EP 47: The #1 Retirement Killer That's NOT the Stock Market (Most People Miss This)

Tell you today is the best day of the rest of all our lives. When it comes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, it doesn't get better from here. We've got to address this. But the best day is today. It's also today is the best day to take action, to get a long term care insurance policy in place, to get a life insurance policy in place, to look at your financials, to look at your estate planning. Today is the best day to start. And if you can't do it today, then tomorrow is the next best day.

Love it. Love it. Absolutely. Yeah. I always say that, you know when, when you hear about some life changing strategy and the importance is 100% today, the importance goes down by 50% tomorrow and another 50% tomorrow and by end of the week it's not important for you anymore. Anymore. So that, that, that, love that call that, you know, if you want to take an action, it's really the best time is today.

Are you frustrated watching your hard earned money ride the knee jerking Wall street roller coaster? Are you looking to diversify into alternate investments and set them on autopilot to achieve financial freedom? It's time to learn the ways of the wealthy. It's time to Think Outside the Stocks with your host Madhvi Jain, an immigrant from India and exit professional who will bring you industry experts to illustrate a passive and holistic financial approach to build not just passive income but also your generational wealth. Madhvi is on a mission to change the financial trajectory of one family at a time. And and a thousand more to go. Are you going to be part of this vision? And now without further ado, here is the host of Think Outside the Stocks, Madhvi Jain.

Before we go ahead just a little bit, 2 cents from my lawyer that this is information and education purpose only. If you want to engage with any of our guests, including Shauna, please do your own due diligence. And I am not particularly a financial, legal or tax advisor or investment advisor. So please seek your own team and maybe Tashana would be one of that team members. Right. And also we, you know, we'll have some examples for educational information purpose only. So keep that in mind. These are point in time. These are not representative of any real information. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to Think Outside this talks. I am your host Madhavi Jain and we have here Chris Orestes for president of retirement Genius. And this is a very special guest because what are we going to talk about is, is about your retirement but how you can look at your retirement A little bit differently. Most people think that retirement is about saving enough and hoping it lasts. But what if the biggest threat that your wealth isn't the Wall street volatility but the health care cost or the long term care cost? We're going to talk about that today. My guest here, Christ Orestes, is known as, known as the retirement genius, has spent over 25 years helping families unlock the hidden wealth, protect their assets and retire with dignity. So stay tuned because what you will learn today would probably save your financial family's future. So Chris, welcome to Think Outside this talks. I am really excited about the conversation that we're going to have today.

Well, it's wonderful to be joining you today and this is certainly a timely discussion. This, this area of retirement and some of the areas that people take for granted aren't thinking about and how it can impact the quality and duration of that retirement.

Love that. Absolutely. This is going to be a fun conversation, not just from my audience, Chris, but I'm going to learn quite a bit through this conversation. And again, I'm so grateful that you're here. You know you have, I mean I'm going to talk about three fun facts about you here but you have been such a known individual in this space and to have you featured on my podcast, it's such a privilege for me. So with that I always love to start with three fun facts about my guest. And for you I have four actually. So Chris actually once directly worked with White House and Senate majority leaders before shifting into this retirement and insurance space. He worked for, you know, as a lobbyist for insurance industry in Washington D.C. so that's really fun fact. I don't think I have ever had somebody who has worked directly with White House before.

Fun fact.

That's a fun fact. Vania, you have plenty. And having hard time combining into three. The second one that he's actually he has pioneered the idea of using life insurance settlements to play pay the long term care which is one of the biggest expense when you retire. A strategy that actually he has helped thousands to keep their dignity and avoid going broke. The third fun fact, he's also an author. He's written multiple books in fact and his newest will be Retired Like Genius which is blending financial, health and lifestyle strategies for retirement. And I'm going to add fourth fact just for the kick is that you are actually most quoted person in media for retirement, aging and insurance. Isn't that it? Can, can we talk a little bit about that, Chris?

Oh yeah, no, I'd be happy to. Yes, I've, I've always been an educator in what people should know about retirement, aging, long term care, finance in, in retirement. And over the years going back, we actually, you know, we have media trackers that track quotes in the press and publish, you know, publishing those kinds of things. And going back to the year 2000, I've been quoted in the press about these issues over 1700 times. And in the last five years it's been well over 500, 600 times I've been quoted in the press and the media. And when you compare that to other people in the media who talk to the press, who are quoted, industry organization leaders, experts, people in various realms of finance, retirement, long term care. As we sit here today, we're the most quoted entity out there that the press looks to. I've done a lot of tv, a lot of radio, I've been in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, AARP Magazine, on and on it goes. And, and, and I've finally reached where I can be on your podcast and I was so happy.

I'm humbled by it. I'm humbled by it. Thank you, Chris.

Well, I'm happy we were able to connect and find the time to be able to have this conversation.

Absolutely, absolutely. So let's get started with your journey itself. Right, Chris, I think it's a very intriguing journey that you politics to what you're doing. So let's talk about, you know, from being a political insider, the lobbyist to the innovator that you are today in this retirement finance space. Can you talk about that journey?

Absolutely. I, you know, I came into politics. Well, I was actually sort of born into it. I've been around it all my life. My family have been in politics. So I was exposed to it as, for as far back as I could remember and had opportunities growing up in the state of Maine to be around some real political luminaries. As I was growing up, I spent time with George Mitchell, Olympia Snow, Bill Cohen, Edmund Muskie. On and on it went. It was a very common practice for us to be around those people and to work in political campaigns. And when I got out of college, I moved to Washington D.C. started working in the White House and then I moved over to the Capitol Hill to work for the Senate Majority Leader's office and then moved into lobbying. Went, as they say. I went downtown. I went from the Hill to downtown and started working for the Health Insurance association, known as hiaa. Today it's known as ahip. But when I was there, it was the HIAA and I also worked for the American Council of life insurers ACLI and while I was there, this is the 90s going into the early 2000s. While I was there, one of the big issues that we were focusing on that I spent a lot of time on was the coming aging baby boomer population. Back then the idea of baby boomers turning 65 was, was way in the future and what were they going to do to pay for care? What were they, you know, what was the solutions to give them other than going on to Medicaid, say to pay for long term care? And long term care insurance was an area that we did a lot of work with. We worked in partnership with care providers, medical groups, physician groups. What were we going to do to help people be ready when they started aging well? Now here we are. And in the year 2025 we are watched people turn 65, baby boomers now for years. And in 2030 the last of the baby boomers turned 65 and the first of the Gen X start turning 65. So we have an aging population and it's creating a lot of political priority around how are we going to pay for people's care. And going on to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security will be more and more challenging as we have a aging population with a lot of pressure on those taxpayer entitlement government programs and more and more emphasis will be placed on private pay. How are people going to pay for this themselves?

Wow. Wow. It just shakes my heart to even just think about it. And the good part of it is that, you know, the longitudity is becoming more, more and more prevalent. So people are living longer and how can they live healthier and how can they afford that, that care with dignity? I think that's what you're driven by. So you know, you saw the pain point in there and you decided to do something about it. What you are see see as a pain point, that's what you're here to change in the world. And I can see that perfectly in you. So take us to that through that journey. Once you decided that this is what you want to do, how did you ended up forming Life Care funding and now what's called retirement. Genius. So how's that journey from understanding that pain point really be driven by that to what you're doing today?

Well, it was while I was in Washington and I was working for the industry and a word popped up that they started talking about and they were not a fan of and it was called viatical they and it was the legal right of a policy owner to sell their policy. And, and there had been a growing movement, particularly around people at that time that were struggling with AIDS and their health insurance wouldn't cover care. And within the community, people started to realize that they could pay somebody out money up front against their life insurance policy to help them pay for their care needs. So back then, somebody with a million dollar policy was being paid x hundreds of thousands of dollars and they would sign over the ownership of their policy to the person as collateral and then they would collect the money back when the person passed away. And that movement started to grow. And in fact, here's an interesting little tidbit. There is right now an Oscar nominated documentary about that time period. It's just been nominated for an Oscar. And I encourage people to look at the short form documentary section of the Oscar nominations and you'll find a documentary, it's less than an hour that is talking about that time period and what happened. But from there, the idea of the life settlement started to expand and grow and institutional funders started to come in and realize that life insurance policies were a very stable asset class that they could buy and own because they are guaranteed to pay out. The owner of a life insurance policy will receive the full payout of their death benefit no matter what's going on in the economy, no matter what's going on in politics, no matter anything. If you own a $100,000 life insurance policy, the insured life passes, the owner of that policy is collecting $100,000. That became an outgrowth of what was happening to help the AIDS community, that, that, that community struggling to become now a much broader based, well regulated mainstream financial transaction. And I looked at that when I left Washington D.C. and I said, here is an asset, one of, it's the biggest asset class owned by Americans in this country. There are more insurance policies owned with more death benefit than there is personal homes and home equity. This is the biggest asset that Americans own in this country. And when you think about it, you pay your mortgage for years on your home. One day, when you're done living in that home, what do you do? Do you drop your keys in the driveway and abandon your home and just walk away? Of course not. You sell your home for its market value because it's a valuable asset. It's the same thing for a life insurance policy. After years of making premium payments, instead of abandoning the policy as you get older and your health is declining, you may qualify for a life settlement. And as I looked at that, I said Here's a tool for the exact audience that is looking to pay for senior care. An expensive proposition. What if we brought this to the senior care world and educated them on the fact that the families you're talking to who are struggling with how to pay for care if they have a life insurance policy that could be a valuable asset to help them pay for care. And before we knew it, life care funding was launched and we were working with tens of thousands of senior care providers across the United States helping them navigate with the families how to get the value of their life insurance policy through a life settlement to pay for care. And in that time we ended up funding millions and millions of dollars of care. Over the years to this day, still working with care providers, but we've expanded into agents, advisors, attorneys, accountants of all sorts. But you know what started with me hearing the name of a transaction that I at first didn't understand to where we are today. Over almost 25 years later, this has become a very mainstream way for seniors and those that are struggling with declining health to access an asset they own instead of throwing it away and put money in their pocket that they can use to pay for their retirement health, long term care needs, anything they need. And a lot of the people we work with end up using it for health and long term care costs.

Love it, love it. It's quite a few things to digest there. First of all, thank you for sharing that documentary. What did, what did you say the name of that documentary was? I'm gonna watch my.

No, I don't have, you know what, I don't have it in front of.

Me, but it's okay, I'll try to find it out and put it into the sections for the reference. But thank you for sharing that.

Post it, but it's been nominated and it's in the, if you looked up list of nominations, short form documentary. There it is.

Absolutely. So you know, what a, what a beautiful way of looking at, you know, life insurance and the permanency of it because that is a death benefit that for sure somebody's going to get paid and kind of harnessing that to their current need. And we talk about life insurance a lot and life insurance people think about it as, hey, that's the money that's going to be after my death, not life after my death, going to be passed to my heirs or my beneficiaries. Right. They don't see that that's something that they can harness if there's a need during their lifetime and start using it as kind of a Living benefit per se, Right. So you kind of made that kind of fire near that, that if your care is your current need while you are living to make your life a little better, a little bit easier and to have that dignity, you can access that death benefit while you are alive and use it in your time of your needs. I think that's, that's wonderful because not many people look at life insurance that particular way. So you know, 25 years later and today sitting here, thousands and thousands people that you have worked with, you have helped creating this. I'm going to start looking at, you know, just a little bit into nitty gritty details of what this is and what it entails. Right. Just spelling it out layman terms to our audience and listeners that if they have this problem or if they foresee this problem, how can they use or utilize their life insurance? Right. So can you talk about a little bit about LTC and you know, using this life insurance settlements for the care. If somebody is not there yet and want to build something for their retirement or per se, their, you know, the, the care, the medical care, how can they start thinking about using, using LTC or chronic illness or whatever it is today just to start building so that they don't get into this situation. And by the way, I'm a big proponent of infinite banking. I mean there's needs to be just more and more people to educate and show people how important this aspect is in here. So could you elaborate the main difference between that, you know, what the, what they can do right now and then we'll talk about if they come into that situation, what can they do when they say.

A couple of key things to bear in mind. One, and you make a good point, people buy life insurance to protect beneficiaries. But what happens so often is people will outlive the insurable interest that they initially bought that policy for. Their young family has grown up, the children have moved, they have their homes, they have their kids, they have their own life insurance. And so there is a very large abandonment rate for life insurance policies. As many as 9 out of 10 life insurance policies taken out will not be kept in force to ultimately pay a death benefit. People will lapse or surrender the policy. Surrendering means you've built up some cash surrender value in the policy which the insurance company will gladly give you to walk away from the policy. They've collected your premiums for years. You've built up some cash surrender value. You take the cash surrender value, they're able to now cancel the policy or you just stop paying premiums. Oftentimes, say a term life policy, and the policy is abandoned.

Right?

You have over 260 million life insurance policies that are owned in this country today. And for the people who own the policy, just like they own their home, they're both assets, they both have market value. They both have the right to sell that asset if and when they want. The difference is everybody knows you would sell your house. Not enough people realize you could sell your life insurance policy. For many people, they kind of think that paying premiums is sort of like you're renting the death benefit. And if you stop paying premiums, then the insurance company doesn't have to pay the death benefit, which is true. The difference is you own that policy. You're not renting it, you own it. So that option is one that. Because the primary characteristics for people to qualify for life settlements is based on three things. Their age, their health, and the size of the, of the life insurance policy. Now, right, any form of life insurance policy will qualify for a life settlement. So a term life policy, a universal life policy, a whole life policy, but the minimum death benefit needs to be $100,000 or greater. So a smaller $20,000 policy, a final expense type policy, that's not a candidate for a life settlement, $100,000 and above. Now the policy is a candidate for a life settlement. Two, typically the age is 65 and above. The vast majority of settlements are done for people between the ages of 72 and 95. That's the vast majority. And then third is health. As a person's health is declining, the value they can get from a life settlement is increasing. You and I are too young and healthy to qualify for a life settlement. We would not be a prospect. But my aging parents, your aging parents, they could be a prospect. People we know across our client bases that are aging and experiencing declining health. Now this becomes an outlet for them to access and, and that's why so often it can be used for long term care costs. Because the very people who would best qualify for a life settlement often are the people who are in most need of health and long term care services, which they come to discover is prohibitively expensive.

Yeah, you said it. You know, rightfully so. That people who are wanting to surrender or, you know, have some cash from this settlement of a life insurance product is actually people in need. And, you know, Matthew Payne was on my podcast a few weeks back and.

We talked about life settlement right there. That's for sure.

Yes. And we talked about life settlement. And thanks to him and he connected us as well together. But we were talking about the life settlement, right. And kind of the moral obligation behind it. And it feels like, you know, it's somebody's death benefit. You're trying to get somebody's death benefit and sell to the market when, you know, they probably don't have enough years to live. But think about it actually how you're helping them because it's about their dignity. Because when they are in the stage where they actually need to sell this policy or go into that secondary market is when they have that need and most likely it's going to be their long term care needs that if not supported, if that doesn't, that market didn't exist or that didn't get sold, they probably will not have enough money to pay for that medical cost and live their life with a little bit of comfort and dignity. That's whatever is left of it. Right. So, so having that need where they actually don't have enough time or you know, left in their, their lifespan due to unfortunate health conditions that they're going, going through and trying to help in that, that stage of life, I think that's, that's pretty noble. So thanks, thanks to you and kudos to you for doing that and making difference in thousands and thousands of people of life. I have to say that.

Yeah, well, and thank you for saying that. And I can't tell you how many times we've had the experience of either somebody coming to us with a life insurance policy at the time they have a need to pay for care, we're able to settle the policy and all of a sudden they had tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to work with that they otherwise were going to throw the asset away. And then the, the flip side, which is always tragic, and this has happened to us more than many times where families come to us six months, a year after they've abandoned a policy when they found out that this was something they could do and, and no one had advised them that this was an option. And in fact, I can tell you that over the last decade there have been more than one occasion where a policy owner has sued their advisor for not providing them that information. And it's gone to court and required settlements, you know, court ordered settlements for people who felt that the information was suppressed and held from them. It was looked at as a violation of fiduciary responsibility to let somebody know that with this life insurance policy asset you have this potential option. You know, if somebody's sitting there with a life insurance policy with $10,000 of cash value, but they could do a settlement that would get them 50 or $100,000. Well, you know, do the math. Which is the better option, which is the better outcome for somebody who's going to let go of that policy.

Yeah. And you make a very, very interesting point when you compare it to your asset as your home. Right. That you don't just abandon your home. You know, that this is going to be an asset pass to your next generation. And if you don't want to home for the next generation, you can sell this. You can, you know, get that equity and get that cash for whatever reason, whatever living expenses or whatever, you know, care experiences, expenses that you have. But you know, coming out of the home, it's a big deal. If you have a life insurance, the permanency and the asset kind of a look of, of this life insurance itself. It's a very, very important mindset change. Because when I built, you know, infinite banking with my clients and I create a structure and we are about to finalize that, they always come back, you know, and ask me that one question. But what if, what if, what if, if I have to, you know, surrender this? What if I have to, you know, give up this? Or what if I can't just afford to continue this? Can I just take my cash out? And I always say that you can always take the cash out. It's your cash. But do you have to do that? Right. There are so many different options that you can, first of all, let the policy cash value kind of replenish that minimum requirement, best premium that you have so that it sustains for yourself. But if there is a need in this case, you kind of go into the life settlement market, the secondary market, and you can sell it for more money than the cash value that's sitting. It's something in between your death benefit and your cash value. So let's talk about, you know, what is that method? If somebody is in that need, how can they approach you? And what is that process looks like?

Well, remember that life settlements is based on reverse underwriting. So the older and sicker somebody is, the more they're going to get for a life settlement when you're young and you're healthy.

Are you hearing an echo now?

No, no, we're clean. We're clean.

Yeah, go ahead.

All right, so why don't you start over with the question.

I'll just get to the end of the question so you can kind of, you know, pick it up from there. So, Chris, this is, this Is great. I mean, you know, for somebody in the need that they have to use their life insurance in the secondary market in the life settlement to use it for your, you know, long term care. What is the process and how do they approach. And how do they approach you to start with this process?

Well, you know, it's actually interesting. The process is pretty common sense. It's not difficult. And it starts with the fact that life settlements are based on reverse underwriting. So the younger and healthier you are when you buy insurance years ago, the better you did buying insurance. But now as you're aging, your health may be declining. Now that's actually working in your favor. If you're looking at a life settlement and using the life insurance policy to cash it out and get its maximum value could potentially put you in a position where you avoid needing to sell your house or tapping into other assets, stocks, investments, business interests. Because you've got a life insurance policy that maybe you don't need anymore. Maybe you're thinking you're going to get rid of it. Well, find out what it's worth. So how do you find out what it's worth? First of all, it is a no cost process. There are no costs whatsoever, no fees of any sort for the policy owner to explore and do a life settlement. It'll never cost them one dime out of pocket. They're going to basically fill out a simple authorization form that will allow the group that is going to look at their policy and see if they qualify for a settlement. How much could they get? You're going to sign an authorization form that's going to allow them to look at your medical records and look at your policy information. So the license there's and this is a well regulated transaction at the state level. So the licensed life settlement provider, that's what the official terminology is for the group that will do that work. They're going to, they're going to based on looking at your policy and your age, your gender, your policy, your health records. And that's all they're going to look at. They're just going to look at health records. You know, there's no blood drawn, there's no going to a doctor's office. It's a simple matter of they will order and look through medical records and from it try and determine how long they think your remaining life expectancy is. And what would it cost then to take over the ownership of the policy, which means you're there taking over the premium payments and then they will pay you out some percentage of that death benefit as the purchase price. So the shorter your remaining life expectancy is for the individual, the more they're going to pay out. So the older and sicker somebody is, the more they're going to get. For a life settlement again, you and I would be automatically declined. We would be way too young and healthy at this stage for a life settlement. So the company's going to do that review work. They're going to come back to the policy owner and, or the agent advisor that they're working with to tell them you qualify. Here's how much for the policy you could get. If that sounds something that you want to go forward with, you'll, you'll do a formal acceptance of the offer and then you'll move into a closing process to transfer the ownership of the policy, which is the same, almost the same process as selling your house and transferring the ownership of your house. It's done remotely. They're going to send the policy owner a packet of documents, 30 or 40 pages with sign here flags throughout them. You're there'll be a scheduled closing with a professional on the phone to walk them through, answer their questions, explain what's going on. They'll fill all, they'll sign everything, put it into an enclosed envelope that gets sent back to the buyer, the buyer at that point, the money for settling the policy is in an escrow account and the buyer now will file the paperwork with the insurance company to transfer the ownership of the policy takes a couple weeks. When it's done, everything's confirmed. The money from the settlement is released from escrow to the policy owner. They're no longer responsible for premium payments going forward. They have been paid for their asset. Just like when you close on your house, you're no longer responsible for mortgage payments. You receive the money for the sale of your property and then that's your money to do with as you need and wish. And in the case of life settlements, for many people, again, that's addressing their shortfalls in their retirement budget, their health care needs and the potential of very expensive long term care costs. Particularly if your goal is to age in place, which everybody's is. Everybody would prefer to remain at home. They don't want to move out of their homes. Well, that's an expensive proposition. You could easily be spending $10,000 a month cash on care to be at home. The life settlement could put that kind of money into your pocket to be able to sustain you at home for as long as you could possibly hope to be able to remain.

Wow. Wow. Absolutely I mean, this is, you know, the simplest form of the process. Almost like you say, it's like a house buying process. You know, it has all the components of it step by step. There's a security on how this is executed, how this is, you know, analyzed. There's, you know, closing the escrow, that the money's not going over anywhere when you are in that phase of transferring that ownership, just like a house buying. So thanks for spelling that out for us. In terms of the taxation though, how does the taxation work on, on the settlement that they have gotten? And can they create something like an annuity or anything which can, you know, disperse this amount periodically to them to avoid that heavy taxation?

There are certainly options to roll a life settlement, the funds from a life settlement over into annuities. And there are some specific annuities well suited for that use. Oftentimes with a, with a trigger for long term care costs included. The money that someone receives from a life settlement up to what they've paid in premiums is tax free. So their basis in the policy, anything they get up to that is tax free, above that. Now you're looking at a combination of anything above your basis is potentially capital gains or a mix of income and capital gains. But if your diagnosis is terminal or chronic condition with two ADL's or more, and ADL's are activities of daily living, the loss of activities of daily living, and if you have two or more, you're diagnosed as chronic or you're diagnosed as terminal with a condition, cancer, let's say, or Lou Gehrig's disease, different terminal conditions, then all of the funds, regardless of your basis in the policy, are tax free.

That is very important aspect to know. I think the ADLs we talk about, the six activities out of two out of those that you can't do, you have the terminal illness, pretty much everything that you can use it for, for your care, I think that's incredible. And sometimes, you know, you do need that money. If, especially if you have the terminal condition where you have less than 12 months to live, you could use this to make that life comfortable in your last year or so of your life. So that's, that's great to know.

And obviously now we're, we're not CPAs, we don't give tax advice, but as a general guideline. And then everybody who would do a settlement or any advisor would need to look into their unique circumstances themselves. But as a general guideline, that's what you would be looking.

Right? Right. No, thank you. So much for sharing that. And we could go on, on this conversation and more details and details about it, but it's kind of, you know, coming to the end. But I do want to, you know, talk about that somebody who has like say 10, 12 years to retire and they are looking at their family history and probably looking at, hey, I might need, you know, long term care because my mom is, you know, is living longer, but she has a lot of health problems. What is that one piece of advice that you would give it to them that somebody who's not there?

Couple things. One, if you're under the age of 70, you want to look at buying some form of long term care insurance. There's long term care insurance, but there's also short term care insurance and there's home health care insurance. You have other options to pre plan for a need in the future. And if you own a life insurance policy, hang on to that because that now is another asset that you could use towards your care needs. And we see people all the time who will actually combine both. They, they'll have a long term care insurance policy and they need to go on claim. They're starting to get benefits, but it's a limited daily amount that they're getting and then they do a life settlement on top of it. So now they have a daily benefit coming from their long term care insurance or they have some money coming on a monthly basis from an annuity but then they also have been able to settle their life insurance policy and they have a pool of cash that they're in control of to be able to use to offset any shortfalls in the cost of care. Things that may not be covered. Believe me, if you have long term care insurance, you're, you're covering your care needs in the future, but you may not be covering them 100%, you may be covering a portion and you will be looking at how do I make up some shortfalls. So the combination of long term care insurance, annuities and life insurance settled through an LTC life settlement to use towards care becomes a very powerful combination to stack benefits and liquid resources to pay for care and meet the goal of say aging in place.

Love that. It's almost like a diversification and I talk about the diversification of investments through my real estate fund. But this is like a diversification of that need that you might come in when it comes to, you know, the long term care. It's kind of stacking that benefits one after other to have it sufficient so that you know, your kids don't have that burden or you, you don't know where to, you know, look for. And I think, you know, one of the important aspect I always say, and I have clients who are like 55, 60 and you know, good health still and they qualify for life insurance. And I always say that this probably might be your, you know, last chance to get the life insurance. I actually have worked with a 68 year old who had an approved life insurance and I kind of tell them that this is probably the last time that you can get approved for a life insurance. So get it while you can still.

Because it seems long term care insurance too. Yeah, you're in your 60s but you want to take a look at getting those in place because those are going to be, those are going to be the financial tools to take care of you later. And if you think it's not going to happen to you, you're sorely mistaken. 70% of people in this country once they pass the age of 65 need some form of long term care. And what ends up happening for so many people that think it's not going to happen to them and they don't plan for it, they don't prepare for it, guess who gets to end up being the caregiver? The family, the spouse, the children. They're either helping to pay for things and, or do the caregiving themselves. And you become a burden on your family instead of having prepared to eliminate not only you being a burden on your family but not having the quality of life and care that you deserve and the dignity you should have when you get to that stage of life.

That's an eye opener Chris. That's absolutely eye opener because to think about what we are living in the present and think about that our future will not have this kind of liability. I mean I think about it and it's not about just liability for me but I don't want to change my kids life when they're in their prime by burdening them with my health issues and my care issues and you know, my financial issues when it comes to the care. So I think this is a definite eye opener what you just said in last 60 seconds or so. It's kind of a mindset changing. If you don't think that's not going to happen to you, I mean think twice. At least be ready for some kind of stacked up strategy for, for your, you know, care so that your family, your kids don't get burdened by the emotional, mental and the financial burden of it.

So I always say hope for the best. But plan for the worst.

Absolutely.

You'd be better off to get these tools in place and not need them than to have to eventually need these tools and no longer have any ability to get to them. Yeah, better take advantage of where you are now. Have open communication with your family members, be clear about what do you have, what do you want for when that day comes for you and if it doesn't, if you're one of the people that is able to get to the very last day of your life without ever having needed long term care, congratulations. But you're a unicorn. You're a unicorn in life if you can get there. Most people do not get there, although they delude themselves into thinking it's never going to happen to them. And trust me, it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. So if they need, they are in that need where they're the part of the life that they hold some kind of life insurance and including term life insurance and they need that long term care, how can they, you know, start this process? How can they get in touch with you or just in general, you know, kind of educating or, you know, looking at resources on planning that retirement later on for them? How can they get in touch with you and what's the best place to start?

I. Well, you can reach us@retirementgenius.com you'll find us also on YouTube. We have a YouTube channel. Retirement Genius has a number of short animated education videos that people can click on and watch. If you're a professional out there and you want to talk to us, you'll find us on LinkedIn or if you're on LinkedIn, we're on LinkedIn. And you could also always Google us if you want to read some of the press coverage, watch some of the TV shows, we've been on radio programs and you know, it's all out there. And you'll find a good amount of information to help you move forward. And I'll always say on our website, RetirementGenius.com, you'll read some great information and it'll point you in the right direction. And it's important that you work with professionals. Don't do this on your own. Don't try and wing this. You want to work with professionals. And remember, they're not charging you for their services. If you buy a policy, they're going to be paid a commission for their services by the insurance company, not you. So you have access to services that aren't going to cost you and shouldn't. There are some Fee based advisors out there. But there are plenty of advisors out there that they're only going to be paid if they successfully help you get to where you're going and you won't be out of pocket for that.

Yeah, love that. And I'm going to look into, you know, how I can help my clients and align myself with you and what you're doing so that I can start helping as well. So thank you so much for sharing that. And with that, we have two segments left. It's kind of an interesting segment. The first segment is called Think Outside the Stocks as the name of the show. And in this segment I would love to know and you know, I look upon you guys as experts coming in in your area, specific subject matter area. But stepping back, I love to look at how you, you know, even as a retirement genius, how you have, Chris, created kind of a structure for your family to not just, you know, create your financial freedom or passive income or whatever, but about, you know, thinking about holistic approach to grow, preserve, protect and pass your generational wealth. So how about you share a tidbit of what strategies you have utilized in your families kind of this generational wealth wealth in terms of dollars and in terms of knowledge as well that, you know, our audience and even me can learn from.

I'll give you two, two things, two pieces of advice. One, you want to make sure that you have your estate planning in place, will trusts and then vehicles such as insurance. And what I do is I have a file and it's in my office. My children, my adult children know where it is. Those that have been named in my living trust for financial and medical powers of attorney. I have everything gathered in one file. And if I became incapacitated or were to perish, it's all sitting there instead of. And we see this happen so often. Somebody gets to that point and then the family is digging through scraps of paper, things in shoeboxes and oh, I think they had a life insurance policy. I can't remember. We can't find it. Every single thing, my, every bank account, every investment account, my mortgage, my car loan, my insurance policies, my wills, my trust is all in one place. Grab it and turnkey, ready to go. Everybody knows what to do. And it's all sitting there ready to go.

Love it, guys. And then it's quite, I just had to like in 30 seconds say something. It's quite incredible that you talk about it because I have a webinar coming up with the, you know, estate planning and the need people think that Oh, I have will and that's enough. But that does go through probate and there's so much complications in it. So actually I have a webinar and I'm going to post a link in the notes also that people can join and talk to like this estate planning experts on why they need to first of all create it and then understand what are the next steps. So thank you so much for bringing that up. Please go ahead. You were saying?

Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't have to be expensive. And I can tell you this. If you pass away, either your wishes that you've laid out are going to be, are going to be carried out, or if you haven't, then probate court is going to decide what happens to everything for your family. Now, the second piece of advice I always give is this is the number one financial investment anybody will ever make in their life and it is in their own health. Staying healthy is so important. A good diet, exercise, movement, engaging not just your body, but your mind, keeping your body engaged as well as your mind, reading, art, playing chess. You know, you want your body and your mind sharp. When you get into your 70s, your 80s, if you're overweight, work on losing weight. If you're not moving, if you're not working out, at least be out there walking or doing something. But if you show up out of shape, overweight, you're going to, you're going to. All of a sudden, just as you're thinking you're getting into your golden years, you're going to be, instead of spending your time walking around and exploring locations that you want to visit and enjoy, you're going to be spending your time going to doctor's appointments, pharmacy appointments, and prematurely looking at how you're going to get care from your either family or loved ones. And once you get to the point that you are needing long term care that can wipe out somebody's savings, investments for their retirement very quickly, like within a year, you could be wiped out. And so I've always said, what good is a Ferrari parked in your garage if you're too sick to drive it?

Wow. Wow. Mind again, you know, eye opening because, you know, I think this, the fact that you should focus on your health is kind of repeated millions of times now. But the way you have put it so differently and eloquently that if you don't do this, you know, I mean, visualization of that Ferrari is just sitting. If you can't drive it, you're so, so right about it. People look at this golden years about Retirement. And they have plans about this is what. After retirement, I'm going to travel, I'm going to do this, I'm going to focus on my hobbies and, and whatever it is. But if your health is not there, you're spending time in your doctor's appointment and you have all gone through that one year in life, whether there's health or accident. And you know that that entire year for not just for you or your family member who was sick is written off, but it's entire year written off for the entire family.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, what you're saying is it's incredibly important to focus on health.

The number one financial investment you'll ever make in your retirement.

Absolutely.

Be healthy, don't be sick, be healthy.

That's, that's incredible. With that, we have come to our last kind of a fun, you know, segment. I call it as a rapid fire. And it's a quick question, kind of a fun question, intriguing question sometimes and 60 second answer. So whenever you're ready for it, I can start with that.

It sounds like a fun way to wrap up our wonderful session.

Absolutely. I've been enjoying this discussion. I think, you know, I would love to continue this discussion even in future because you're a tremendous wealth of information and I hope, you know, audience, you have also gotten so many golden nuggets, that one action plan at least, come on, go on and implement. So with that, if you're ready for the rapid fire, here's your first. First question. Yeah, perfect. So can you share a real life story that, you know, touched your heart really, really, you know, deeply when somebody had that kind of life insurance policy and they had this need and that really made difference so much different in their life that it was like, you just can't forget that moment. And even still, if you remember, it gives you goosebumps.

Yeah, we, I remember a family was referred to us by a home care company that was working with the family. They were trying to figure out how could the family pay for care for their loved one. And they asked them, do you have a life insurance policy? And they said, yes, we do. We just told our agent, we don't plan to renew it, we don't want to pay the premiums, we're going to let it go. And they said, well, wait a minute, let somebody get you in touch with the people at retirement. Genius. That might be something we could help you use to pay for care. And sure enough, we were able to take a quick look at their, their age, their health, the Situation the policy. And we determined that they were going to qualify for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars for the policy. It was a over mil. It was a million dollar range policy. And that made all the difference that right there. Instead of throwing the policy away, they were able to settle it, get that money in hand, start using it for care needs, keep the home in the hands of the family instead of selling that. And that took care of everything. And they were literally within a week of getting rid of the policy, they were going to let it go. It was going to be gone by the end of that week. And instead we were able to turn the whole thing around and figure out that they had a better option.

Wow. And that that kind of changed their complete life. I mean, they hold on to their assets like that.

Well, for them and the entire family.

Yeah. Wow.

Wow. That's.

That's incredible. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah.

Your second question is, and being your political background and where do you come from, what is that one regulation or law that you wish you could kind of rewrite or, you know, to better protect, you know, whatever you do, or generational wealth, or one law that has actually, you think that has changed, you know, a significant portion of how we look at things.

Well, now you want to start talking about politics and laws. That's a whole nother show. But I will say that we need to take a very close look at the salt of Social Security and Medicare over the coming five to ten years. Both programs are coming up against solvency issues around the trust funds. That funds about a third of benefits. And if we do not address the dwindling money in those trust funds for Those programs within 10 years or less, we're looking at significant cuts to Social Security and Medicare, increased costs for Medicare as well as cuts to benefits. Social Security could, could get as much as a 20 to 25% across the board reduction for everybody who collects Social Security. And I can tell you for over half the people on Social Security, they could not afford a cut like that. So where are we today? And what we need to do to address the those shortfalls is going to quickly become a very critical situation. We're watching that closely. We're involved in that, commenting on it. We've talked a lot about it in the press. Again, I encourage people look us up with just do a Google search of Chris Orestes retirement genius. You'll see a lot of what we've been talking about to the media and across the industry. You're going to see a lot, I think action in the coming very short time frame of years to address this.

Wow, that's incredible. I mean, you know, people like you and me, when we know that, okay, this is a definite amount that's going to be, you know, available for us through Social Security and the medical Medicare benefits. If that's cuts down by, you know, that 25, 30% or even worse, we don't, don't even know. And that's probably another reason why we need to start planning for the retirement and the cost of retirement that we'll have.

Well, that's right. It's a combination of how do we shore up those programs. But people do all they can to, to better prepare themselves for, for the financial realities of what's coming. And I'll tell you, today is the best day of the rest of all our lives when it comes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. It doesn't get better from here. We've got to address this. But the best day is today. It's also today is the best day to take action to get a long term care insurance policy in place, to get a life insurance policy in place, to look at your financials, to look at your estate planning. Today is the best day to start. And if you can't do it today, then tomorrow is the next best day.

Love it, love it. Absolutely. Yeah. I always say that, you know, when, when you hear about some life changing strategy and the importance is 100 today, the importance, importance goes down by 50% tomorrow and another 50% tomorrow and by end of the week it's not important for you any anymore. So that, that, that, love that call that you know, if you want to take an action, it's really the best time is today. Love that action.

And with that I'll leave you with this, this quote that somebody, a colleague of mine, which I thought was very, very, very on point and he said if you, if you don't think you can afford today the premium of a long term care insurance policy or a life insurance policy or to put money into an annuity, you're definitely not going to be able to afford the care event when it comes.

Yeah, yeah, love that. I think, you know, I typically have three questions but your, this last quote is so powerful, it has so much punch in it. I would love to kind of keep it at that. So I think that that's incredible. You know, incredible amount of information that we kind of digested today. Incredible amount of call to action that you have to take to make your, you know, the retirement simplified for not just for you, but for your kids as well. So Chris, I really, really, truly appreciate you being here and you know, kind of providing such a wealth of knowledge, such golden nuggets to our audience. This is super powerful insights today. So from preserving the dignity in the retirement to unlocking the hidden wealth in life insurance life settlement, you have really shown you know how to think beyond that stock market, think beyond Wall street, think beyond the retirement even and think beyond the life insurance. Truly, truly protecting what matters the most, our families, our legacy. And for our listeners, if today's conversation inspired you to make sure check it out Chris's work@retired retirementgenius.com and grab his latest books. He's a lot of information. If you think this was a lot of information, go on here. His website, his YouTube channels, there's a ton of free information and you know, all the media outlets that he has been, there's a lot of information there. And then as always, if you want to learn more about infinite banking alternate investments, you know where you can find me@thinkoutsidethestocks.com but we do have that webinar coming up on estate planning if you want to attend. You know, this is my way of giving back. You know, my educating you with not just about financial freedom and passive income, but about growing, preserving, protect in passing your generational wealth and thinkoutsidethestocks.com is where you can find me. But Chris has provided us with an incredible direction to not just think outside the stocks but you know, just outside of the box of this. These strategies that we thought we shunned away because hey, that's the life insurance were tied to it. So ask yourself that question that is it really worth shunning it away and what difference it can make your life and your loved one's life. So Chris, thank you so much again. It's a pleasure, pleasure to have you. Very, very grateful for your presence here.

Absolutely. The pleasure was all mine and I'll look forward to joining you again another time. We can have some more interesting discussions. Political sphere, other, other elements of aging and long term care. We, there's plenty we can talk about. We barely got.

Absolutely. This is just a beginning. That's how I look at it. Thank you so much, Chris.

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