Pathways with Amber Stitt

Focus on Risk: How Business Owners can Protect Themselves

March 07, 2023 Amber Stitt
Pathways with Amber Stitt
Focus on Risk: How Business Owners can Protect Themselves
Show Notes Transcript

In Today's Episode of #TheAmberStittShow, we talk with Jackie Baker from Berkshire Advisor Resource and the many ways a business owner can protect themselves and their business partners.

We have a juicy episode for those business owners that need to understand what policies are out there to transfer risk. There are quite a few but Jackie makes it easy for us to understand.

In this episode we cover:

-Business Overhead Expense policy with a Partial Disability Rider
-Disability Buyout Insurance
-Buy-Sell Agreements
-Cross-Purchase Agreements
Key Person Insurance
-Critical Illness Insurance
-AD&D Policies (Accidental Death, and Dismemberment)
-Accelerated Death Benefit Riders
-Long-term Care Insurance Options
-Travel Health Insurance
-Kidnap Ransom Insurance
-Top Hat Policies

You can find Jackie at Berkshire Advisor Resource at
www.berkadvisor.com or email her at: jbaker@berkadvisor.com. I am always happy to make an introduction to her as well.

For travel insurance as featured in this podcast, you can visit Jackie's website for more information: https://zone.piu.org/online_major_medical/start?producer=ELWHG6

Thank you for listening! 


Amber 0:08
Hello, and welcome to the Amber Sitt Show! I am your host, Amber Stitt, and today we welcome Jackie Baker from Berkshire Advisor Resource. She's with us today to discuss business owner strategies and different products and different offerings that she's been educating other advisors on throughout the years. And she and I have worked together for I think about three years now. So it's been a little bit of time so we always have fun when we can at conferences even though it's not that often, but you were telling me that you're doing a lot of education recently for financial planners or advisors, those strategic partners that work along with them. And I've been also talking with a lot of our business owners and their tax advisors, even estate planning attorneys on some of these strategies, but there was a lot of information there and I thought that we could take a little, maybe a part of that webinar and break it down in a simplified version today on the podcast because not everyone's a business owner on this podcast, but they might work with a strategic partner or an alliance that might hear about some of these ideas and is able to put them into motion. So I want to say thank you for being here today, Jackie!

Jackie 1:18
Thank you, Amber, for having me.

Amber 1:21
I think you might be out of you're not out of the country, but it kind of feels that way. So where are you located? Right now?

Jackie 1:29
Currently, right now I'm in what's called Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Amber 1:35
And what's beautiful about the business is that we can work from anywhere really. So that's what's always fun about our business model is able to help people whether it's clients or advisors, so Aloha from Arizona, but we're only three hours apart now at this point in time.

Jackie 1:53
Yeah, three hours currently. So you know, we have an office here and that means that we are up at four o'clock in the morning to get started on our day. Make sure that we are you know in sync with the mainland.

Amber 2:07
I mean, East Coast times. That's an early one. And I'll even do that 5 am work for my inbox, you know, check in the email. But okay, perfect. So why don't we for the purpose of peak performance audience I always like them to know a little bit about the guest and so can you explain a little bit about your business and kind of like some history behind BAR and what you guys do?

Jackie 2:27
Absolutely. So Berkshire advisor resource was founded in 2000. I started my career as a career agent with Berkshire Life Insurance Company before they were part of the guardian. System. And at that point, we had separated from the career system and gone independent. So for the last 23 years, I have worked with advisors specializing in income protection solutions, as well as solutions for business owner clients. Basically acting as their backroom expertise, to assist them in helping their clients put these protections and risk management things in place.

Amber 3:08
All things risk management, so we try to keep it exciting, but it's not always the most exciting topic, but it's necessary, right? It is necessary. Yep. So you and I work closely together with medical professionals in disability insurance, and life insurance, and so I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into these business products. And so I think we could kick it off by talking about the business overhead expense, otherwise known as BOE, but it's really it's a disability insurance product. And a lot of people can get confused, especially when they think about writing off, maybe putting paying for one of these products as a business owner through a company and sometimes they're thinking about a personal disability policy and not one of these and so, do you want to give us a little bit of just a simple explanation of what a business overhead expense policy does?

Jackie 3:57
Basically, a business owner, a Business Overhead Expense policy, reimburses the business for any type of business expense that a company would incur even though the owner may not be able to work and pay those expenses. So any small business, any business at all that has expenses can you know put in place and business overhead

Amber 4:21
when I work with clients and we look at part of the applications for these, they forget that there are these line items we have to turn in salaries, expenses, what keeps the lights on even like you had listed some janitorial maintenance, so really any of those expenses that is part of the business, this policy can pay for those things? That's what it's for. Correct?

Jackie 4:45
Right? So if you think about reimbursement for salaries for employees, that's an eligible expense, lease payments, attorneys fees, accounting fees, you know, janitorial, anything that would be a legitimate business owner expense can be written off and the thing I think that most advisors forget is that most individuals when they're doing their own income protection solution just for them, that most clients don't want to use that money that's supposed to reimburse their income. So they don't want to be able to have to use that to continue to pay the expenses that they incur the business every month. So the overhead is a reimbursement contract. And the way it works is that you put a certain dollar amount in place that will cover your business expenses every month, and you submit your receipts to the insurance company and they reimburse you for those expenses back to the business to be able to pay those and the interesting thing about that is just one of those if we were to pick a round dollar amount, let's say $10,000 a month and one month the client only needed 7500 of it. Well, what happens is they don't lose that $2,500 difference. It rolls over to the next month. So the next month if they have $12,500 of expenses, they have that full amount eligible to be able to write things off because not every month looks exactly the same.

Amber 6:09
Yeah, it sounds like sometimes can we have a Partial Disability Rider included. Is that part of this where if there's income loss, can there be a do not experience immediate loss?

Jackie 6:19
There may be outstanding accounts payables and things that they're billing that you know that reimbursement they may not need right away. So yes, there is a partial rider on there that would allow you to know at a certain loss of income to the business that it would kick in, but typically, the overhead expense will be a full disability claim on that.

Amber 6:47
So it's a qualifying event fully disabled. Okay, so I see a lot of these come up, when people are going through small business loan requirements at the bank, and they'll call and say, okay, hey, I need this policy. And I need maybe some life insurance too. And there are a couple of ways that you can solve these loan requirements through the business overhead policy. So there are some loan features you can plug in on top, not every carrier offers these but can you speak to the loan indemnification riders about how those work in addition to the base benefit for the monthly expenses,

Jackie7:27
Right. so if there's a Business Overhead Expense with a rider that has a loan indemnification option on it, and basically what that does is it indemnifies The bank, that if the owner of the business were to become disabled, that the bank continues to get paid those loan payments, and it like I mentioned it can be a part of the overhead expense itself. It can also be a standalone brighter and so we see this with a lot of business owners in particular, that have to buy equipment when they're first starting out in their practice. So we see it with dentists we see it with veterinarians, you know, but any client that has to buy equipment to be able to operate their business, typically they're taking out a loan to do that. Most of the carriers do require that it have at least a three-year term. And what it does is you put in force the amount of the loan by month, and it involves some signing of paperwork to the bank to basically a promissory note to the bank that the insurance proceeds are going to the bank to pay off that loan. And we find this especially helpful for somebody who is starting new in the business that doesn't necessarily have a history of revenue. And maybe the bank is on the fence about whether they want to give those funds to that business owner that having that loan to them defecation in place, right it's it feel more comfortable in that situation to be able to put that loan in place. And

Amber 9:02
That's good news. I know that I've seen a lot of my loan terms that I've been building for 10 to 15 years, not not the minimum of three. So when you put that in perspective, you have something that can cover the business expenses plus the loan requirements. So like you said, some of it just strictly benefits to the business. But once all its talks about how that can kind of just fall off or you remove it. At some point when you've met the loan requirements. You might let that right or we can remove it but you still keep that business policy active for the normal day-to-day operations right

Jackie 9:35
Correct. And so the amount of the policy actually is reduced each month that the policy is enforced because as you make those payments over that time period, whatever the term is of the loan, that you know the amount that you owe, is one month less for each month. So it is a reducing kind of term. It's a good way to put it on that land and vacation policy.

Amber 9:58
Okay, so that's good. But this is different from Disability Buyout. So correct. So can we talk a little bit? I think this is one of those products or contracts that a lot of people don't really think about or at least out here. We didn't get a lot of questions on it, but it certainly is an important one to have in a partnership type of situation. Correct.

Jackie 10:20
Right. And I think the big thing with the disability buyout policy that you see a lot is advisors talking to their clients about the life insurance portion of it. And often when you're talking to business owners, you will ask them, Do you have a Buy-Sell Agreement in place? And they'll say yes. And then the next question should be is it funded? And when the client says What does that mean? Right? I can have some life insurance and it doesn't have you know, in cases of disability in there. So anytime you have a disability policy or a Buy-Sell Agreement that there's more than one person in that business, it's a good idea to have that funding. Because one of the tenants in financial planning that we hear all the time is if you were in a partnership where you have multiple partners in one situation, do you want to be in business with your spouse?

Amber11:08
Can you elaborate a little bit I feel that even my spouse will say the acronyms and the things that we talk about for layman's terms, and I think you're already staying at Jackie so it wasn't that you were using acronyms or verbiage but explain that a little bit more so that people can kind of take a pause because if something were to happen to the partner, how does that play out because there's usually somebody else also looking for some they have maybe some dependency on the income that's now not there. Can you talk like a kind of a quick little story about how that could shake out?

Jackie 11:44
Well, if you think about it, each person in that business has value and they have a certain value percentage that they own of that business. So if an owner were to pass away or become disabled, that value doesn't go away and most families want to be reimbursed for you know, they're a portion of that business. And if you don't have funding in place, then it is likely that a spouse or a child someone that would typically inherit that asset and it is an asset for their value the business that next thing you know, they're your partner, and they're having a say in your business, that maybe it's not their expertise made money off their full-time job, but they're looking at it as you know, this is you know, whether it's half or a quarter or 10% I own this now and I'm going to have some say. So to kind of remove that conflict of interest, having that disability buyout in place that takes into consideration those things so that family is reimbursed for that value.

Amber 12:49
So the good news is the conversation you can have upfront should not be offensive to anybody because these are common steps in the process with business practice and just making sure that all bases are covered. So if you can blame it on the business if you have to, let's get it done upfront. 

Jackie 13:10
So, you know, in a lot of cases, you would typically have like two partners or four partners. It's an important thing to think about how depending on the number of partners how you do it. There are different ways to do what they call cross-purchase, which is very easily done with two partners, but if you have two or more, you want to do an entity purchase, meaning the business is purchasing those policies. So you know, if you have four people what happens is, you end up in a Cross-Purchase situation having 16 different policies. So that all four hours are covered a different way out. So there is some consideration for how those are set up. The terms typically want to match the Buy-Sell Agreements, so whatever is put in place, so 10 Sometimes it's easier to research what the carriers offer in terms while you're putting together a Buy Sell, as there can't always be customized to fit what your Buy-Sell agreement wants to do. And so there is some thought to that. And typically, if you have, we've seen scenarios, where we've had 14 business owners who will typically be a traditional carrier, and requires at least a 10% ownership share, to have an ability bio policy. So in those situations, you might be in a non-traditional market, but we have done that with multiple owners when their percentage of ownership is less than that 10%. So those are options as

Amber 14:40
Perfect. So then these also consider the age differences too. Sometimes there's a higher expense for some than others. Right?

Jackie 14:49
That is true. And it especially in closely held family-type businesses, you know, typically will be in a non-traditional market if you have an older owner and a son or daughter working in the business, a lot of our domestic carriers that have this as a solution can are concerned about that. So the delta between the older owner and the younger also becomes a consideration that we would go into the marketplace to make sure we're finding the best solution and who will accept that risk. And on that note, we might as well go with air these are fully underwritten. Typically so not only business financials, but your telephone interview, in some cases, your paramed or many exams, and that typically means what you're in physical measurements, so the height, weight, and blood pressure to obtain most of these policies.

Amber 15:51
Okay, so you might not have an answer to this. Do you see any issues with when some of the partners are declined? Is there a way to pivot and kind of do some other solutions if somebody's not eligible based on their health?

Jackie 16:06
There are other solutions. So typically, we have impaired risk options in those scenarios so that we can get all the partners covered. If for whatever reason you just cannot get someone covered in the carrier they want you to apply. So that application is necessary and then if they were declined and even if it's declining in an impaired market, at least you're attempting to get all those owners covered on that call. See, unfortunately, in a situation where not even an inherent risk option would take an owner with lots of medical issues. In that case, then the business is really looking at having to fund this option themselves. What we would consider a sinking fund to be able to fund their portion of it.

Amber 16:52
All right. So that is awesome information. How is this different from a traditional Key Person policy?

Jackie 16:59
Okay, so the Key Person is in most scenarios where you have somebody who is critical to business operations. Typically that person is maybe the head of sales, so they're your top salesperson. When you hear the phrase, golden handcuffs, you know, that person that you really need to keep their business going and have it be successful. So what that is, it's an owner, a business owner or business entity owned type policy, that typically you can do two to three times that key person's salary that would reimburse the business so that they are able to hire someone to replace that individual if they become sick and hurt and unable to work. And so it's more of a reimbursement to the business rather than an injury to an individual themselves. To be able to hire and get that person and get somebody as a replacement.

Amber 17:56
It's a safeguard for the business to let go find the next expert if there's something and it's death or disability. Right. Yeah. Is that what we're kind of looking at in both circumstances do we have a backup plan to still stay moving forward? So outside of the traditional, we have the business overhead expense disability buyout, we talked about the business loan, indemnification writers, key person, and anything else that is kind of like the standard traditional when we meet when you have case design because you have clients with needs outside of these. Are there any other policies that are typically talked about once we're in the conversation?

Jackie 18:36
Well, one of the things that you can talk to your business owners about is if you are doing and working with our business owners on their full comprehensive financial plan is do they have a retirement plan. And as part of that plan, whether it's a 401 k profit sharing or whatever the established amount is, what happens to their retirement accounts if they were beyond disabled? Typically, most people would say, well, I'll just draw down my assets, well, then that puts your retirement future at risk. So there is a solution. Currently, that is a retirement funding option that you can put a policy in place that if you were the kind of sick and hurt and unable to fund that plan that doesn't actually fund it each month, and it can be up to whatever the annual ERISA Max is, depending on your income, to be able to have a policy like that. So you know, you're already if you're in an adverse medical situation, you're sick, you're hurt, you're unable to work, you know, you're already going to be using probably more expenses for medical and other things. The last thing you want to do is put your retirement at risk. So definitely make sure that it continues to be funded even if you aren't able to fund that every month yourself.

Amber19:55
I think a lot of people when they get their private disability or have their group disability contracts for their personal household bills forget, such income is for funding retirement. And if you're supposed to work 20-plus years and have this retirement plan. What is that just is you know, we just stopped way in an advance way earlier than you then you would have thought then everything's being reduced. So we don't want to keep chopping up the benefits. Some of it's just going straight to the business to cover expenses per period of time.

Jackie 20:26
Yeah, so typically what the carrier has is a separate trust account for those assets to go into the carrier's I'm thinking have, you know, a suite of mutual funds themselves, that it goes into that and it will be invested, you know, on the client's behalf. So it's not something that the advisors would necessarily control how those assets are, you know, put in place it is all into a trust and then the carrier themselves manage those funds.

Amber 20:57
And I think that's what the beauty behind working with independent agencies and brokerages is, whatever the terms might be, people have independent solutions, which we can then build and customize as needed, or as the partners want certain things. And so it's really it's pretty neat once you get your advisors all together and what's nice is that maybe the insurance teams are working with the attorneys and then the tax advisers and so we're just we're moving forward and then you have your counsel, and you don't have to do this alone. I don't think we care about retirement planning.

Another one that I think people are trending and talking about is Critical Illness contracts. And so do you mind breaking down? I think a lot of people when you think of an employment situation and you hear about this AD&D, accidental death and dismemberment, people have this opinion about what they think that is different from the Accelerated Death Benefit rider, but then there's critical illness and so do you want to kind of break that apart so people can go okay, now I get with and does because it's a very interesting one. I don't know if it's automatic, why not? But I don't know that I recommend buying sometimes the AD&D on top of a term policy and some of these other things, but what's your opinion on that?

Jackie 25:47
So Critical Illness, the interesting thing about that because you'll hear a lot about, you know, cancer, stroke, heart attack type coverage. So in those cases, an individual critical illness policy that is fully underwritten has so many other things that can be covered. So there are both Simplified Issued amounts that limit the medical things you have to do to collect on those policies versus a fully underwritten one where in one carrier scenario I know they have 27 different medical conditions that are covered on a credit worsening.

Amber 26:24
Sometimes these audits like I always say automation and efficiency are great, but sometimes it could be to your benefit to get the blood draw, to not automate because you might get so much more so it's nice that they have the automation for those that might but there are benefits a kind of computer to traditional underwriting, we forget that sometimes.

Jackie 26:45
There's not just that either, that typically the Critical Illness will pay per incident. So you know, if you have a heart attack, and then you know, there's something else that that heart attack creates is a medical condition that is covered under that policy, they will issue that lump sum again. For other medical conditions. So it's not just a one-time event on this fully underwritten so you're right, it may you know, be good for the client to go ahead and do that blood draw to get something like this. And the way we use it with income replacement solutions is on a typical individual policy. Kind of that sweet spot for finding those policies is a 90-day and 90-day wait, right? So we've also accorded critical illness for the amount of whatever that monthly benefit would be times that 90 days. Or 120 days. Because then you can file a claim and get a lump sum to cover medical costs while you're in your waiting period for disability. You know it's a Simplified Issue typically anything under 50,000 on a Critical Illness can be a simplified issue. You can also think of it as gap coverage for your other disability coverages that it's going to cover you and in a lot of cases, you know, people will do it if they have a high deductible plan. You know, what is your deductible? You don't have to do you know, a huge dollar amount on a policy like this. You can, but it's not necessary but it can act as a gap.

Amber 28:15
Yeah, I think I'm hearing about these a lot more. So, however, I've also seen people reporting these policies as like a Long-term Care solution and it's not that is a part of the planning. But that is a whole other conversation.

Jackie 28:32
It is yes, yeah.

Amber 28:34
Okay. So basically, that's Critical Illness policies are not reimbursing for the facility, home care, or any of those things. It is an actual medical condition that has been diagnosed and recorded to the carrier that the client has experienced. And then they send out a lump sum payment and then clients can use those funds however, they need to, but it does not fund a long-term facility, ongoing care,

Jackie 28:56
You bring up a good point. So the triggering events are the actual condition. The long term care is considered there a list of activities of daily living and other criteria. So that's how you'll know you know what you have or what you might not have if you're looking for something specific kind of break it apart, based upon strictly based upon the condition versus some of these other factors.

Amber
So going back to what I was saying earlier Accelerated Death Benefit Riders usually sit on the contracts they might have an admin fee, but they're usually on life insurance contracts for free. And Jackie, I know you read the fine print. So I usually see it as a terminal illness. Is it 12 months to 24 months sometimes with certain policies 24 months?

Jackie 29:41
It can be yes, yeah. So depending on each carrier obviously has its different underlying language they put in that base contract. And so you will see some of those things in different contracts depending on which one you go with. And there is a multitude so you always want to make sure you're getting the carrier that is fitting your client's economic situation, whether the occupation is different carriers specialize in different things.

Jackie 30:08
and I'm strictly talking about life insurance here and I didn't let the audience know that so since we were kind of in that disability mode, this is for talking about life insurance products and kicks in on the life side. There are qualifying events on the way you hit your demise. Not everything counts. So it's a very odd one and some people think oh, okay, well if I pass away, it's just part of my life insurance planning. It only triggers if certain things happen where the accelerated death benefit riders for you to choose to activate while you're alive, but you might have a terminal condition. You can advance some of your benefits forward if you want to in advance to pay for certain medical bills where and is usually through. Usually, a group package is usually where we see that on the life side. So we've talked a little bit kind of throughout a little bit of some life, product in there, product knowledge, but there are I think one or two other things that are interesting products. I think we could talk about wrapping up today, which I don't do a lot with them, but clients are starting to talk about it. So let's hear what you have to say. Well,

Amber 31:15
one of the things that clients are looking at is now that we are you know, in a post-COVID world, we hope a lot of people are starting to travel again. So one option that is not well known that is currently in the marketplace, through Lloyd's of London is what's called travel insurance. And my husband and I have used it it is not expensive. But if you are going overseas somewhere and let me specify a cannot be a location that is on the United States State Department's no-go list but anywhere else

Jackie 31:51
If you go to Europe, you know, if you were to get sick and sick and hurt there, you can do what's called Travel Health Insurance pays a lump sum. So you would go in and we actually have a link on our website that you can go in when you're traveling to what the dates are, and pick different coverages amount coverage amounts, you can pay with it, pay immediately with a credit card and you'll have your medical insurance and everything, you know within a day that they issue these policies. So, you know, we actually did have a client that was in Hong Kong, had a major ACL tear, and ended up having to have surgery there before he could return home to the United States and the policies in place. And not only did they pay for his medical care there in Hong Kong, but they also paid for him to travel back privately to the United States. Wow. Because sometimes when you have some of those major injuries, doctors don't want you to travel, and trying to fly commercially is very difficult to navigate airports and you know, get on and off airplanes and that kind of stuff. So there is a wide range of dollar amounts you can choose to help with something if that were to happen while you're traveling.

Amber 33:09
Very interesting. I have a lot of clients that are on visas and go back home. So that's an interesting one to bring up. In addition to the foreign travel policies, there are a few other types of policies that many people don't think about. And some of our colleagues have been using them. So those are the I guess the more interesting ones that I wanted to kind of close up the conversation today. One is Kidnap Ransom Insurance, right? Can you speak a little bit about the utilization of some of these why are people buying these?

Jackie 33:41
So typically, this is a nontraditional market. So you are definitely in a Lloyd's of London marketplace when you're talking kidnap and Ransom insurance. And typically we will see that in a business owner situation where maybe somebody is traveling to an area that is not, you know, so secure, and they're worried that you know, it is a situation where they could be kidnapped and that, you know, the kidnappers could you know demand a ransom on those individuals? Typically, they are private, and the person that they're insuring typically doesn't know these policies are in place. And that's by design. You don't want to state ever is doing the negotiating, negotiating with the kidnappers, to for the client to know that they have those coverages in place, or what the dollar amounts are. And so in reality, in some of these situations, we recently have an advisor that whose son was going on a mission trip right across the border to Juarez, Mexico. Well, we know there's a lot of cartel activity in Juarez. So he was very concerned about his son, you know, traveling over the border that we looked at putting, you know, a small policy in place on him to do that. And we also had a scenario where we had another advisor that son and it was going to school in Dubai, and I'll never forget that when he went to school in Dubai that first Thanksgiving. He had said to his parents, well, we're gonna go to Lebanon for the holiday. Oh, gosh. No, you are not going to be that is not happening.

But before he ever left, they made sure because he was traveling to the Middle East that you know, a suburban kid from, you know, Erie, Colorado. That, you know, he didn't know, maybe the dangers in the world around him. So his parents wanted those coverages. But it's not just for that it's for business owners who do have maybe executives or people who are working in areas that, you know, there's cartel activity or you know, even terrorist activities. Some of those coverages in place,

Unknown 35:47
Unfortunately, it's a real thing. So, there's definitely a need there. And so some of those travel options that are coming up, like you said, as we're doing more, these policies will probably become more popular outside of these top hat or somebody's specialty occupations. I know that we work with loads of London, is there a difference between a top hat versus say the golden handcuffs? How would that be a little bit different policy? Well,

Unknown 36:13
with Lloy'ds of London, Top Hat is typically in if you think of your domestic market for high, highly paid executives hear their C-Suite individuals that may be in the traditional marketplace, they're only allowing a certain dollar amount per month, and the Lloyds of London once you have a policy in place in the domestic marketplace, you can then go to them and say here's the offer that we received from the rigid traditional domestic carrier, we would like to add an additional X dollar amount above and beyond that, and here is his income that we're looking to cover. So there's no additional underwriting in that situation.

Amber 36:54
They already know it's already there.

Jackie 36:56
They are using the underwriting then happened on that individual policy in the voids marketplace to make a determination whether they want to add that top half policy to the existing coverage.

Amber 37:08
What's the lowest income that you've seen for one of those is available?

Jackie 37:12
Well, if you figure you know, on average, most carriers will participate somewhere between 35 and $40,000. So when you're getting to somebody that's over a million dollars of income, you can definitely look at possibly having a top hat, if you cannot, for whatever reason layer on multiple because you do have the option of layer and multiple domestic carriers to get to the maximum benefit you can and then at the boys but I'm I would say typically 11112 or one and a half million dollars of income. Typically where we see those and something else that you know when we were talking about the Lloyds marketplace that we didn't really cover if there's anyone in the universe who is working with professional athletes, you know, having individual disability insurance for those, you know, there are options for that. We have seen scenarios with professional skiers professional golfers, NFL players, you know, so the motocross we you know, had a motocross on specialty sports. And so you know, that is also something to you know, if you are in that marketplace, and they're, you know, it's rare, but, you know, those are kind of fun cases to work on because they're going to be household names that you you know, hear every day that you know, they you know, are looking for coverages as well. So if you have a relationship in that space, you know, don't don't forget about that as

Amber 38:45
well. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Anything else that you think the audience should know about planning for their 2023 year?

Jackie 38:53
I would say the big thing is just to start the conversation. You know, anytime you have a business owner, you know, ask them if they have some of these things in place. And if they haven't, you know, what is the thing that keeps them up at night? What are they worried about? You know, and just asking the question, I think is my big thing. And you know, a lot of advisors don't ask that question, versus having a client say to them, Well, what about this be the advisor or agent that asked that question first. That you know, to drive that conversation?

Amber 39:26
Yeah, I think it's been a lot of fun. Our team collaborates and so when you have certain people that you work with and you specialize, there are teams like yours like you know, I work with, you know, a lot of different advisors to with shared clients. And so you can bring solutions, but you don't have to fully be an expert. There's ways to work through your agency. I'm always happy to help find a team to help anybody that has the question, especially if you're hearing about these things, but you're not really sure how to get started or you're just, that's not your area. We have the ability to connect you with the right network. So

Jackie 40:01
and I think for us that you know, one of the things that we as a value proposition bring to our advisors, financial planners, you know, CPAs is that you know, we have we're an independent source for you know, multiple income replacement solutions, that it's not putting a round peg in a square hole, is every single client situation is a little bit different. Let's try and customize this to make sure you're fitting the right solution for that client and having the marketplace available to you. And, as I say that I'm thinking, you know, if you do have clients who have medical conditions that you think there's no way they're going to get any of these coverages in place, less now, you know, if your team has the ability to shop that in the marketplace and have an impaired option, there are so many things that you think traditionally most life insurance or disability carriers are, they're not going to touch that risk, but we have the option of sending that out to our underwriters. And we do it every day. Things that come in to see if those are options. And so having a team that has that independence and the ability to shop that for you is a value add to your clients to because you have the ability to go back to them and say, I didn't just go to this one source. I have multiple sources that we looked at to make sure we were getting the right solution for you.

Amber 41:29
I mean, that's been huge for me, because I've been able to like you said there's a marketplace and so when there's a case with maybe like an inquiry that we can do, we can go and because of our relationships and through agencies like yours we can get to the underwriter and ask the real questions and not just follow a guidebook and show specific kind of the custom that everything's the same and the you know, funny things happen in life and that's why there was a prescription or condition and you know, oh a follow up or two we can explain it do a cover letter. And then go to some of the primary carriers but as you said, you've talked about impaired risk carriers, too. So what's nice is we can go kind of a 123 and kind of just tackle it from different perspectives. Yep,

Jackie 42:16
yep. So yeah, I would say you know, don't don't just accept no as the initial answer. Usually, there's somewhere as a maybe or 'yes' in there. And you know, if we can find it, we're going to do that well, and then also if there is a solution, but it's not now and it's a year from now, then you can work with your client and put it on the calendar and that's just helpful for them so they just know

Amber 42:29
All right, I've been someone's ally for me for the future. And so I know that we've done that before with certain conditions. So I think that's a great place to stop for today, Jackie, and there'll be more to come. So thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm not sure when but we'll make it happen. It's very soon.

Jackie 42:59
All right. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody.

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