Navigating Retirement with Confidence: Strategies from Ideas by Mike (Ep. 25)

Today on the Ideas by Mike podcast, Tom Haines with Annexus. He, he brings such an interesting perspective to what fixed index annuities and the crediting strategies can do in your overall retirement portfolio. As we build your one-of-a-kind financial plan, Annexus is a partner we use, and you'll definitely want to hear today from one of the smartest men In Wall Street, or smartest men on Wall Street, about how indexing works. We'll see you soon.

Welcome to Ideas by Mike, the podcast with Mike Milligan, where you will find one-of-a-kind financial planning advice for your one-of-a-kind life. With over 22 years of experience as a certified financial planner, Mike shares experiences and advice on crafting simple, easy-to-understand financial plans based on your values and priorities. He believes that taking a personalized approach is the best way to prepare for the future and give meaning to your finances. So, follow along as Mike, and from time to time, his guests, explore different strategies and tools that could help you secure your financial future in retirement. Now, onto the show.

Hello, and welcome to the Ideas by Mike podcast with your host, Mike Milligan. I'm Wendy McConnell. Hey, Mike, how you doing today?

I'm good, Wendy. It seems like I see each— I see you so often now.

Yeah.

And it's so exciting to see you as often as I get to see you.

Well, I'm waiting for my invitation to, you know, the next holiday dinner, so.

Come on down. The Christmas party, we'll make sure you get the invitation to that.

All right.

You are just now part of the Ideas by Mike team, and I love that.

Yes. All right. Thank you.

We—

All right. We do have a guest today though, right?

Absolutely. As we mentioned in the intro, Tom Hayes with Nexus is here with us today, and I'm excited to welcome Tom to the Ideas by Mike podcast. Tom, welcome.

Well, thank you so much for having me on, Mike. It's an honor to be on. Wendy, thank you for hosting us today. And hello to everyone listening today. We appreciate it. I'm speaking to you from just a few blocks, actually, from Capitol Hill and the White House. I'm down in Washington. I'm in Washington, D.C. for some compliance meetings, all good training at our law firm, Carlton Fields. So, I'm joining you in the nation's capital, which is a pretty topical space right now when it comes to the economy.

Well, I will tell you, it's what our clients ask us about so much is like, how does Washington impact me right now? And right now, it's bringing a lot of fear. So, glad to have one of the good guys, you, up there. To lend guidance, do compliance, and be on our side to help us with clients. So I appreciate that. Tom, I always ask our guests one question because I think it's something that differentiates our firm from everybody else, is we build and execute one-of-a-kind financial plans for our clients' one-of-a-kind lives. And so one of the things that I— all of my clients and prospects want to know when I have a guest on is What makes you, Tom, one of a kind?

Well, that, that, that's a very interesting question. And I would say from, you know, for those on the audience, you probably care about what I can do to help you and, and through this process and partnership and a little bit about myself. I actually have a degree in quantitative finance from your great home state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia. Uh, I went to James Madison University. So when I went, the only quantitative finance program for undergrads in the entire US, There's only a few now, but even back then there was only one. It was from James Madison University. I graduated first in my class of eight students, and through my career I've always worked on indexing. So now here we are in 2025. I can tell you that I'm in what we do. This is interesting with the old not I'm not joking probably the oldest American that works on this type of job, and a lot of because a lot of the know how when it comes to quantitative finance comes from people from in. In FIA indices from people around the world, uh, people that have been educated in France, the UK, India, and they come here to America to really work on deals. And, and I think why that's important is I, I've seen my, my parents, my, my grandparents go through retirement, understanding about my grandmother who, you know, was a young woman in the Depression, ultimately dealt with the inflation in the '70s and '80s and struggled to have income. I've seen that happen. You know, I see my mother trying to think about how to draw down appropriately as she's in her late 70s. So, it's a reality as opposed to just an academic exercise as well.

So, Tom, what I'm hearing, right, is when you talk about quantitative finance and you talk about indexing, what a lot of our listeners may hear is that you are an Avenger. You are a superhero. You're part of the Marvel Universe. But what your superhero, your superpower is, is kind of safeguarding retirement. Does that sound right?

Well, that says a lot. And that's a real big compliment. And I guess, like any superhero, there might be a weakness, right? Like, so, I've been with my wife for almost 20 years, and she's from Poland originally, and I can't speak any second language. Actually, through finance, I had the opportunity to trade in Europe for 3 years in Paris. And I failed out of Berlitz. And that's a, that's a language school you just pay for a little tuition for. So to your point, that's my weak point is language, not by ignorance. I think that having multicultural is important, but I guess my strength is really not knowing that— not saying that I'm the best mathematician, but really understanding the dovetailing of economics, finance, math, and also having humility to realize there are some great minds around you that you should listen to. So if that's Dr. Robert Shiller, the Nobel laureate, Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School, Roger Ibbotson, my friend and mentor, all of those are mentors and friends that we have at Annexus that are our index partners and be able to work with them who are really the legends and pillars of this industry. Uh, that, that's what's been humbling for me. And that really what makes the super force of, I would say, the financial economics Avengers, right? Yeah.

That's, that's, that's impressive. Right. You mentioned some key names there, right? Who not only are mentors of yours, but are very strategic partnerships. of our partners of Annexus. You mentioned, you know, Robert Shiller, Jeremy Siegel, Roger Ibbotson. Maybe, maybe for— and this is off script a little bit, but maybe for our guests, right? Maybe share with us a little bit about what the— what their academic rules-based approach, how that applies for like a client who uses Annexus or an Annexus product. to be able to safeguard their retirement.

Absolutely. So, who is Annexus, right? Annexus is an indexed annuity product development company. Some of you on the line might not be familiar with Annexus, but we're really the intel inside, the inside of the, really the insurance product and help build the product with the insurance companies that you see today. So, we're really B2B. So, when you think about the Nationwide partnership, North American, Athene, we're the ones who have helped build that product behind the scenes. Now, even though I'm speaking to you from Washington, DC right now, Now, I'm based out of New York City, so outside of North Jersey, and my role is actually to work on the investment strategies that go within these products. And as Mike and his team has worked with you, we teach that these are products with full downside protection with a level of upside participation that track market strategies. Now, there's a lot of products out in the market that just track the S&P, right? And the S&P, you would say, well, it's been a great 10 years ever since the financial crisis. Great. However, that's taking a bet. Bets work till they don't work. If you remember the lost decade, right after the, the tech bubble, the financial crisis. So what we believe at Ennexus is financial product planning is not about betting. It's about diversification, stability, and bringing an array of strategies together to complement. And we're not building these strategies to work just on a rearview mirror basis, but to think of how they can work in different conditions. Not that we have a crystal ball, But the ability to bring a diverse portfolio and bring different thought leadership with access to different asset classes, we think improves consistency over the long run. It doesn't guarantee positive performance on any given year, but we feel that if a product's being held for multiple years, 10, 15, 20 years, we have guaranteed income even longer, it helps that path. And in doing so, one of the things that Enexus values, as opposed to, as I said, just having a perfect backtest of a financial strategy, which anyone can build, How can we work with some leading academics to be able to bring their research to market in these rules-based indices? Not that we're trying to sound like we're elitist and work with these great academic partners, but their research allows them to articulate to us years when their strategy doesn't work and years when it will work. And that also helps us build the portfolio so that we can have pieces, the puzzle pieces to know When something has that zig, the other has that zag. And we've been really blessed to have those partners. I would think of Nexus as really the only product development firm in the country that can name off working with Nobel laureate, his best friend, Jeremy Siegel, greatest stock mind alive, Roger Ibbotson that helped so many advisors many years ago understand that stocks can be better than bonds, which is now kind of common sense to the market today, as well as Rob Arnott, who has the patent on smart beta. So, we've been really lucky with that approach, and they're very involved with our partnership.

You mentioned, right, just that Annexus and the indexes that underlie Annexus are a little bit different than the S&P 500, right? And that S&P is a bet, right, that it's going to continue to go up over time. But we had that lost decade. So, one of the things that came out After the lost decade, so about 2017, you referenced it ever so briefly, was a study Roger Ibbotson did. And he looked at a long— the long-term performance of like a traditional at-risk portfolio, stocks and bonds, the 60/40 portfolio. Um, you know, one, I mean, when are we going to be able to get him to update that study? Number one, you don't have to answer that one. But number 2, can you just talk about that study of how, like, fixed index and, you know, you know, it's been proven to be so right, right? It has aged so well, that, that, that, that, that study. And it just proves to be like a, a forward-thinking study, right? That if anybody were going to say, man, do you want to go work with somebody who can see the future and apply it perfectly? It's that study. Uh, you know, the white paper I'm talking about.

Absolutely. Well, I'm named in it. Uh, so I'm a contributor to that famous white paper. It's called Consider the Alternative. And I think this really kind of goes back to my last point. Then I want to hit on your point. Roger Ibbotson, uh, you know, in the 1970s, he did a lot of research while getting his PhD at University of Chicago. He was mentored there by numerous Nobel laureates. And one, um, one gentleman actually, uh, his research won the Nobel Prize, but he died the year before were awarded it, which is very unfortunate. You have to be alive to get a prize. Fisher Black. And Fisher really challenged Roger as a young man to look at going long-term, what do stocks and bonds and how they compare? And he came up with that research around 1974 and he finished it and said that stocks would beat bonds. And he actually predicted that the Dow would hit 10,000 by the year 2000. He was right. And that was a really eye-opening piece because in the 1970s, We had awful equity markets. We had the bond bear market, right? And those situations allowed the advisor to get confidence, especially during the 1980s and '90s of that happening. So when Roger began to work on his behavioral finance research, an underway to look at stocks with behavioral finance, that is really the mechanism of his index in the FI market, he didn't stop there. Roger said, lady, Ladies and gentlemen, I really want to understand how this product works, right? I can just drop an index in an FIA and receive some fair compensation for it, but this is a real financial product. Let's model it. But like, he— and he actually is a member of Nationwide. He owns a policy, by the way. But from there, which is important, you put your own money there, but then he put his own time at it. So he actually asked my help and I helped him where we actually modeled hypothetically how an index annuity would have performed going back to his research from 1927. And we published it to 2016. The paper came out in January 2018. And what's really important about that is it was the first academic material ever to analyze long-term how an indexed annuity would have performed against other assets. Never been done before. And it was a big deal to the point that that summer when it was actually published, Roger Here he is in his late 70s, he's early 80s now. He defended it in front of Nobel laureates. I kid you not, to really highlight the value of the asset. And what he did find, Mike, you're right, was FIAs were not equity replacement. It was very clear. But by tailoring that exposure, but with the downside protection, proved to be better in his analysis than fixed income. And he said in 2018, with rates as low as they were, he was confident to say that it— and he used S&P because it was a valid data source. He didn't use his own research— would outperform a multi-year S&P allocation, not a 1-year, but a multi-year strategy in an FIA would outperform bonds. And to your point, he proved to be right. And that came out in '18 and it has been timeless. It's probably a good reminder to check in on Roger, maybe to think about getting that refreshed. That's something I'll definitely pass on, that remark to Professor Ibbotson.

Yeah, just version 2, right? That's it. Just give us like, hey, listen, here's some updated numbers because here's the thing, and I believe this, right? I find myself that my clients know this, that I teach at Old Dominion University, that I find myself being an academic, but also am very practical. I try to make complex things very simple. But that paper, right, that for like our space and for our clients, when you look at what's happened since that was published, right, we had another bear market on fixed income, right? Like, you know, the last 5 years, really, the Capital Aggregate Bond Index is negative, right? Average return over the last 5 years. And so any FIA that performed has done better than like that 40% allocation that most one-size-fits-all firms, you know, investment managers who do 60 in stocks, 40 in bonds. It's really outperformed that. And many times we find ourselves that we can use fixed index annuities without a fee too, which is something that is totally, that is totally different. So yeah, we would love to have that one updated, right? And maybe it may just be your research. You do it.

No, no, no. Well, I think we could definitely— that's something I'm happy to collaborate with Professor Ibbotson on the bond market. Not only we had a bond bear market, but according to Deutsche Bank, it was the worst. And we're still in the bond bear market, I would say. I want to highlight that. It was the worst bond bear market ever in US history. Deutsche Bank went all the way back to when Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary started to issue bonds. It was the worst bond bear market in US history. So pretty painful. And you're spot on. An FI would've protected that downside and harnessed you know, some positive returns over that period of time, obviously, with a strong S&P.

So, um, so let's, let's move forward and let's talk about like the current state of like Annexus fixed index annuities and indexing, right? Uh, you guys have created so many powerful tools with powerful names, right? Uh, I remember working with Annexus for the first time, uh, almost— it's been almost 20 years now, not quite that long. I remember we used to talk about that. We just brand stack, right? It's like Nationwide as the protector, but then it's JPMorgan and NYSE and, you know, all of these other names just coming alongside to create this solution. Talk about some of the partnerships that Annexus has and you specifically have on the indexing side that, that are, that would be of interest to our listeners.

Absolutely. Well, on the product, the actual product that your clients get, I'm proud to say that all of our insurance company partners are A+ rated. I think that's really important when we think about the integrity and the stability of those insurance companies. So you mentioned Nationwide. That was a partnership we just celebrated our 10th anniversary last year, have written over $40 billion of premium, 5 or 6 different product lines with them now. And that's a mutual company. They ultimately are maximizing member values as their objective. Their board of directors is half farmers and chaired by a farmer. And they're actually going to celebrate their own 100th anniversary next year. So it brings a lot of stability, which gives clients confidence to get access to their guaranteed income product that we designed with them. If you're going to try to embark on a 40, 50-year savings plan, And when you see people living into their 90s, over 100, that's a reality. And that policy could live that long because so will the person, which is great to give them the confidence that how are we going to have the 150th anniversary of Nationwide being behind it? It's important. We worked with our original partner. You know, one of the things that Ron Schertz, our co-founder and CEO, has really been important about is partnership. So coming into the year now, we are into the market with a product now going into 20 years, is our 20th anniversary is coming up, being public in the marketplace. And through that, our first partnership from a small insurance company in Topeka, Des Moines, Ameris American Investors, has spawned into our going into our 20th anniversary with Apollo as a theme. Same product chassis, but we've built upon it. We're staying relevant. And then during the pandemic, we knew of some of the leaders there, but during the pandemic, a lot of people hunkered are down and so forth. But we built a new product, a new partnership with some really interesting aspects with North American, an A+ rated company, and first of its kind retirement readiness rider. So, besides the index accumulation engine, we're trying to think about how can you solve for things in retirement that are needs. So, be it guaranteed lifetime income, be it the idea of having a legacy plan, giving something to your heirs, to your spouse, right? And that could range from our theme product to ultimately life insurance, our IUL partnerships with 2 really strong credit companies, John Hancock and Securian, as well. I should also say Nationwide, so 3. So that's important into that process. And then when you talk about my work on Wall Street, it's with our index designs of that portfolio, going back to our earlier partner conversation and bringing not brand diversification, right? That we could just take a lot of different brands and they could all do the same thing, but that's not providing that puzzle piece of diversification I talked about earlier, but real strategy diversification with different brands. So we partner with really leading asset managers like Loomis Sayles out of Boston, our academic partners, as well as investment bankers such as Goldman Sachs and JP, you referenced, as well as others to build a portfolio. But what we do is we really stress test them that they really have to go through the diligence process to be a partner. We have to make sure that they have the right credibility of building strategies and the right research referencing their strategies.

Right. That, I mean, that's strong, right? One of the, one of the things that's, uh, everything you said about the partners, right? One thing I'll mention about one of the partners you said, like coming out of COVID was North American is, you know, North American has been around since 1869. I think they've seen a few things. Right? I think they've seen some ups and downs in markets. They've been around for a while, and they've been— they, you know, not only are they A+ rated, they've been A-rated or higher for 50 or more years. So there's nobody listening or nobody that we work with retirement who was— who had money really invested in the market when North American wasn't A-rated, right? That's the strength of their company. We often talk about, like, as an investment person, as a financial planner, as a financial advisor, you know, we often talk about the power of reallocation. Matter of fact, there's a Nobel Peace Prize study out there called Modern Portfolio Theory, right? It's what all of the big firms hold their hat on, right? Is we got to diversify between this and that, this and that, then we got to come back and reallocate. You know, when the market's high in certain things, right? But there's also reallocation that occurs kind of naturally within fixed index annuities and indexes. But then there's also the power of at anniversary times reallocating, which I think brings up the power of like Indexed Standard, which is another partnership that we have. Do you want to talk about how— why— well, first of all, why reallocation is so important? How was it done in the portfolio? And then just maybe just a little bit about Index Standard.

Yeah, that's great, Mike. Unfortunately, when you think about just an S&P play, there is that lack of diversification. Right now, the S&P is the most overconcentrated in my lifetime. I'll be 45 this summer. And one of the things that doesn't necessarily always happen in an index like that, and a lot of people think, oh, I'm diversified with the S&P, is that reallocation. That rebalancing to create diversification, take bets off, and also to reevaluate, not trying to chase returns, but thinking about what's the longer-term horizon. And that's really important. That's why we'd love to have that portfolio of indices to maximize profitability of results. Not that we're guaranteeing positive results, not that we think we're going to have positive results every year. And by the way, not that every index is going to have positive results. There are going to be sometimes years that there's leaders. And then there's going to be some that provide a zero. But if they can average out to try to be that long-term objective, what we've talked about, really how you can think about, let's say, 5%, 6% over the long term, that's our goal. And one of the things that was really apparent 10 years ago, when— 11 years ago, when there was starting to be more customized, what we call smart beta indices into the market, it was a lot of performance chasing. Performance chasing of looking at last year's return, Or what we look at the illustration, which is the 10-year lookback. The idea of thinking the last 10 years has repeated itself is the worst thing that could happen. Studies show that. So how could we embark on building really a whole portfolio? And at the time, some of the policies only allowed you to allocate to one index, which it wasn't ideal, but at the time it was all that was available. So what we've been able to do with our insurance company partners is work towards allowing numerous indices within the portfolio and then to create that array. But then the question is, how do you allocate to these? Right? How do you do it? And Index Standard is a firm that was created about 5 years ago by Lawrence Black. Lawrence actually mentored, uh, was mentored, I should say, by, by Bob Shiller, the Nobel laureate. And he helped build those CAPE indices that are the Shiller CAPE indices that Barclays launched. And Bob actually now has Lawrence as an advisor to the Shiller family. on their index business, but he realized there was a void in the market. What was going to be an objective rule-based way to look at markets from a forecasting lens? And he was able to not just pontificate on like a CNBC strategist, no offense, but he was able to say, I'm going to look at Wall Street and get the consensus of Wall Street forecasts and bring them together, which Wall Street forecasts, they publish them free of charge and say, what's that average, the consensus of the crowd? And then from there, he was able to look at how that would work with each specific index. And I could go in the weeds on that, but that would just give you a forecast number. And that's nice, but anyone just gives you one number, that's— we're not trying to have a crystal ball. It's better than looking at the illustration, but how do we use that knowledge to think about allocation, asset allocation, portfolio allocation? So 2 years ago, he was able to launch the portfolio blend allocations. And that's all rules-based, Mike, and that's what you're alluding to, where now it gives a compass to the advisor to have a long-term allocation, a rules-based process that they can point to, to know what to allocate to. And the nice thing about that is it stops the guessing game. It stops the subjectivity, the performance chasing. And again, not a guarantee for positive performance every year, but when you allocate to such with indices that have a good forecast according to index standard, increases the probability of success. And that's what we've been able to— we have subscriptions to that process that I think you have access to. And it really has changed the way advisors look at portfolio allocations.

So, you started when I asked you what was one of a kind, you talked about your grandmother coming through the Depression and then your mom, right, trying to just navigate through retirement now, right? When, when, when we talk to retirees, right, we talk about, we talk about risk, right? The risks that are out there: inflation, market risk, taxes, longevity, mortality, liquidity. Uh, we, we're always trying to mitigate risk in retirement for people who are trying to get there. Let's, uh, let's just because you're an expert, right? You are the longest tenured retirement math nerd in the index world, if I, if I could say that too. Now listen, I've called you an Avenger, now I've called you a nerd. I hope I didn't offend you there.

No, not at all. I take it as a badge of pride.

Good.

So like, to reset a retiree, right, who's listening to this and say, man, I've— man, that sounds really good. Shiller, Siegel, Ibbotson, index standard, smart beta. This all sounds great, right? But let's get to brass tacks. Like, what can I expect in returns over a long period of time from a smart beta index that can't lose money? Like, what's a, what's a good frame of expectation of return?

Yeah, that's a good question. And that, that's going to vary at the time that the policy's written. Right. And right, right now, here we are in, in March of 2025, right? The 10-year Treasury is hovering between, let's say, 4.25%, 4.3%, right? That's a healthy environment, right? And the reason why that's important is the insurance companies are buying fixed income portfolios for the long duration to help fund these products. So now then they're engineering to these indexed annuities we're talking about. It is fair to assume probably, how do I get a long-term return? It's about 5%, 6%. Long-term. We're not saying this is every year. But long-term is the objective. There's some years there's going to be a zero. There could be 2 years if you have a zero. If we go through a '22 equity sell-off coupled with a bond bear market, there are exposures to these assets in place that that could happen. But long-term, how can we bring a 5%, 6% return knowing that we can also bring other things that are important to the retirement plan? As I said, guaranteed lifetime income. That's in addition to what we're talking about, the accumulation engine. What about having maybe an enhanced death benefit or some sort of riders that help maybe with long-term care needs, assist with that, or Social Security cuts? Those are things in addition that, you know, your team can go through with the client. But that's the goal. To think that we're an equity replacement would be misleading because this is 100% downside protection. So we're not going to be providing the same equity returns. Maybe we could some year, but that's not the goal. And I wouldn't say that.

And when you compare a 5% to 6% return, right, and listen, there's going to be grand slam years, right? Like, there's an index that we have access to that was over 20% last year in this current rate environment, right? There's going to be years that are outliers, but if you can get a 5% or 6% rate of return, when the— when that Bill Bengen study of a 4% safe withdrawal is out there, but you've got a 10-year Capital Aggregate Bond Index that's basically flat, maybe to 2%, you see that where that's part of a really good portfolio, right?

Absolutely.

Nobody should ever put 100% of your assets in solutions like this, right?

Oh, that's— you're absolutely right. No one is saying this is the complete retirement allocation. I look at my own mother. Right? 78 years old, a widow, you know, she has an equity portfolio then, and she's about a third, a third, a third. And I'm speaking from my mom and myself. But when you think about that, she has an equity portfolio. She has FIA allocations as well, and some fixed income, and then obviously her home as well as cash. But we're not saying that this is the portfolio. Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School, again, one of our index partners now since 2019, he believes that most retirees actually should be 100% stocks. If you can weather that over the long run, he will say, go 100% stocks. Now, what he will say and why he's a partner of ours is you might, going to JP Morgan's quote years ago that he's attributed to, are you able to adjust your sleeping point there? If you were having problems sleeping at night during the last decade or even this quarter, we're seeing a lot of volatility in the markets that we haven't seen since COVID and that's just too much for you. Dial it down. And he's not a big bond bull. He thinks it's actually prudent to use an index annuity with a tailored group of indices as that way to dial to your sleeping point. So that's Jeremy Siegel's view, but you want to have a portfolio where liquidity comes from your equity portfolio and then having a little less liquidity, unless you're going for guaranteed income, comes from your FIA sleeve.

So let me get this right. Jeremy Siegel is not a bond bull. You mean that he, he actually doesn't think the Fed— I mean, he actually thinks the Fed should lower rates, right? He's not the biggest fan of the Fed. This is like breaking news on the Ideas by Mike podcast, right? Because I'm joking, of course, because we've heard Jeremy Siegel many times on CNBC, like lambast, you know, he just bamboozles the Federal Reserve over and over again. This is actually hilarious. There's some great clips out there.

About what's been going on. Spot on.

Um, Tom, like, as we're, as we're wrapping up here, right, you, um, you mentioned in your, in your path here, right, from your time at JMU to your time at UBS and the New York Stock Exchange and BNP, right, your, your experience, right? Where do you see, uh, where do you see the futures, the future of fixed index annuities? Not necessarily in Nexus's point of view, but like your point Where do you see the future of fixed index annuities going? And just give us some forward-looking thoughts on that.

Absolutely. And I will draw into a little of the past. I think what we've been able to show through the— and I will say from the Nexus process— is a legitimization of a really great product, right? Where we're proud to say we're working with well-rated insurance companies to know that this is a piece of a portfolio and working with such great educators. You're an advisor. advisor, but you're an educator as well to really be able to understand with clients how that fits in a portfolio. And then the part is really interesting is where is the best use of that in the portfolio? So, is it the pure alternative? Is it having the ability to see your family, the generation that is ahead of you? If you're going into retirement, they're still alive, right? And that must feel really good to know that you're having Parents or grandparents, I mean, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, depending on where they are, they're living into their 90s or 100s. So you have a higher probability of getting that longevity benefit yourself if you take care of yourself and knowing that you might need guaranteed income, right? Or about legacy planning. Even myself, my youngest is 5 years old. I recently just signed up for one of our indexed universal life policies to make sure that I'm healthy and all, but making sure that I'm being responsible. For that process. So that's where I think that's happening. And then I look at the other end where even my own mother at 78 years old, thinking about how is she going to manage that drawdown? And that includes taxes. You, you talked about that earlier, utilizing qualified charitable donations, which is a huge tax benefit with RMDs under the Trump taxes that got expanded, where let your annuity pay for your charity at a church. Frankly, she did that and she got a letter from her pastor. Thank you for putting an upfront payment every year. It's better than the money going in every week. We actually prefer that. And how that made her feel so good. Or the idea that with RMDs that are still remaining to reinvest that. Would you do— if you're not using the money, yes, there's things that you could work with, like 529 plans and gifting for your grandchildren that way. But if you want to keep some of the money yourself as well, Do you want to put that all into the equity market? I don't know. You know, that might be too much for your sleeping point. Or if you put it in the bank account, you're not going to get that much there either right now with rates are. And I think indexed annuities, where rates are and the quality of the product and the diversification of the product allows for great ways for different aspects and parts of one's life.

Well, Tum, like you have summed it up. very well there at the end, right? Because there are strategies that Anexus, like, who's one of our key partners when we build one-of-a-kind financial plans, there are strategies there that can help people that are just getting started, people in their mid-career, retirees, right? And then just, just setting great expectations or realistic expectations about performance. And what you need in your life is how we build one-of-a-kind financial plans. So I appreciate your insight today, right? I appreciate you coming to us while you're traveling and, and just, and just laying it out. I appreciate for you being— I appreciate you being so open also about what makes you one of a kind and telling some stories about your family. So is there— if somebody wanted to find out more information about Anexis just to do their own research, how would they do that outside of coming directly to us?

Absolutely. Well, we do have a website. Because we're more of a B2B company, it is annexus.com, but you could go on to annexus.com and see that, A-N-N-E-X-U-S. That would be definitely a good way. And then some of the academic partners, not that you would expect to read some of the literature, you might see Jeremy Siegel on the TV from time to time, but also I encourage you when you get materials from Mike's firm, To actually Google the names. And it's fascinating, the stories of some of these academics as well that you'll see out there to really understand how they're at this part of their own journey, you know, working on research.

One of the other sites that was just recently launched by our partners at Annexus is a website called retirement-refi.com. It's retirement-refi.com. retirement-refi.com. It talks about like the changing economics Over the last 2, 3, 4 years, and why if you own a fixed index annuity and you've owned it for multiple years, there is a potential there for you to get more benefit, more value, right? Because of the interest rate environment we're in.

Absolutely.

And I mean, is there anything you want to say about retirement refi at all?

I do. And that's a great point that we were talking a lot about the markets a bit today. But when you think about those that have been in a product during the low-rate environment, really the quantitative easing up really right through COVID, that the product, that was a low bond rate market. So as a result, the insurance companies, they were competitive the best they could be. And I think of it when I was about to launch the Zebra Index on Nationwide, the Zebra One Index, the 10-year Treasury hit 1.5%, obviously in COVID it hit 50 basis points. So the fuel to the product Wasn't as strong as it is today. So, the insurance companies can bring on a much more competitive product, and there's been good enhancements. No one's just resting on their laurels or sitting on their hands. So, as a result of that, it creates this opportunity to refinance, similar to the mortgage market. It's kind of the flip. In the spring of 2020, many that had mortgages, you know, here we were in lockdown, they were trying to refinance their mortgage. I did it. I remember going outside, having to a folding table, putting a mask and signing the papers on my lawn to refinance my mortgage. You get a great interest rate locked in for 30 years, but you know, like 3%. And a lot of people did that. Well, more at that point, the financing opportunity, the strength of that product was only so competitive compared to now. So this is a great opportunity to work with your agent, work with your advisor to say, does this make sense? Is that trade-off gonna be better? And depending on the year you bought it, you're probably gonna see a pretty attractive trade-off to do that refinance. The other thing is those, you know, Mike, thank you for your loyalty with working with us. If you've taken a policy out that's coming out of surrender, what I would highlight, if the policy is at surrender, you're gonna see a drop in rates. And that's just how it works. You can walk away from that policy tomorrow. So we encourage you, if the policy's out for surrender, talk to your financial advisor. Talk to Mike and his team about that best solution to be as competitive as possible. And that's part of the retirement refinance piece as well. Obviously, they're gonna— it's gonna work case by case. So obviously you would have to work with them directly, but that's a prudent point to raise today, Mike.

Yeah, that's— I mean, like you said, like when you come out of surrender of an annuity, right? Rates always come down, right? Because that's free money. It's kind of like having money in your checking account that doesn't earn interest. You can write a check anytime. That's why the bank doesn't pay you a lot of interest on that money. It's not really theirs to use at that point. It's really free. But Tom, but Tom, thank you for the time today. I really appreciate it. And, you know, to our listeners here, if you want to learn more about a nexus and how that fits into the One of a Kind Financial Plan, which is all about saving taxes, the biggest expense you'll ever have in your life, focusing on retirement income, that money you can't outlive, to take the anxiety and fear away in your retirement. The investment allocation, right, that we focus on with your investments to get the return and the risk you need at the same time and creating expectations around that. The long-term care and the legacy. That's the one-of-a-kind financial plan. We use Anexus in our partnership with that, just like we use other major firms around the company. So if you want to learn more about that, go to ideasbymike.com. Look us up on YouTube @IdeasByMike, Instagram @IdeasByMike, and Facebook @IdeasByMike. Tom, thank you. I appreciate you going in.

Thank you. Thank you to everyone.

Absolutely. I appreciate you going into overtime a little bit with us today. We could talk this all day because this is fascinating and it's real life to those who are trying to live a one-of-a-kind life. So I appreciate it.

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