Episode 119: Protecting People’s ASSets

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or are well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromso.

Greetings, friends. This is Mike Stromso bringing the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I am pumped and excited to bring this to you because you know, what I have talked about today has to do with protecting your assets. That is right. It is something that was developed a number of years ago through helping somebody else remember, the law of reciprocity is always in effect. Let me repeat that because that is an important one. It has been a core catalyst to the growth and evolution of our businesses and. And in my personal life as well, the law of reciprocity is always in effect. You've got to give before you can never expect to receive. So you just got to find a way to give to somebody. The rest will take care of itself. So be looking for those opportunities all of the time. Let's talk about protecting your assets, baby. Here we go. So in the insurance industry business, I've coached my team for years and years on one simple little rule. You'll never get sued if people have the right or enough protection. Simple. Now, helping them understand is a skill. Helping them understand and actually buy is a skill. It's a whole nother subject for a whole nother day. So back a number of years ago, when we were working on this key skill of helping people understand how. How they need the right protection, we developed a form, but this form was developed because of giving back to somebody else. I was working, actually, I was speaking at an event, and somebody heard me speak, and they heard me talking about our referral programs, which have been developed over multiple decades. And they continue to get better. And they continue to get better. And this person who heard me talk about our referral programs actually called me sometime after the event and said, hey, I heard you speak about your referral programs. I would like to know more about your referral programs. Can you share with me? I said, of course I can share. So I did. And I said, at the end of the day, I said, why don't you tell me your story? Where'd you come from? Who are you? Where are you located? Actually, they're in our geographic market, about two hours from our office. And I found out that she was actually an attorney. And I said, wow, that's interesting. She goes, yeah, I'm an asset protection attorney. I said, oh, even more interesting. And you're going to be in the insurance business. She said, I am. The story is I am third generation. My grandfather actually started the agency. My dad had the agency and I found out that my dad was going to sell the agency. And I decided that I didn't want my dad to sell the agency out of the family. So I bought it or I'm going to buy it. And I said, well, that's fantastic. I said, good for you. So she goes, yeah, I'm a Juris Doctorate asset protection attorney. I've been doing that for X number of years. And I said, wow, I love that because I learned in my early training last century, many, many years ago when we used to do a lot of classroom training, one of the trainers in that particular session said, anybody who is an attorney who knows insurance is a very powerful person because of the fact that, you know, insurance is a contract business and if you're an attorney who understands contracts, that puts you in a very powerful position. So I'm excited for this gal and she is getting ready to go in the insurance business. And we're. So I started sharing with her everything that she had asked about with regard to our referral programs. And I said, hey, I've got a gift for you. I want to gift you our done for you referral program at that time. And I wanted to help you. She goes, that would be awesome. What can I do for you in return?

Pause. What can I do for you in return? See, by giving, she automatically wants to give something back to me. And I'm thinking, my marketing mind, when I hear that kind of stuff and I hear those opportunities go, I had to figure out what, you know, how could she could possibly help. And I thought, hey, you're an asset protection attorney. I would love to interview you about people protecting their assets and everything else and what's going on in today's world so we can help people better protect themselves. I said, that's fantastic. I love. She goes, that's fantastic. I'd love to do that. So I set up. We had an audio recording service at that time. This is a number of years ago. I said, I'm just. She goes, how's it going to work? I said, I'm just going to pick up the phone, I'm going to dial you in, we're going to record the line and it will simply become an audio recording. And she goes, great, no problem. She goes, what do you want the call to look like? I wrote some you know, topical agenda notes. And we set up the call. We did the call. What we did with that call is we pull the audio. Now, this may be something you may or may not heard of. We put the audio on what we call a cd. Yeah, a compact disc. And we put the audio on a cd. Of course, it was about protecting people's assets and everything they worked so hard for. And we attached it to a form that was in development. I'm going to cover a little bit about that form with you today in some detail. So hopefully it will help you help your clients and others protect their assets and everything they work so hard for. So we put it on cd, put a nice cover on it, et cetera, et cetera, and we attached it to this form. Now, if you're on the YouTube version of the podcast, and if you're not, you can go there, just go to YouTube.com, search, unstoppable profit Producer. Click on the video section. All of our podcasts that are on video are right there for you. So if you're on the video portion today, you might be able to see that this is the copy. What liability limit should I carry now, at the end of the day, it's on pink paper. Yes. Why? Never do anything on white. Never do anything on white. Let me say that again. Never do anything on white. It's got to stand alone and stand out from the rest of the marketplace. So we decided to put ours on pink. Now, this form basically says, what liability limit should I carry? When we originally developed this form, at the end of the day, it was just a piece of paper. Now it's been digitized, auto calculation, and the whole nine yards, so people can quickly and efficiently determine how to properly protect their assets and everything they work so hard for. So this form is really designed just to walk people through, you know, what. What their personal assets are worth. And it's also really super simple to do a business asset protection form as well. It's more along the lines of business income exercise, if you will. We haven't fully developed that yet, but you can figure that out if it's important to you. But at the end of the day, here's what it says. To properly protect your assets, you should consider carrying an amount of liability insurance equal to your total assets, minus your liabilities, plus your total annual income and your savings, whether qualified or unqualified, depending on the state law in which you operate, this is the total amount of assets at risk. If you were held responsible for bodily injury or property damage to Somebody else. Now, you always want to have some good claims scenario stories in your back pocket at all times to blend into the mix of these conversations. Super, super important. So at the end of the day, what I also learned from this gal who is the Juris doctorate attorney, asset protection attorney, come insurance agency owner, was that future earnings are always at risk in today's society. Say it again. Future earnings are always at risk in today's society. So be aware of that. I mean, people are knocking down per household 150k in today's society. That's a fair amount of change times 10 years. I mean, think about that for a minute. Why do people need substantial liability protection because of that? So explain that to your customers. They don't know, they haven't been educated, they haven't found you yet. So you got this. Let's grow. All right, so really, this form starts with the total value of the home. Okay? So if they own a home, put the total value of the home. Again, this is assets. We're going to deduct the liabilities. Then you add the total value of all of the vehicles and other toys and everything else that they've got, plus the total value of all personal property, including rental property and any other true assets that they have. So that gives you a total fixed assets number. Right? So you put that on the line. It's a simple mathematical equation sheet. Then you go down and minus the total liabilities, ultimately what you owe on the home, the cars, any toys, properties, etc. Etc. Then you have a total of the liabilities. You subtract the liabilities, goes in the column that equals the net value of fixed assets. Pretty simple. Okay. Then you go on to add your income because like we said, your people's future income can be at risk in today's society. So you add the income. Income can be garnished. Most common arrangement is 25% for 10 years. Imagine 25% of fix of. Excuse me, 25% of somebody's income. 25% of somebody's income being garnished for 10 years. How would that make them feel? What kind of position would that put their family? Be the. Be the white knight theory, if you will, and be the one that arrives on the scene and properly explains all of this to them and so they can properly protect their assets. Right? Then you want to add the income for both breadwinners in the house. If that's the case, you want to add any unqualified savings and investments if it applies in that particular state. If you don't know Contact an attorney that you know that has some experience in business assets and or your financial planner, they should be able to answer that question for you. Plus any other savings, plus possibly pension plans at work or 401ks, plus the value of any business that they own individually. Hope not in today's society, but they're still out there. Plus the business, personal property and anything else that might be an additional asset that was not listed previously on the form. So what you're doing is you're adding that all up. So you take the net value of the fixed assets that we came up with before, add all of those other items, and you have a total line item which equals the total net worth at risk. Total net worth at risk. That is the number. That is the number, my friends, that you need to protect. And on the sample, and we've got samples of these drawn up. I take a big fat Sharpie and I circle that number. If I'm sitting face to face and I've done this many, many times, and I look at their eyes and they go, oh my gosh, how do I protect that? I said, that's a great question. It's very simple. And it's probably 20, 30 bucks a month. Sign me up is what they say. Okay, so I circle that in fat Sharpie. And obviously digitally you can do that as well, no problem in today's world. Okay, so equals the total net worth at risk. Now there's a section to go down there to list their current auto insurance liability limits, their current homeowners liability limits, their umbrella limits. And if they don't have an umbrella, then you put zero in there. Got it?

Good.

Okay, so it goes over to the right column. You have the total net worth at risk circled in big fat sharpie. Then you've got the liability limits out there. The next box says any remainder represents yourself, retained deductible. So, case in point, let's make this quick and easy, right? Let's say their total net worth at risk is $1.1 million. Not unrealistic sometimes in today's society. $1.1 million in total net worth at risk. Let's say their auto insurance limits are 100, 300,000. Also unfortunately not overly uncommon, right? So it's $100,000 per person. So I'll take that 1.1 million, I'll write the 100,000 and that means their remainder, their self retained deductible is $1 million. And that's the number that I will circle again in Sharpie. I'll say if you have an accident and somebody else is seriously injured on the other end, let's say it's life threatening or lifelong injury. That is the amount of money that will have to come out of your asset picture after your insurance company writes a check and they're going to happily write a check to that one person for $100,000 to fulfill their obligations and then you get to pay the other $1 million. I'll assume you don't have any problem coming to the table with that. And like I said, if you don't have the cash assets after you've sold your home and everything else, then they will happily garnish your wages to the tune of 25% for 10 years. My friends, at that point we are signing people up for $1 million umbrellas, $2 million umbrellas and more because of us explaining to them, remember a person, when you people hear, they learn. When people hear, they learn. When they hear and they see, they understand. When they hear, they learn. When they hear and see, they understand. A confused person will not take action. So when they see this document again, if you're looking at this on YouTube you can see the one I'm holding up. When they see this document and they see what is at risk down there at the bottom, then it's a no brainer. It's automatic and it's not automatic. Close. In addition to this, this form, if you're looking at this on YouTube, it's got a place for the insurance signature. If for some silly reason they're just hard headed and they won't, you know, close at that point I say okay, if it's, if you want to go ahead and talk to your spouse about it and get back to us later, we understand that. Please go ahead and sign this form and date it. I just want to make sure that we've properly explained this to you. It is our obligation as a licensed professional independent insurance agent to make sure that we fully explain this to you. So go ahead and I'm going to go ahead and retain this in your file and when you're ready please let us know. That way we've covered our backside. Got it in file and ultimately at the end of the day send them some follow up, send them some follow up that maybe a video about protecting their assets with proper umbrella insurance and just other claim scenarios and any other things that you've got. Oh by the way, and my coaching sessions this week and there was a number of them, two minute account grateful for that and so super excited for a full one Day session today. So in all of these sessions, we consistently talk about the important things that are necessary to close. The important things that are necessary to close. Here's the big elephant in the room. Okay, you must, you must, you must be answering this question all the time. Why should people do business with you over and above any and all other options available to them? Let me say that again, it's super important. If you want to pause this, make sure you write this down. Please do put it on your wall, on your monitor, wherever it fits for you. Why should people do business with you over and above any and all other options available to them? You've got to be answering that question every single day in every single way. And where do you start with that? Credibility. Credibility, credibility. Let me say it again. Credibility, credibility, credibility. It's what other people say that you've already done for them, not what you say you've done for them. You are on sales, you're in insurance. They're automatically shutting you down a little bit. But when the paradigm shifts and somebody else says, hey, this is what Mike and his team has already done for us, boom. It shifts the paradigm in your favor automatically. Have your arsenal of testimonials, reviews, social media reviews, Yelp reviews, written reviews, the whole nine yards ready at all times. And of course, if you're an advanced student like most of our UP coaching members are, you've also got your written ironclad risk removal guarantee, removing all the risk off their table. They have nothing to lose. Which of course is chocked full with live references. That's another session for another day. And if you have more questions about that, please let us know. My friends, I hope this has helped you today. Helping people properly protect their assets and that's our job and that's our position in our career lives. Right? Thank you so much for joining us again. My name is Mike Somso. I am widely recognized as the leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can find me at Unstoppable Profit producer. Com. If you're interested in attending a virtual or live event to learn to grow your business, create wealth, to have more freedom to live life on your terms, please visit us. Our virtual event is upfaststart.com that's up fast start. Or you can visit attend one of our live events, be unstoppable boot camp.com that's be unstoppable boot camp.com both of our events are designed to share with you some of our best money making strategies proven over 35 years of research in your industry to help you grow your business, create wealth so you can have more freedom to live life on your toes terms. All we want is your success my friends. All built around a simple three step three step proven bluesprint called the three Ps people, processes and promotion in that order. And when properly implemented in your agency, you will grow your business, create wealth and again have more freedom to live life on your own terms. Get out there, Take action. Remember, it only requires two things, a decision and action. A decision and action. We look forward to helping you in some way sometime soon. And of course, if there is anything more that we can do for you, please let me know. But until then, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable and leave no regrets. I will see you on the next podcast. And remember, help people protect their assets, my friends. Talk to you soon.

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