of life even after retirement or if you are working your way toward retirement or trying to get there or even working your way through the Dave Ramsey baby steps out of debt to a point that you can begin to manage wealth. We're here to help and assist and we do make our time available and we have solutions to assist helping protecting that paycheck at almost any point in your planning progress and process.

And if you've got any questions about today's material or about your situation at all, you're welcome to pick up the phone, give us a call 800-338-5944. But Amber, a lot of what we're going to be talking about today is sort of on your side of the protection of that paycheck. You deal with supplemental insurance, disability insurance, catastrophic event insurance, cancer, heart attack, stroke, things like that that do occur in life that if we leave ourselves unprotected can be pretty costly.

That's right. We do host a large product line that have been hand selected just for you that pay cash benefits directly to you in case you have an accident, an injury or a sickness occur and do not want to pull that money from your savings. Now, sometimes I look at our insurance premiums and I don't love paying them.

Shocker, right? Health insurance premiums are astronomical and a lot of folks that I talk to are very confused on what is the difference between supplemental insurance or I hear them say, oh, I have health insurance. I don't need any more coverage.

Well, there's a lot of differences. Supplemental insurance is meant to bridge the gap between you and your major medical. A lot of us are picking up health insurance plans with the high deductible or what they call high deductible health plans. And where would we get that five to ten thousand dollars from if we had an event happen in our life and needed to have care?

Absolutely. Now let's focus on that major medical on that health insurance for just a moment. Last year, Amber, you had a health scare. We were at a point last year where you were you were doubled over in pain. We couldn't really explain what it was. It wasn't an obvious cut, scrape, break, bruise. It was something inside.

It was internal. And you had your gall bladder removed. Pretty scary time.

Definitely a scary time. A period of recovery thereafter where you were not working as much. But thankfully, even though I hate writing those checks to the health insurance company, we had that health insurance in place and it would have been much more expensive had we not had that health insurance in place. Well, on top of the health insurance in place, we also had a hospital policy in place.

And so I was able to file a claim on my hospital plan and I believe I got the check in about four or five days. It came in pretty quickly and we were able to put that towards the high deductible. Towards the deductible.

Right. Because when you're paying for major medical, there's some room before the insurance kicks in where you are responsible for the bill. And a lot of times this is three thousand, four thousand, ten thousand dollars before the insurance really has to pay the first penny. So we had that deductible five thousand dollars that we had to cover. But the hospital plan that you had helped us cover that as well. And so these are the kind of things that you can put in place to help protect that paycheck. Because again, if we had not had that insurance in place, it would have taken a chunk out of our savings.

It would have prolonged and delayed our progress toward wealth building and accumulation and eventually retirement. If you have to come out of pocket five thousand, ten thousand, twenty, a hundred thousand dollars for some kind of medical emergency, then how far back does that put your eventual retirement or your goal of getting out of debt and beginning to build wealth? And for literally kind of pennies a day, pretty much the price of a cup of coffee per week, you have that hospital plan that helps us cover that deductible. Most of our plans run about, like Peter said, a cup of coffee a week.

So I like to say four to ten dollars depending because you can add your kids and spouse. And some of the great selling points are you add one kid, you get the rest for free except for some of our cancer plans where children are free up until the age of twenty six, which is great. Now I've got several of these types of plans for myself. I've got a short term disability plan. I've got an accident plan. I've got a cancer plan. I've got dental plan. Of course, I've got a health insurance plan.

Let's kind of go through those one by one and talk a little bit about what they do. And again, each of these is kind of a few dollars a week, the price of a cup of coffee. So not only do I have all these plans, but I'm cutting out the coffee for my life, making healthy decisions. Well, I still want my coffee. Joking.

I still do drink coffee here, but I make my own cups now. So let's start with the short term, short term disability. What exactly does that cover? Short term disability products can be set up so many different ways. But to keep it simple, you're deciding a few things.

We're going to pick out how quickly you're going to receive the money, how long you're going to receive the money for and how much money you're going to receive on a monthly basis, depending on what happens to you. The disability policy I like because it covers multiple things. I like to say when you're insuring your body, you're insuring it in three ways. The accidental side. So things that accidentally happened to us, those slips, trips, falls, burns and breaks. The sickness side, which is those heart attacks, the strokes, the cancers, things of that nature. I know some people say, well, I didn't mean for a heart attack to happen to me.

It accidentally happened to me. But we purposefully drove to Burger King to eat those burgers every day. Right. Well, so whether I'm a cook working with knives and stoves and burn myself or cut myself or whether I'm an executive in a high stress job, there's the possibility of injury on the job site regardless. Blue collar, white collar. Again, all walks of life have the potential to have injuries on the job.

Now, here's the other part of this, Amber. Does the accident, does the injury have to occur when I'm at work to have my paycheck protected? Again, you can customize the policy to the customer's needs and for the business owner's needs as well. So if the business owner decided to get group policies that the employee paid for, we could set that up. And so there's a way to customize to where it's in favor of either the person purchasing or the employer that's setting it up.

So, again, as an individual, I could purchase this or the business can purchase this for their employees on behalf of their employees or even just offer it to their employees and leave it up to each employee whether or not they want to pick up this protection. Absolutely. Again, like you say, we're covering people through all walks of life. We're going to sit down. We're going to look at your situation. We're going to talk to you about your needs and your family. And we're going to customize that policy based on that.

It's not what I want for you. It's what's best for you. So how quickly? That says that if you're out of work for more than seven days or more than 14 days or more than 30 days, that's when this protection kicks in.

Sure. Some people need their money right away and then other people may have enough money scrolled away that they could wait 14 days, that they may have sick leave. How much do you want to replace 30 percent of your paycheck, 50 percent, 60 percent of your paycheck? It's up to about 72 percent. Again, we don't want to encourage people to file for disability unless they need it. So we don't want to give them 100 percent or the insurance companies don't want to pay 100 percent of your income to you to encourage you to stay out of work. And for how long?

So if you're out of work for up to three months or up to six months, 12 months, 24 months. So again, life happens. Right. And we understand that life is what happens to plans. And during the course of life, things unexpected happen. Murphy's law sort of says that what can go wrong will and usually does at the worst moment.

O'Toole's rule says that Murphy was an optimist. But when things go wrong, having these protections in place help to prevent you going into debt, help to prevent you draining your savings and help to pay your bills, keep food on the table, keep the lights on. Because, again, major medical insurance covers the doctor's bills. But what about all of the rest of the bills? What about the mortgage payment? What about the car payment? What about the car insurance?

What about groceries on the table? You know, those are things that we still need to pay for. And these protections, having them in place, we feel like sometimes we're working for insurance and for taxes. Another bill that I hate writing the check for, but I get use out of.

I drive on roads. I like to have the fire and the policemen there if I need them. I don't love how taxes work, but I understand that they are necessary and that I get use out of them. Similarly with insurance. You know, we don't often love writing the bill for our homeowners or our auto insurance or our medical insurance. But, man, is that protection important.

It's important to have that in place. And just for a small portion of your income, you can protect the rest of it. You know, you brought up taxes. Taxes on disability.

And I see this sometimes. So you can set up policies before tax or after tax. And a lot of the times, if your employer is purchasing the disability for you, meaning that they are paying a portion of the funds or they're paying all of the funds towards your disability, that's written a certain way for the business owner and you will owe or could potentially owe additional taxes as well as the business owner on top of that when you go to file the claim. So you believe you're getting up to 72 percent of your lost wages. But are you really? Well, here's the thing.

There has never been a dollar that has been created or earned or grown that Uncle Sam does not have some kind of plan for how to tax. What do you call that? The troll bridge? The troll bridge.

Uncle Sam is there in the middle and then he asks you a riddle. How would you like your money to be taxed before or after you cross? And so with insurance and this is basically all types of insurance fall into this category. You can choose. Not all.

Some of them don't have the choice. But for many types of insurance, you can choose to pay the taxes ahead of time before you pay the premiums or the benefit is going to be taxable for you. So if you're paying the premiums with pre-tax dollars, then the benefit is going to be taxable.

Right? With life insurance. Life insurance has a huge tax benefit in the death benefit is tax free. I want to write all of that after tax.

To beneficiaries. And the reason why is because you're paying those premiums with money with dollars that has already been taxed. And so the benefit is tax free with medical insurance.

You're bringing that money past that troll bridge. You're paying the tax on it. And then the benefit to you is tax free. You're not going to have a hundred thousand dollar doctor bill and then the IRS pop up and say, oh, by the way, you owe us tax because you paid the tax ahead of time. And with many of these short term disability, the accident, the injury, those products can be structured in much the same way where there's a little bit of a choice on whether you pay with pre-tax dollars or post-tax dollars. But where you it's a teeter totter where you don't pay on one end, you're going to pay on the other. That's right. Insurance can be confusing. And that's why it's great to have a tour guide. If you are interested in getting more information or would like to sit down to figure out what's best for you and or your family, pick up the phone and give us a call.

Eight hundred three three eight five nine four four. Or for your company. If you are an employer and you are a H.R. representative and you want to put these types of protections in place for your team, for your group, for your employees. That is a great benefit.

It is an additional protection that is really invaluable to your workforce and no cost to the business. Pick up the phone. Give us a call. Eight hundred three three eight five nine four four.

Eight hundred three three eight five nine four four. So covering a little bit of that short term disability, how about that accident? What if I have a slip, trip, fall, break, bruise and I need to be protected for that? Talk about what the accident policy covers and what the value is. So on the accident plan, it's probably one of my most popular plans. We do file quite a bit of claims a week on that policy. Your price point is a super fair deal for what people get in return.

It's running about six dollars a week. Insurance is typically. What's the benefit? Let's say that I had some kind of accident and I know some of it depends on exactly what the type of accident is. But to run down a couple, not to bore you guys, but if you're admitted to the hospital for 18 hours or longer, we're going to get you a thousand dollars. And then every day you're in the hospital, you're looking at two hundred and fifty dollars a day.

If those treatments progress into an intensive care, the dollar amounts increase. But it pays for crutches, braces, wheelchairs, days in the hospital, surgical needs. And it even has in built in life insurance. So it's very similar to regular life insurance, but it pays if you're traveling. Basic accidents, of course, are going to pay for any deaths on those six bucks a week and paying for those slips, trips, falls, burns, breaks on or off the job. And that cash goes right to you and you have the decision to decide exactly how you spend those dollars. So for rent, for daycare, just basic food on the table just to pay your living.

Yeah, your living expenses. And if you'd like to find out more again about any of these, pick up the phone, give us a call, 800-338-5944. We are right here in North Carolina based firm, locally owned and operated, serving Wake County, Raleigh, surrounding areas all the way to eastern North Carolina, to the coast, New Bern, Greenville. We love serving our clients and we're here as the resource. So when these kind of things happen, you have somebody to call. We can pick up the phone. You can talk through exactly what the coverage protects you from and how to get the most out of that benefit.

And talking about something that can be a little bit more expensive. How about cancer? Amber, I got I got this policy just as a cancer preventative measure. Just so when I want to have the protection, I bought it because I don't want to use it. I had a dollar for every individual that threw a credit card at me and said, here, put this on file for my individual policy or my policy so that I do not get cancer.

I'd be a rich lady. Now it doesn't work that way. But I have yet to file a claim for somebody who did that. Well, it's very reassuring because the bill for a cancer diagnosis can can be quite hefty. We call it peace of mind insurance for a reason. Not to get too sappy on you guys, but I feel like we're building a relationship over these Saturdays.

Every Saturday we talk. But I just recently lost my grandfather to cancer. And, you know, both my grandmother and my grandfather were sick at the same time, one with kidney failure, one with cancer. And those medical bills rack up so quickly. Both at one point were in an extended care facility, and that's thirty five hundred dollars a month times two. Our cancer policies, there are a variety of different choices that you can choose from. But they started about four dollars a week.

I mean, guys, four dollars a week is not bad. If you feel like you're at a little bit more of a risk, you can jump up to a higher policy. But you're looking at a lump sum payment that could grow for you every year you're cancer free payments for radiation, chemotherapy, anti-nausea medication, surgeries that you may need on down to the extended care facilities where your health insurance kind of pulls back from you. A lot of people may feel that their health insurance would cover one hundred percent of everything. It does not. But that is a myth.

It is a myth. I do know for a fact a lot of health insurance companies only cover twenty one days in an extended care facility and then you're on your own. And a lot of Medicare works the same way, by the way.

Sure. And a lot of health insurance companies are turning or should I say companies that are purchasing health insurance for employees are turning towards these health insurance plans that have a deductible. And once you meet the deductible, you have cost to share. And what that means is you have a percentage of the bill that you still must pay once you meet your deductible.

And I find that a lot of people are really surprised by this. And they're super thankful that they have a supplemental product in place because that's what it's designed to do. So, Amber, you shared the story of your grandfather who had cancer.

How about how about this? Going back to the short term disability and the accident plan. Can you recall any any stories that kind of illustrate the value of of these products to some of your clients or individuals? I'll start off with a soft story. Telling some of these claims stories can be pretty tragic.

File quite a lot of them. So I'll tell you a story about myself. I started in the supplemental field almost 10 years ago. I was told about the supplemental products starting with the accident plan. And I didn't understand quite what I was doing, nor did I understand what supplemental insurance does or did for people.

However, I purchased it anyways. It was July 1st, 10 years ago. I cut my thumb on a green bean can. Can I tell the whole truth, honey?

Sure. So when I cut my thumb on a green bean can, I was getting our son's food together because Peter's mom was going to come pick him up the next day. And so I was putting everything together in this plastic container and I didn't quite get the green bean can opened all the way. And so I took my thumb and I pressed down on the green bean can and it slipped and it cut me in the web of my thumb and my pointer finger. So to be 100 percent candid, I screamed for my lovely husband, Peter Rashan. And I said, it's bad.

It's bad. I remember this story now. I got to cut.

I got to cut. And so he comes running in there and he was like, oh, that's not so bad. And he poured super glue in it, guys. New skin. It was not new skin. New skin. He may have thought he picked up the new skin, but he picked up the super glue and then wrapped it in duct tape. I couldn't believe it. Duct tape fixes everything.

Yeah. Needless to say. So stitches the next day. I did get stitches the next day. And I was super surprised to see how quickly the check came in the mail after I filed on my accident plan. So I picked up almost four hundred dollars for that cut. I paid a specialist visit at the doctor of sixty dollars.

So in that perspective, it was pretty good. I ended up almost paying for the policy for the year, basically off of that one claim. And again, that was your personal example, because I don't think you want to divulge details of some of the clients, some of the claims that you have filed, because some of them are much more severe. Luckily, that was not a permanent kind of thing.

But my thumb is good, but others are not so lucky. And a lot of times these simple kind of things could mean that we miss paying a bill for the month. It may mean for more serious kind of situations that we're putting our eventual retirement back a year or two if we have to dig out of savings. Plenty of people have to borrow from their 401k for accidents or injuries or being out of work for medical reasons.

Plenty of people have to file bankruptcy for medical expenses. And these simple types of protections for a few dollars can help to insulate and isolate your financial well-being from that eventuality, from from that potential and put in place an extra cost-effective layer of protection safety net from your financial well-being from life happening. And so we talk a lot on this program about retirement planning, about investments. But again, our our catchphrase is protecting your paycheck through all walks of life. And I wanted to highlight a little different side of the business today because we really formed this company for the purpose of you providing these insurance protections for your clients. And I was at that time the vice president of another financial company where I was I was meeting with all the clients and setting up retirement plans.

It wasn't for a couple of years later that we decided to join forces and really focus our time and attention completely on building our practice and the service that we provide to our our mutual clients. But this is something that is vitally important and it's not just the paycheck this week or this month or next week and next month. It is your financial progress and how you are progressing toward the eventual goal of not having to do what you have to do all the time and being able to afford to be able to do what you want to do, whether it's digging into those emergency accounts or those retirement savings accounts or going in debt when accidents happen. That puts you back.

It sets back your progress. And that's why I think that these types of protections are so important in the combination with a full they are the they're the structure, the foundation, they're the support for a full, true financial plan. That's right, Peter. And we do have a plethora of other products that we can show you guys.

Again, it's what's customized for your needs, what's best for you and or your family. If you are interested, please pick up the phone and give us a call. 800-338-5944.

800-338-5944. Amber, I'm still promoting my new book. I'm excited for you.

It's on Amazon. Understanding Your Investment Options, the most important book you'll read this year. And just briefly, I go through everything in this book from checking accounts to savings accounts to CDs, money markets, bonds, stocks, index funds.

What is the stock market index? How do you how do you invest in it? What what are annuities, exchange traded funds, real estate, gold, life insurance, crypto currencies, owning your own business? What are the pros and cons of each option that you have to invest your money in? What do you need to know? What are the inherent risks?

What are the utilization of each? And the comment that I get and and many other financial advisors have read this book and been in touch with me and commented, wow, you really took a non biased approach to explaining all the options. I 100 percent agree with that. And I love your approach as well. You're like that in life, though, and especially with your clients.

I see you time and time again. You're sitting down with them again, going over what their needs are, what they want in retirement, what they want out of life, and then turning around and putting a plan together for them for free that they can review that best suits their needs. It's about goals, ladies and gentlemen.

It is not about a specific product. It is about trying to figure out what is the best way for you to achieve what you envision your financial future to be about and understanding your investment options. The book can give you the basis of the understanding, the foundation for making well thought through and informed decisions. And if you would like a copy of that book, pick up the phone, give us a call.

800-338-5944. If you do have investments that you'd like to look over, if you're planning for retirement and want to see how to make the transition away from the paycheck, answer the questions of, do I have enough? How much more progress and savings do I need to get there? How do I make my money last once I quit my job? Those are also questions that we answer in our attempts to help you protect your paycheck through all walks of life. Pick up the phone, give us a call. And again, if you call from the radio program, we'll make sure to get a copy of this book in your hands.

Understanding your investment options. 800-338-5944. Visit us online, richonplanning.com.

That's our last name, Rishon. Richonplanning.com. Or on Spotify, right? Spotify, iTunes, iHeart. You can ask Siri or Alexa to play the Rich On Planning podcast.

Should we try it? Let's see what Siri has to say. Let's see what Siri has to say.

All right. Hey, Siri. Hey, Siri. I'm listening. Will you play the Rich On Planning podcast? Playing podcast Rich in Planning LLC. If you fail to plan, plan to fail.

How do you want your future? And that's how you do it, folks. On Siri, on iTunes, on iHeart Media, you can find us. You can find us by going to our website, richonplanning.com.

It does look like richonplanning.com. We love to have you join us each and every weekend here on the program. You can subscribe to the podcast. We're just happy to have you along for the ride, taking your planning and your financial future seriously. We look forward to hearing from you soon. 800-338-5944.

Signing off from our family to yours. This has been Planning Matters Radio. The content of this radio show is provided for informational purposes only, and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy. You are encouraged to seek investment, tax or legal advice from an independent professional advisor. Any investments and or investment strategies mentioned involve risk, including the possible loss of principal.

Advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, a registered investment advisor. Annuity guarantees are based solely on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuing company. Withdrawals of growth from annuities may be taxable as ordinary income in the year it is taken. Individuals should review contracts for specific details of the product's features and costs. Early withdrawals may subject the owner to penalties, fees or taxes. Fiduciary duty extends solely to investment advisory advice, and does not extend to other activities such as insurance or broker-dealer services. Advisory clients are charged a quarterly fee for assets under management, while insurance products pay a commission which may result in a conflict of interest regarding compensation.