Life Insurance Explained: Term vs Whole Life, IUL & Living Benefits

Life Insurance — Cleaned Episode Transcript

Guest: Rob Loa, military veteran and life insurance professional with PHP Agency

Note: This transcript has been cleaned for readability. Raw timecodes and placeholder speaker labels were removed, obvious transcription errors involving names and common insurance terminology were corrected, and duplicated trailer material after the main episode was omitted. Insurance explanations, recommendations, product descriptions, examples, and financial claims remain attributed to the speakers and reflect the interview; they are not independently verified financial advice.

Opening & Meet Rob Loa

1 in 3 women, one and two men get some type of cancer. Dishonesty is the number one. Why someone will not get paid up. Dishonesty because the life insurance company has no feelings in this. But Rob they just stay home parent. But that that means they need more because now that's your child sitter. That's your taxi. That's your your chef.

I recommend this to everyone is getting a whole life or IUL, but also stacking it with a turn. It doesn't matter how old you will. It really doesn't because you just don't. There's so many things that you said in life are just don't see coming. Money is the tool that makes your life harder, difficult. Who did you build up?

That's what I want to be measured by.

Hi. Welcome to the Key Concepts podcast. Today we're sitting down with Rob Loa. He is a military veteran who's transitioned into the life insurance industry.

Rob, thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate you for having me. Thank you. Yeah. Glad for you to be here.

Rob, we ask that the last guest leave a question for the next guest and the last guest.

We had two people on the podcast, so we got two questions for you.

you could do one last vacation before you die, what would it be and why?

Europe's very big. I think I got enough time on that train ride would take a few days. So I'd say it a nice slow, slow train ride to go see some different views and make plenty of stops on the way.

That's interesting one before I. It's ironic because it's life insurance. You know, we do think that's perfect.

the next question is

if you could ask one question to anybody who has passed away, what would it be?

I would ask my grandfather some questions because he left a little bit of mystery behind. And there's, like, some mob ties and some reasons why. And now you start looking back in life and you're like, okay, why did we move from here to there?

Why did we. So that probably be that's a selfish thing of me. But if I, if I could be selfish, I'm asking my grandpa a few questions.

Okay. Awesome.

What Is PHP Agency?

let's get into the life insurance stuff. So your broker at PHP. So for people who have not heard about PHP, the agency, what is that and what do you do?

stands for people helping people. And that's exactly what we do is what can we do to help you understand what options you do have. Because

life insurance, it gets scary when you really think about it. It can be intimidating. It's something you don't really want to think about every day.

And there's a lot of misconceptions. I'm sure we'll dive into that later, but what the company ultimately does is it helps individuals build something for themselves. As as we've talked before, Patrick Bet-David is that's the founder of that company,

it recently was sold to integrity. It was a partnership

in which integrity was one of the biggest carriers there, a giant in the industry.

And we're just a small portion of it, but we're they're keeping us together. Our values, everything that we base on is staying and

something different. It's not I wouldn't say it's your average company.

people helping people. I like what it stands for. So is it more than just a life insurance company, or is that like the core aspect of the business? That's what we thrive on. There's, there's insurance companies out there that focus on a series six investments and whatnot. That's not us.

It's it's focused more on protection. We protect. That's our that's what we lead with education and protection

So it's really about protecting your life insurance for your life life insurance as it's what it probably was created for in the first place. Absolutely. And and there's a bunch of things you can do with it where you if you do have some money and you want to because we also specialize in retirement annuities, which

is like a self pension.

And so when people have

pocket of money, the people have come into some money or they want to start prepping for the future. Annuities is a perfect way to

tie your money into. It's in investment, but it's insurance, so it's not we don't need the series six license and whatnot to really tie into it because insurance back side up.

So it makes it a lot more safer.

It's a you're less vulnerable. And it's like I like we said we'll we'll talk about it in the future. But for jobs who has pensions these days it's very it's getting very, very few companies are offering pensions. So

our businesses people

that's what I love about our company. We pride ourselves on on going the extra step, feeding us the proper information that to better ourselves, to be able to help a client.

Rob's Transition From the Military to Insurance

And so,

yeah, it's it's it's wonderful. It sounds like I'm going to come in for leopard shirts and then get counseling in between. Hey, got a good agent that that's. Yeah,

So what inspired you to get into the life insurance industry? Going from the military? Like, that's a drastically different feel.

Kind of sounds like a big jump.

So back in 2020 is when I got out of the military, I was planning on going to Japan, doing all this great stuff.

But obviously it was March of 2020 when I got out active duty. So,

my plans were canceled, Covid hit, and so a lot of plans changed. I went back home instead, had to figure things out.

The

first thing I wanted to dive into was mortgage. It was the end of the 2021, the 3% where mortgage was going crazy.

People were just making absolutely crazy money.

And

so I was like, let me, let me dabble in that. Unfortunately, by the time I got my license and dove truly into it, it was the the high was over. It was back to reality and it was

tough to be in.

I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't survive.

so I'm in this in this moment where I'm doing the mortgage, I'm suffering. I'm like, I need a break. I go down to LA and I see one of my best friends, Brandon Chavez,

and we're going to go to Disneyland, take our mind off things. It's been Covid. Covid is now starting to open up. Disneyland downtown's a little open, so things are starting to get better.

We're cruising the freeway

and I see a sign that says Pirates of the Caribbean. And I'm like,

they're still making these things. I was like, I thought Johnny Depp. I thought he was going away.

Amber heard thing. And he was like, no, man, he she was a liar.

He

was not going away. And this, I promise you, this is coming back to insurance. She's he's not going away and he's innocent. And I was like, cool. I love that ride at Disneyland is one of my favorite movies. Great I can't wait.

And

he was like, by the way.

Same with the Andrew

Tait guy. Like he was innocent too. And I was like, I thought I got caught up with a pizza box.

I don't I keep hearing about this guy. I gotta look into it finally, because once I hear something like, all right, let me go down this rabbit hole, what is the guy about? So I look into him

point is

he

eventually he's talking all these people. Everyone's badmouthing him.

then he does one interview with a guy that gives him a fair shot, and that's Patrick McDavid. And I was like, who's this guy? He had a story.

He was, you know, I'm from I Iran

came back, went to the military, and it was just I was like, okay, this guy giving him a fair shot, he's asking him fair questions. He's doing a really good job. And I'm like, okay, this guy is fair. Who is this guy?

So then I started following who Patrick met. David is and I'm like, this guy

is my hero.

Like the way the the way he he looks at life, the way he tries to help others, the way he builds, the way he just gives people a fair shot. He's like, look, I don't got to be right. I just want to find the right answer. And that's the mentality. I started adapting

the combination of bettering myself, learning about who Patrick, what David is, watching the podcast, understanding how I started, you start branching off, you start learning about Marcus Aurelius, and he starts because he tells you to start bettering yourself.

And so eventually he mentions insurance.

And

I was like, okay, I got to get into insurance. So I go on LinkedIn and I'm like, first insurance job that takes me. I'm going, I'm going to I'm going to go kill

and I don't want to bash him or anything. But the first job that picks me up and this is all new to me because again, I I'm Army guy for a while.

I come back and I do mortgages now. Now I'm like finally going into like the job market again after a while.

And

so the first I get a get an interview and I'm like, babe, I'm about to I got an interview. Aflac baby, let's go.

And so I think I'm doing Big Thing. I'm like, I'm like, this is cool.

Like I'm gonna do insurance and stuff. And so I get into it,

I start learning the game, I start this is Affleck is more of a benefit side, more of the health insurance, not life. There's a difference.

So

I

start learning this and I start meeting people. It gets me to go. And we could talk about this too.

We should have talked about it for sure is Biz link I start wanting to network with people, business owners and trying to figure it out.

I do Aflac for about eight nine months, almost a year. I'm learning the insurance industry

and then I meet and this is shout out to Julia Williams. I love that lady. I she's a president chapter president for being I in Rancho Cordova.

Don't know if you met her. Yeah. She's amazing.

So

I, I, I meet her at a B and I

because of Affleck, I'm doing all that they send me to be any meetings or whatnot.

So

I, I get a chance to meet shake hands with Julissa. She's president. She's wonderful. She's in charge. Like I respect her. She's like, damn, I like this lady.

I got to be friends with her.

I don't know what she does. I just, I show up, shake hands, thank you. And there we go. And about a few months later,

of my persons at, at Affleck was saying, hey, we're going to start a partnership with a couple of the businesses we need to start networking and doing that.

One of our persons is going to be Julia. So if you have a question on life insurance,

go

talk to Julia. She's with PHP. And I was like, well, you said PHP

I heard Pat say it now like it's a it's a transition. This is over time. Now it's 2025. I skipped a little bit. Don't mind me.

There's some stuff in between, but I'm not going to leave that hard.

2025 she tells me. Yeah, she's with PHP. I was like, as soon as I heard that, I literally left that that meeting and I went to go talk to Julia. I hunted her down like Julia. And there was like, if you type in PHP at Sacramento, there's like four offices that show

Almost all four of them are closed and it doesn't show our proper address. So

I

call her up with my where are you? I gotta go talk to you. And so I talked to her. And that same day I started, I was like, this is where Pat, this is what Pat build. And I just I just followed suit.

did a little bit of both for a while. Affleck and then I started learning the live game. And then as soon as I started understanding how, how, how much of a broad spectrum this is, so I could talk to anybody, I could.

Life insurance is for anybody. It's not just business owners, it's

anybody from 0 to 80, pretty much. And you know, everything in between

that's such a trip. I mean, think about it. You're going from a Disneyland trip

to now you're going on YouTube to look at some people. You find this Patrick David guy, you're like, oh, he's somewhat inspirational.

He

drops a comment about his life insurance company, and you get the life insurance.

will say this, though. There's car insurance, there's home insurance, there's health insurance. And probably the biggest thing that people don't have is life insurance. And it's probably the one that matters the most. So

military to life insurance.

Was there anything from the military that you kind of took any of the lessons that carried over to how you do

insurance as a business,

Absolutely.

So

I signed up when I was 19 years old and right, like almost right after high school

and right from right from the get I had what it gave me was a sense of, let me tell you, you, your ass better be on time.

People get very creative with punishments. One time I was late.

I'm

not going to tell you what story, but like,

the sergeant in charge, he's like, okay, you want to be late to my formation?

Not a problem, not a problem.

And he he goes inside and he comes back outside with a ruler and a little stupid pair of scissors, like little school systems that are barely sharp.

Why Life Insurance Feels Complicated

He's like, hey, do me a favor. All this needs to be about, let's go with 3.5in high, go ahead and get started. And so I'm like,

oh, I was out there for the rest of the day and just in the grass, just looking stupid.

Just so

I'm never late now. So it's like I was like one of the biggest lessons that I took from there. That,

plus the leadership I had, I had some phenomenal leaders.

afterwards. It just makes real life feel like I'm on easy mode because I not everyone showing up on time. Right place, right time, right uniform.

Overall, it gave me a it gave me a head step, a head start I'd feel on. Yeah.

On life. I guess two thoughts of the mind is common sense is not that common. It's has to be taught. And then the other one is how you do anything is how you do everything you know. So it's kind of, well, you've got the discipline and the work ethic is kind of what it sounds like that the military kind of led you towards.

So now when you're doing left insurance or you're doing something else, it's that discipline and worth ethic, work ethic that is going to keep you consistent and persistent and finding that success in whatever you're doing. So hence life on easy mode, you know what I mean? It's just a grind at the end of the day.

you've been doing this for a little while now and

you transitioned from the military.

If you could go back and do it all over again. Would you still choose life insurance or would you do something else?

I, I would tell myself to get started with I tell anybody I don't care, I have my little cousin or I'm sorry, my yeah my cousin, he's, he's 16 and he's like asking me about I'm like, come here, let's get let me tell you at least a little bit about it.

Now make your own decision. But man I, I recruit as many. Oh

I'm a you after. No, I'm just kidding. No, but I, I believe I believe in what I do, I honestly do I, I've, I've had plenty of jobs. I've done a lot of things in life. I've, I, I'm more I'm very curious. I like to look at best options.

And if you're looking for the freedom, if you're looking for time back, if you're looking for the legacy, you're looking for

getting paid to help people, there's not many jobs that let you do that and to be in control. So

I, I, I sound like a billboard all day, I really am.

It sounds like there's a parallel for serving your country and serving your citizens, and it's just from a different angle, but it's still that service that's kind of compelling you to.

If I had to choose again, yeah, why not choose it again?

For people that are watching that don't know the difference between a life insurance broker and an agent, can you explain what the difference is between the two?

agent is think of a person that working specifically for the one insurance company like a primary for like a New York life that their agent

the when you go to the broker side, it's like you're a middleman for a bunch of companies.

So what there's there's pros and cons to both.

Sometimes the sweeter deals and maybe a, a stipend of a pay. You might be as an agent. Maybe they feed you some leads that might be okay for you. Or you go to the broker side where you have

you're

not getting fed leads. It's more of an organic, but you're

able to service and have more options.

So neither are the wrong answer. It just depends on what you're looking for. As far as a career,

and as I was preparing for the podcast, I came across this term of a captured agent. And so what is that term mean? That's it's pretty much where you if you hang your license at one spot, you can't go and do business on behalf of other companies.

It's hey, no, you're our guy. You're our girl.

You only do business here. And, there's no shop in other companies. It's just a sell our stuff. That's pretty. So you can't go anywhere else. You're just a captive. It sounds worse than it is. I mean, it does sound bad, right? The term is you're captured. But what would you say is the the benefits of going through someone that works just for the company directly for that company, versus going through a broker?

it just depends on the person. I, I highly recommend go look at both because it ultimately it depends on and you should be taking care of your first needs first and foremost.

Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe you have a great relationship with this broker and you trust and you know that person is never going to steer you in the wrong direction.

And you might need different options. Maybe you have a medical condition that this person at this company A can't do anything with. Sorry, your A one C levels for your diabetes is too high.

Well let me go shop the broker. It might be a little more expensive, but at least you have an option. So that and it goes back and forth.

It just depends on what the client's looking for.

Yeah. So if I was to recap, it sounds like if I'm going if you're going through a company, maybe they're a friend, family member or whatever the case may be. They may be able to get you maybe a slightly better deal, specialized rates, whatever their company is offering, but they're locked into just what they have.

How Much Life Insurance Might Someone Need?

They don't

have other alternatives. They don't have other comparisons there. That's just what their company is offering.

Whereas a broker, they can shop multiple life insurance carriers,

if you have all those options, you're probably going to find something similar or comparable. Absolutely. Yeah. You hit it absolutely

when it comes to life insurance in general, what is the big problem life insurance is solving for?

Like what problem does it fix.

life comes at you. I mean, look at the stats. It's not just me just saying this for funsies. It's there's 1 in 2 men get cancer, some type of cancer, 1 in 3 women. And

what's the biggest hurdle that people deal with when they get a if they get a cancer or a life altering injury is the medical bills.

This stuff is just a few dollars a day to.

I got to worry about that. If anything were happening to me, I got $1 million going to the family. That house is paid.

Have fun. You know, it's like it's like the most, like, selfless thing you could do. And it's not just about death. It's about being alive. When our kid, we have a kid, we're going to start life insurance right away.

So at age 18, boom, here's 15. Here's 500 grand.

Go chase your dreams. How powerful is that? If you had that growing up, I'm like, mom, you couldn't spare 50 bucks a month, you know what I mean? Like,

and a lot of times it's not her fault. Maybe she didn't run into someone like me. Maybe someone didn't have the courage to go bother her and ask her about a life insurance policy.

Maybe there's that stigma that's still in the air that you don't need it. Because I'm too young,

because people like me aren't getting out there and having conversations about how it's not about just being too old or young. It's about being smart and thinking about

covering all angles. And if and we'll talk about the permanent side. But even if nothing happens, at least you build something over here that you can take out and go chase something else.

It's just it's to me, it's no brainer.

So you say like take out. It sounds like you could borrow against your life insurance in some way. Maybe there's some options or some plans where you could access some of it. Because

if

you're doing some type of $50 a month plan, whatever the case may be, I'm not saying it's going to be exactly 50, right.

Whatever the person is going to qualify for, let's just use it as a general statement for the audience to have just a number to play with. Okay, let's just hypothetically say it's just 50 bucks a

month

at 18 compounds, whatever or policy can they pull that out? Like how are they getting that 500 grand? They go do whatever they're going to do, like, or whatever the policy is like.

How do you access that? Right. Absolutely. So this and that. In that case scenario, I was talking about like a zero year old putting away, you know, some money and, and and of course I like the $50 will play with that. Everyone's different you know compound how you want but just think about it. The average. So what life insurance is tied into when I say something that does stack money

of course consult with your life insurance person.

Make sure it's exactly for you. But we're just going with play here. So a whole life of policy done right or I well something for that. We started off early is tied into the market with the S&P 500. So just think about

the

last

20 years. The S&P moves. It's going up. And it just it's one of the things that can't be beat I'm not talking about stocks I'm talking about the top 500 companies in the US.

We're betting on that the the US stay afloat.

And that's a pretty good bet. So

There's a pot that comes out at the end of that. And when you say, so what can you do with that?

There's like I said, talk to your life insurance person. Make sure that there's because if you're looking to put some money in and take it out, there's some companies are like, no, no, you need to let this sit for ten years.

You

might need to let this sit for two years. It just depends on what you're trying to do.

But when you're talking about an infant going on to 18, this is part till like 20, I might push it to like 25

because we're not all there 18, 18 year old with $1 million or something like that, I don't know. But if I do my job right. They'll do wonderful things with it. Nice, nice. So it sounds like there's different types of life insurance and some of them have investment components.

So that's going to

pivot to that. What is

term life insurance. You mentioned whole life insurance and IUL which I forgot what it stands for. But it sounds like there's these three categories of insurance types. So can you explain the three what the are and how are they different. Absolutely. So you have your term policy which is

temporary.

Term Life Insurance Explained

They usually come in increments of ten, 20, 30 years. And at the end of the it's it's at the end of it. They expire. They're cheap there. That's when you hear people say, I got $1 million policy. I got $752 million policy. It's more likely a term, so it's more likely going to expire.

But some insurance companies will put them on.

They'll tell you. Hey, you got a term policy. It's got to ask you for a rest of your life. But what they don't tell you is that at the end of that 20 years, they reevaluate health, and then they'll just make it go your policy go up a little bit. So

be

careful when you hear that. So term is just

short.

Hey I'm, I might need this for the next 10 or 20 years just to get me by until,

you figure things out. But

a lot of the times. And let's talk about term real quick. Make sure if you do talk to someone about term, make sure as living benefits. That's the biggest thing with term policies. It's it's now becoming more of a common thing.

But just double check. Make sure you got all the

the

bells and whistles because that's more of a standard now. And a lot of people are missing out or don't know that they have them.

We'll talk about that for sure. The living benefits part but term is that's it in a nutshell. It's a quick

10 to 30 years.

Whole Life Insurance Explained

Your whole life is that's a your traditional hey, I'm putting money into this policy. It's not going to be your 500 grand million dollar policy. I mean it could depends on everything structured depends on the needs. But that's something that

is building on it. It doesn't expire. It's it's not going to go away. And it has it's really cool.

It always has the living benefits on there. And then if you set it up right, you can have some compounding interest, some ways to,

use it for tax strategies. I,

get scared to talk about that stuff because then people are like, give me numbers, give me exact numbers. I'm like, I can't. Everything is depends because I hate giving for sure is because not everyone is the same.

Everyone has different goals.

Then you got your IUL which is indexed universal Life and that's the new one. That's like one of the newest ones. So this one came out in about 98

when this started being becoming a

strategy. And so what the insurance company does did is they laid the foundation to start investing in the S&P 500.

It's more of a safe

bet. So you think of your your old type of let's say your variable loans where you have like think of your the stock market where it goes up and down.

This

follows the S&P goes up. But when the S&P has a bad year or stocks go down this one stays right there. And it's just a flat.

It's a flat.

And let's say the next following year the that goes way down more. This thing is still here flat. And it's just still going.

and what's special about these is over time just picture like three years have passed

even if the stock comes back up. But three years of unfortunately passed and this is still the compound.

It stayed there. So instead of investing in something that can go up and down, invest in something that stays. It's it's safe. It's not it's not going to be a sexy rewards. It's like

1,530%, but you're at least making a steady safe. And it's covering you as a person. So it does a lot of jobs in

Nice. So it's like the IU. The main difference is going to be where it whatever it's investing as part of your your premiums, it's never going to drop because it's following the stock market. But it's not going to have those big dips like when Covid happened. We have like a 3,040% correction in the market

until it eventually recovered.

But during that period, if something would happen, you're still getting what your money was at. It didn't start dropping with the markets and stuff like that.

When

the market picked back up, then they'll kind of continue when they kind of re level sets and

carries on it's way

a

term. Life insurance is going to be that term. How many every year you are you have that's what you have it for.

And then they expire and they get renegotiated or extended depending on

IUL and Other Permanent Life Insurance

what the terms are probably like at that time. And so

permanent life insurance and temporary life insurance

I know the temporary life assurance is specifically called life assurance. But

is the IUL and the whole life?

Are they permanent life insurance? They both are, yes. Yeah. So and there's also a great point to that too, is

say you're at 40 years old and you're, you're thinking about doing either or. You have to think about the term is going to expire, let's say at 50, you got a ten year term at 50 years old. What is your health look like at that age.

So the permanent you're going to pay a little bit more. But

it's

going to say that same price. So say we're going to just say for funsies 50 bucks for the term, $100 for the whole life. I'll type policy.

What this is doing is going to you're going to pay that that $50, you're going to pay the cheap upfront.

But when it's come, when it comes time to relook at things, maybe get another permanent or a term, you're ten years older. Did you get a sickness? Are you at that age? You know what I mean. You're you're your money is just it's you're going to pay more. So it just makes sense to start this eventually the wins the permanent at the if you compare the age that that always wins

it's but everyone's different.

And you know what. What I actually had a meeting last night. In that meeting

I, I recommend this everyone is getting a whole life or I. Well but also stacking it with a a a term because in the beginning, your, your whole life policy isn't going to be too much, like I said, maybe 250.

It depends on what they want.

But you want to get the big million dollar policy over here. And then over time, ten years goes by, they meet each other and then this can fall off. But you already built up a good stash over here where you just don't need that anymore. But

if

anything were to happen while I'm building the business, while I'm having a mortgage on the house.

Well, I have these bills. If anything happened to me, I haven't got to worry about that. So I highly recommend looking at both,

not

just trying to upsell, but I think it's truly important to cover both ends.

So it kind of sounds like a strategy in a way where because the term is often going to expire, it's often a little bit cheaper, but it has a higher payout amount.

And then the whole life isles, those kind of have to build up and grow and they have to be invested and then little bit more expensive. So people typically get a lesser coverage

as it grows. They can kind of capitalize that and get more out of it. So there's this gap. And so what the term does is it covers the gap until you build up your whole life, or IUL investment accounts that you could use like a life insurance or use as an investment account.

But in the meantime, if something were to happen, the term got got you covered.

about,

someone that's in their 50s and 60s? I mean, we're talking about term life investments. And is it ever too late to get life insurance?

No. So there's also roots. When I talk to people that are 50s and 60s, it's more of a, hey, Rob, I, you know, I got these health conditions. I don't know about life insurance for me. Of course, we'll still look at it because carriers are getting less pickier. And pick your and some might offer you a little bit more, but you've got some covered.

Retirement, 401(k) Rollovers, and Annuities

But

in

that age range I look to what do we what have we built up so far. So we also deal in the 401 rollover helping people with retirement and annuities.

And so that's a that's what we look at. We want to see did we build something up. What have we got.

Because people have a 401(k) through their job. They maybe they've worked at a company for ten years, worked at this one for 15, worked at this one for 20.

And

they just keep rolling their 401(k)'s into the next one. And eventually it

Builds into some something that is is respectable.

then when times comes to retire they might want to in 50 and 60 I, I don't know too many people retiring at that age these days, but at least it's in the back of their mind. They start going, okay, maybe I got 24, 30 years left. I need to start thinking about the future.

So they we we help people have that conversation. Let's first see what we can do for coverage. But I highly recommend looking into annuity because

you're taking something that's still like we talked invested into the stock market,

or

you're investing in something that's again tied to something that's more secure. So it's not, like I said, a sexy is going up and getting 30% returns, but at least it's something that you don't have to worry about

losing.

A lot of people don't even know they have anything in there 401(k). There's like, maybe I got something. So

when it comes to that age, it's definitely a conversation to talk about what's the next 30 years look like. Because

it gets scary for some people. And so of course we we still want to look at options.

I'll never tell anyone. We actually we shop life insurance I would say life insurance maybe final expense. We looked at that for when it gets to the senior citizens. So

I'm not saying my 5060 year olds need that, but that's more of where we turn things to. Is is a is retirement and start looking for the next phase in life.

Yeah. I mean, the average age, I think for a man to die is like 77. And I think for women at 79, something like that. So

when

we're in our 50s and 60s, we're we're right there 15, 20, 30 years at max. And so

it's just part of life. You got to think about what are you going to leave behind and who's going to cover your death expenses.

And

it's

not cheap. You know, you're talking probably like 20 grand with burial this, this, this. So if you could

get something even smaller, at least cover that. Hey, that's still a win. So you're not

passing it on to your children and to to your family members and so on and so forth.

But you mentioned getting life insurance that is like term and expiring.

And so let's just talk about term for a second. Yeah. You alluded to someone, you know not being good health chronic pain even I'm feeling pain. My joints

Age, Health, and Life Insurance Options

crack when I wake up and get out of bed. It's just everywhere. So let's say term 5020 years later, if it ends, I can't renew it at that same rate. I have to get reassessed the sounds like and then my premiums might go up.

Is that how it works? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Your parents are going up because it's it's all, it's a, it's your more about morbidity table how you pronounce it. And they look at okay now you're 15 years older.

The chances of you dying and go up you know. So they have to factor right in. I'm not saying it's going to jump up tremendously, but you're going to see an increase.

And when they like I said just be careful. I keep hearing this is like, no, I got I'm good on permanent life insurance. But it's just it's your term that just keeps renewing or some will creep up is

if

you see that that's a red flag. But I'm happy at least have something. But it's worth having a conversation.

At least know what you have.

Yeah. So it's it if I, I can't just like continue it at the same rate, I would have to get reassessed. That'll give me a new rate. So on and so forth. And then you talked about just you alluded to it creeping up. So when you are in a life insurance plan,

does it change over time or is it a fixed cost.

No, it's a fixed cost. So also there's a there's a point I want to point out. So like if you're 20 and you had a ten year term going to 30, there are underwriting where like a 30 year old good health. No there. There are times where you don't have to go reassess. But

again the numbers might creep up a little bit.

It's not going to be dramatic, but it will be something. But that's the the biggest difference between those two is, is yeah, you're always going to have to relook at it. And it's not the 20 year old that gets a term. It's usually like someone, 4050 that's now starting to look at it.

And, and I and I'd like to go back to the 50 to 6 year old when I talked to someone.

There's a lot of the conversation is they get to the point where it's it's what am I leaving behind? Like you said, I'm glad you said that. It's very important.

What am I leaving behind? And it's not just about that person. We also have to open the door to who's in your life that who are you affecting is what are we doing for the kids?

And that opens that conversation up to. So it's never

even if you're 60 years old and you're like, it can't be for me.

What about the grandkids? What about something? Because there's fun things you can do with life insurance. If I had a grandkid and I don't qualify for anything, maybe I had heart attack, strokes, whatever, but I want at least something to put on the side.

Maybe I might invest in my grandkids and one doing a great favor give you some life insurance. But also, if I'm the one that opened the account and I'm paying into it, I'm also in control of the money that's in the account, too. So

if junior racked up 100 grand in their account, maybe grandpa, meanwhile, or whoever is going to take out some

and use it for themselves.

One they're doing a good job of helping out the kid, but and two, you can their strategies where you can use it for yourself and you at least

have some parts to put in. So there's never like a even if you have health concerns,

I

tell it to anyone. There's strategies out there that can help by using life insurance, not just for you, but we have to talk about that and

see

what works for them.

Yeah. And since we're on the topic of kids and opening up life insurance for kids and stuff, is it ever too young to open up left for kids like, I have a four year old and an eight year old and I'm like,

do I want to

get them something? It's just a inflation cost. It's just so expensive. You know, every angle you're going through groceries, then you're this.

Now gas is like through the roof. And I'm like, jeez, you know, another expense. And it's kind of hard pill to swallow like the ones I'm mandated for. I have to do car. I can't drive,

I have to have health insurance. Kids are always sick. I have to have home insurance,

can't buy, get a mortgage without one. And so like this is an optional one.

Sure, it's life protection, but kids, they're

so young there's like

nothing's going to happen to them. So is it really. What's the what's the push for it. Like what's the benefit for getting the insurance for the kids.

I preach for kids is have something, like you said, investment, have something where, if anything were to happen to them. It's like we talked about on that. That whole life policy is not going to be a $500 million policy on your kid,

but

you might get 100 K, maybe get 50 K.

But

the point is, is to put something in, in, into an account where it could build for them.

So by the time the four year old has 14 years, maybe you can put the the limit on it. By the way, maybe when they're 25, they put you put something away for something.

Now they have something they can dip into. Maybe they want to go to college or abroad. Maybe they want to open a bike shop. Who knows? But at least you have the option to do that now. It's not like, well, figure it out. I had to go to the military, so if mom would have been like, hey, here's 500 grand.

Go chase your dream. Go open up something. I don't know if that was the best. It would be the best case for me, you know?

But I at least want that chance for my kid. And that's what I feel all parents want. You want what's you want? The the sun and the stars and the moon for your kids.

Right.

why not put them at an advantage if I do my job right, pair it with good parenting and an opportunity.

knows what that person can do? They can go out and change worlds. Change lives. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well all this life insurance talk. How does someone know how much life insurance to actually get.

if you were to. So the biggest question is if you were to pass away today, what would need be needed to cover everything. So that cover the the funeral, the house?

If

you were planning on sending the kids to college, all that needs to be calculated within right there.

Medical Exams, Underwriting, and Applying for Coverage

That's why the term is a very popular and that's why I pair it with a lot, because 100 to 250 K and covering too much

would still be in trouble on a mortgage. And in California especially.

So that's the part where you have to understand what are their future goals. Maybe the kids, right? You catch them at a time.

You you you work with a couple and their kids are 14, 15, 17. They're ready to move.

They're ready to retire. Hey, we might sell this place. We might have some equity that come our way. Okay, great. That opens up a opportunity. So now we can look at other options.

And so maybe that they they might not need as much.

Maybe we can get away with just a 500 maybe and just start focusing on this. It just depends.

Yeah. So it sounds like you kind of take it your life expenses, whatever you have on your mortgage, whatever other debts that you have, whatever you're forecasting for the college, expensive and expenses, and you just add them all up and then you're going to

get to some ballpark number and then probably just round up

What do you think about the strategy about. And this is something that I was thinking about as well.

My kids are four and eight and I'm calculating all my expenses and everything. And I'm thinking, okay,

if something would happen to me, I, you know, because inflation money is tight. I don't want to pay for that.

You I don't want to pay for the whole life. I don't want to be out another 102, three, four, whatever hundreds of dollars it is for these insurances for them to grow.

But

I also don't want to have a black swan event where something happens to me and then my kids are not taken care of. So

I

was thinking, let me just get term life insurance,

At least until they're 21.

They're

they're grown adults. At that point, they could live life on their own.

the I love that that mindset because that that's a very common mindset. Like I don't need that extra stuff or I'm too young or I don't need it, but

that's my bare minimum. It's like, at least get something for you because you just never know what this world has in store for us.

And

one of the cool things you can do with life insurance is when we'll talk about it is put on a rider. So something you're like, we can also cover the kids too. We'll talk about that. But

the

that's the bare minimum is at least having something of the mindset of like, hey, something ever happens to me, let me cover them till they're that, you know, they're of this age.

But

every parent's different I guess. But majority of them want something more for their kids, so I, I I'll ask I'll dig deep like hold on

I

know that's the surface answer, but what do you truly want to do? What do you what what are your hopes and dreams for them? And you have to open that up.

So you take a little step outside. That's where the therapist comes in. I always ask people like we have like I said, we had three our conversation yesterday, but it was like 90% about life and 10% about life insurance. I have to understand what they really want to do.

So

also make sure if your policy is a convertible, because there are term policies that you can at a, at maybe

nine out of the 20 years. Like, you know what? Let's, let's let's look at converting this into a whole life policy. There is that option out there as well.

Not a lot of companies do it, but just make sure you have that flexibility. It's all about options. So what does that what does that mean to convert a policy. What is are you coveting it to IUL or to a whole life or. Yeah, you're pretty much yeah. Converting it right to a, a a whole life policy. So there's a lot of stipulations.

Depends. Of course every company is different. They have their set of rules. Can't do it past this year. Can't do it before this. Got to redo this.

It

just depends. But at least it's an option out there. And so you at least want to know. There's a ton of options out there, but does it have this option to if I do want to get something going on this side.

And I am

thinking about this is more important, I might need to look at some options. Of course there's that. But if you have a good agent and they really care about your situation, you're having checkups at least once a year, twice a year to at least say, hey, what's going on in your life? Anything change?

Okay, so we have this whole life, it's doing this for you.

What are your thoughts on this? What's going on in your life?

The most important thing I, I, I, I stress this to everyone is have a team behind you have people that you talk to regularly. A lot of us will hermit ourselves in our house after work, I get it. There's a lot of stress out there after work. Yeah, go home with the family.

But it's so important to at least talk to people and see what they're doing. See, that's the whole point of his life. There's other people doing

it.

So you need people that are on your team that are helping you out, understand these things. So you need someone in your corner that you actually trust that knows they're not here just to get a dollar from you,

but

they're here to build a relationship and help you and truly understand your family's needs.

So

that's by far the most important thing. So when people are like,

A's come in, you might they're not my insurance agents. I. I don't think so. I could be wrong, but

going on the computer compared to a person in person is unmatched. You can feel if someone has a trust in you, you feel that they have your

your back.

Truly. So

there's a lot of cool things you could do with that, but just look into it, make sure.

Living Benefits Explained

Yeah, absolutely. I like the convertible option.

Like

if it's not right now at least that options later so we can revisit it. Maybe I get a promotion or have some extra income,

and

now I can take advantage of some other option as long as it's there.

So we mentioned two things and we glossed over earlier. But I want to circle back to. So living benefits what is living benefits. And then I want to ask about the riders. What that what that means

I'm

sure it's a life insurance policy term and

we'll

get the definition on that. But let's start with living benefits. So what is what is living benefits on a life insurance policy

okay.

So living benefits is if anything were to happen to individual with the policy, a long term disability, some critical illness like a heart attack stroke, something that's going to put them out of work

for

a minute,

something that might have used to kill us back in the day. But now we live through it. And that's like one of the biggest misconceptions about life insurance is they think it's just for the death.

But now a lot of companies and make sure you're checking with your, your, your person to make sure your policy does have living benefits because that is the game changer. And unfortunately, now

a

lot of companies are just putting them in there as the default.

It's like the cars nowadays memory to roll up the window.

Now you get electric car.

You know, that's pretty much what benefits are. That's what they understood it to be. So make sure your car has the AC and electric windows.

But

what it does is, if anything were to knock you on your butt for some amount of time, you might have a heart attack or stroke that takes out one side of your your body.

You might need to

access some of those funds while you're still living, and it's not guaranteed 100%. So if you have $1 million policy and you get hurt, heart attack, stroke, anything, and you're like, okay, cool, I'm at least I'll have $1 million. It's most likely not. It's a it's a percentage, but at least it's something you're not going to get nothing, you know?

But

every policy, every company like I said, is different. So their range is different. But at least you have the access to get that while you're still alive.

a lot of things that you don't think of. Someone has a heart like a cancer.

It's not just the one time cancer, it's the continuous chemo. It's the transportation. It's someone probably taking off work,

probably taking care of you because you can't drive on your own. There's a lot of factors that we don't think about and we just think of death.

But

there's a lot of stuff that can really set you back financially, especially.

And you don't worry about your bills. You know, worry about the

the

gas, you know, worry about a lot of stuff. You still got worry, but it's not as a pressure where you can just you know what? Let me deal with this. Because like I said to our earlier point, 1 in 3 women, one and two men get some type of cancer.

So if that were to happen, at least you have a chance. And there's stories like I can't tell you where it's like, hey, our

our benefits, our job is not really doing too much. We're kind of left with just option A,

and then you hear the other stories like, thank thank God I had some life insurance because now we were able to try this, experimental surgery and we actually it worked.

So that in itself everyone knows someone with get cancer, someone knows that went through something. And it's

it's just it's so ignorant to be like, it can't be me or just want to roll the dice. And I understand people have bills and I understand people have life, but

it's just so important because not only people realize this until you hear about the GoFundMe, until you hear about, oh, did you hear about Johnny over there?

Losses. Job couldn't do anything. He got sick. They now he's living back at home. Marriage fall apart because money is such a pivotal. It sucks that it is that way. But

money is the tool that makes your life harder difficult. And if you're going through your most difficult time, why am I exiting that by ten with no income?

So for

few dollars a day, why I deal with that, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So that's living benefits. Yeah, it totally makes sense. It sounds like essentially if you have an illness that doesn't kill you, but it does put you out of work or gets you severely sick, you get access portions of your life insurance to cover your medical bills, or cover your

mortgage or some living expenses to some degree, whatever the parameters are, to kind of get you, give you some financial relief.

And it's standard you're saying now, so it's like you have to worry about not there's some companies that still push it without it. So that's what I'm saying. Just check. That's like biggest thing to check for to make sure that you have the living benefits.

So that's a that's a really good tip is living benefits. Now riders. What is what is a rider. What does that mean. And what is that.

Life Insurance Riders

So what that means is it's a add on pretty much for a little bit less. We talked about child riders earlier. That's one of the most common ones. It used to be like critical illness. There's some riders that you can say, hey, if this were to happen with this, in this policy, and if you're paying just a little bit more, you get access to this benefit if X were to happen.

So it just adds a little bit onto it. So say your case, you're like, hey, I just I need something me covered.

Yeah I mean you're telling me extra 4 or 5 bucks to get my kids on to. Sure. You know. And it's just a added on. So if anything happened to them, they're covered up to 25 to 50.

Usually don't see policies over 50 K for kids, but it's usually about 25 K.

At

least you have something. So if anything they were to go through anything. It's it's a little add on pretty much.

when would be a situation where life insurance does not pay you at all for, for example, like that, that one of my fears is like I, I paid for this policy for 20, 40, 50, 60 years, whatever that may be.

And then at the end I run into issues they don't want to pay out. I met all the criteria. I did my part. Like, I think that's a big fear and even the misconception that a lot of people may have. That's a great question. So.

When people talk about they didn't pay me out, you don't get the whole story. So you hear left and right when all they did this to me because there's always three sides to that story. So you're only getting the face value. You only hear what they say

when someone would not get paid out is and it becomes like, what the f happened?

I thought we had insurance. It's usually typically when they

lied on something or something came up that they weren't truly honest about. Maybe it was a clause in there. There's some suicide clause. So if you can't just go get life insurance and then next day off yourself and be like, have fun, family.

It

doesn't work like that. There's some stipulations on where, no, you're not going to get paid out and there's maybe it's within you can't get cancer or you can't qualify within the next three years.

Like you can get this policy with all these, but we're not going to pay you out. Nothing's going to happen until like year three. And sometimes the insurance agents don't go over that. They sometimes they'll skip over that. They're just excited to see, oh yeah we got you signed up. You're good.

And

that's when you get those.

They didn't pay me out. I my cousin died and they didn't pay nothing f those insurance companies. We just don't have a full story. And a lot of times it's that communication gap they just didn't know. So there's a little things like that. Maybe you lied about not being a smoker.

But for even that one where you're not a smoker,

who's to say that you don't change your habits in the future? I mean, today you're being honest, truthful. You're not smoking, you're not drinking. But life happens. Maybe three years from now. I start smoking and drinking. Is that cancel out my policy? No. So what they'll do is they'll adjust rate.

So if anything were ever happened to you and you're they're like looking at your portfolio and like, okay, well obviously this guy's a smoker. They would and again check double check. They usually go back and look and be like okay, well we're just gonna up the rates as if he was

just being like, yeah, you're done.

It's very rare. It has to be. It will typically be like, hey, what's this lie you told right here? You know? And then we then like, okay, then we'll pivot. And if it's something where they have to, like, retest or they have to do their due diligence and make sure that it's still accurate information, then they'll go that way.

But again,

every company has their different rules. Things are changing. There's tons of stuff that might throw that off. Yeah. Makes sense. So do you then have to get retested every once in a while because things change, your health changes and

you are now. Now you are a smoker, now you are a drinker. And five years have passed.

And so like that was true back then. But now you're like

people are going through depression, people don't have money, they've lost jobs, so on and so forth. So

let's put a percentage to this to 100. What are the chances that you still get paid out? What are the chances that there's some clause that's going to put you out of your policy, and you're not going to get paid? The 1730 is a 5050.

No, I, I think it's black and white as much as it can be because that's, that's the only way you can do it. And that's every insurance company. When I talk to carriers

Common Reasons Claims May Be Denied

about underwriting and whatnot. Hey, we have no there's no favoritism. It's black or white. What happened?

And

so

appreciate you bringing up that. That's a great point to that's another distinguished of like not being getting paid out.

Did you commit a crime while doing

that's that's huge. So if you break your leg, robbing a bank and need some life insurance because you can't walk again, they're probably gonna be like, why were you robbing a bank? And so to your point, if you are doing something illegal, doing something that you it's like a chain link.

You look, you start from the beginning, okay? Accident happened.

What happened? Driving. Okay. There. Driving. Drinking was. Well, there we go. Because that's a crime. So they're more likely to be like, I, I, I don't I don't think it's a team in the back be like, okay, case by case. All right. We got a guy right here.

What do you guys. I think it's just black and white. Like

it? You

can't operate from a feelings case because then it just slows down. I wish we could. I wish we could give the benefit of the doubt, but it just it plain simple doesn't work that way.

So

my answer would be just do the right thing at the right time and you don't have to worry about it.

You there those you don't those don't come up don't don't drink and drive. Don't

do

anything. You know what I mean. Like but also you have to understand it's your as a, as a,

a human. You have a responsibility to understand what you're signing up for.

I'm not brushing off like, an insurance agent, not giving you information.

But we also have to take some responsibility to understand what our policy covers.

Are

they going to cover me drinking and driving? Probably not. So I probably shouldn't do that and so. Or expect it. You know what I mean? Nice. Yeah. So it sounds like for the most part, if it's standard course of action, they'll, they'll cover you because it's black and white.

But if you're

doing

something that's kind of like egregious and it's self-harm in a way, then those are going to be the clauses that are probably not going to pay you out. And that's probably the things that people don't talk about.

Let's talk about that. What are the common reasons why that people don't get paid out?

dishonesty is the number one why someone will not get paid out. Dishonesty because the life insurance company has no feelings in this. I'm sure, and as I'm sure there's exceptions to the rule. But I'm sure there's been a case where like this is kind of 5050.

Of course there's those are out there, but for 99% of the time it's black and white. Let's look back at the chain link. What caused this to happen to this?

let's say, you know, most players, they offer life insurance to some degree.

They

also offer disability insurance. So if someone has disability insurance

and they have life insurance through their employer, is it still worth checking out

additional life insurance options?

the two go side by side. You can never have too much insurance.

And like I said, there might be some things that this job covers, maybe that don't cover that illness. Maybe they don't. It's not portable. Maybe when you leave or you plant because who's staying at jobs for long days?

These this these days, like

you

stay a job for five, ten years max. Maybe

it's

just uncommon to stay at some, some spot and and so

understand that when you do leave that job, the whole process starts over again. We have to reevaluate your older maybe you got hurt from that job. Maybe there's so much factors. So disability and having that absolutely it's a must.

But it's also better to have something paired with it. So you're not uncertain. So you're always for sure like okay I, I'm good. No matter what happens to me I'm good. I ain't gotta worry about

the company fires me tomorrow. If I leave tomorrow, I got that freedom. Do you want options? Options is the number one thing you want.

And so why not open that up with other than that.

Yeah. Yeah. And they may not have big, big coverages. It may be very limited. There may be caps to it. There could be a lot of other things with the

disability shirts and the employer provided, options. And usually they're not that much anyways. So it doesn't doesn't really.

Do you like a, a lot of justice is better than nothing. If you're able to get

it. It's

more of a don't count on it if you get it if you can. But really look at something that's more tailored specifically to your needs.

What

about when, let's say you talked about AI earlier. You alluded to you know, things might change in the future.

AI is coming around. It's displacing a lot of workers. What happens if I stop paying my payment for my policy?

I lose my job. I'm not making any more income. I might be able to sustain it for a little while. But what happens if I stop making payments? I lose the policy entirely.

it's kind of like missing a house payment. There's options like, hey, we noticed that you didn't pay.

What

can we do? Because a lot of times the insurance companies understand, hey, let's have a conversation. It starts with a conversation. Instead of just ignoring the problem or just letting it go away,

because then you start losing track of it. If you don't have someone that is on you, like, hey, what happened to that policy? Dude, if anything happens to you.

What's going on? And if you don't have that, then you just forget about it and then you're just like, I it's something like I think I paid for. And then the worst thing is when people have a policy and they kind of

let it float away, and then something happens to them, like right after that, that policy dissolves,

How Much Coverage Does a Family Need?

then it's when they need it the most.

And it's like the most unfortunate thing. So it's like it's like taking a gamble of course,

but it's so important just to have that. Like we said, communication with your agent to. Hey, Rob, I'm kind of I lost my job.

I

don't know if I can make these payments. There's ways that there's some policies you can adjust be like, okay, maybe we can take a break.

Maybe we could put a pause. Maybe we can do something. We could talk to the company. All insurance companies are different on their on how they react to it. But at least have that conversation, not just,

I'll figure it out later, because we all do that and then we forget about it. So it starts with that communication.

Nice. So there could be some options essentially. But if you do kind of forget it about it and you let it kind of go to the wayside,

worst case scenario, it sounds like it would worst worst case scenario end up terminating. But best case scenario is maybe there's some leniency, maybe a refactoring on the policy to give it more of an extension period or grace period before so you could resume

Let's just say someone's getting into life insurance. What are like the the I'll say top three that someone should ask their agent when shopping life insurance.

There's definitely layers to the questions. But if you were to ask just a simple top three, I'd say

How much do you think I need?

Is it long term or is it short term.

Is it term or or permanent

And the third question I had to ask is about living. I think living benefits are so important because it's just the highest percentage of anything were to happen to us. That's like the biggest detail factor. And that that also,

I guess tie in. One last question is, is my rate going to go up or down yearly, or is it a set rate that kind of

ties into the permanent or term or.

So yeah, I guess those three, how much do I need? Is it permanent or is it short term? And if anything were to happen like a critical illness, any sickness, a living benefit,

that's the top three, I think. Yeah. Those are some core components that people should at least be aware of

when they're shopping life insurance.

if someone is thinking about this, this conversation and they're still on the fence about getting a life insurance for their family

or

for themselves, what advice would you give them

it's worth it just to at least understand it. And if you understand it and you're like, okay, still not for me. Fair enough. At least I had the opportunity.

You want you want to know your options.

So

I at least say if you're thinking about it, talk to someone who actually cares about this, who actually cares about you as a person if anything were to happen to you. That is not looking for just paycheck.

Talk to someone to at least understand the options for you.

Because the the people that say I'm on the fence, but not for me is usually because they have something that they think I, I had this, I don't qualify

or

it's just me, I don't need it or I'm young, I'm good.

It's just learn the options. Because it's not just about about death, it's about also what's the future looking like. So I cover everything in between the future and what's what's happening right now. And that's so important to understand, especially if you haven't had a conversation with someone to really look at your life. How many times do people want to look at and dive into your life?

What's

what's

happening with you the next 5 or 10 years? How many times do we have that conversation? We don't,

but in the life insurance industry, I have to know that stuff. I have to care. I have to actually really care

to better serve you. And and with that, it's usually a lifelong relationship.

So if you're on the fence,

talk to someone.

It's worth a 30 minutes ish. We're having like a hours hours conversation. So it's not usually like this unless you have all these questions. But

and

I have no problem answering. But talk to someone. At least understand your options. Yeah, I mean, if you're 50/50,

just getting educated could push you. The 51 or the 49.

It's just finding out more to see where you land. And so

case scenario, you like you're hearing and you want to have a more personalized information about your life. Yeah. Have that reach out to Rob. He'll he'll get you plugged in and

go

over everything to let you know if you're going to be that 51 or if you're going to be that 4951, baby.

Let's go.

What

would you say are some additional I mean, I've mentioned some of my misconceptions, but what would you say? Or some other general

misconceptions that you hear when people are looking into life insurance

One of them, I hear a niche. One is infinite banking. And in this aspect they they think that it's. Oh, if I get a policy because infinite making does involve life insurance. And so

one strategy. So if I put $50 to a policy I can start infinite banking baby.

They think they might build something. That's one misconception I see a lot is that

under funding, a policy is not going to build you to that. Now I have funds to take out to start a business. It's usually we have a conversation. I see where we can do. What are your goals

and

if we could fund this properly.

Stay-at-Home Parents and Life Insurance

So in year ten you have that guesstimate 50 grand to take out to go pursue what you truly want to do.

That's one big misconception is, is underfunding. Like, I can do everything under the moon with 50 bucks or 100 bucks to a policy. That's one of them. The second one is I just don't need it or it's it's just because what I do is, is annoying to the family.

I have to come into your house, I or meet you at a Starbucks, talk to you and your spouse because it's not when it when we talk life insurance, it's not just you.

What

about them? What do they do? Or okay, but

Rob they just stay home parent. But that that means they need more. Because now that your child sitter, that's your taxi.

That's your your chef.

That's a lot of that's a lot of jobs that someone's doing. So

people think that they don't need something that that that's not needed. I don't need to cover that person. But that's false. You're if you have a stay at home parent, that's one of the most expensive chops there is. And

they think that they don't need that covered.

The last thing I'll say is that it just it it can't be me. I don't need it. I don't, you know, I, I don't I'm too young. It just

I that's one of the biggest misconceptions is thinking you're too young, you're too old, you're sick. You're not sick. There's so many there's so many misconceptions about it. But I say those are probably some of the big ones

is. Hey, I don't think I need it. I don't think I'm going to pass away. And

sure enough, I mean, you know, it's just those surprise events. My brother in law, he passed away suddenly and it was a big shock to the family. And so, you know, it happens more often than than we'd like to talk about and like to accept.

I'll give you actually example. And I'll get really deep on this because I want to shout out my baby sister who

passed away, a few months ago.

She was 18. She didn't have anything. And, and, she came into the industry, she saw what was. And I was doing my best to get her into it. But she was 18.

You know, I'm not worried about life insurance, and I didn't get a chance to really, like,

Common Life Insurance Misconceptions

have that talk, like. No, what are we doing? So,

it doesn't matter how old you are, it really doesn't, because you just don't. There's so many things, like you said in life that you just don't see coming.

So,

that was like one of God's ways of showing me an example of, like, anyone, anyone needs it.

Everyone should have that conversation

Well, my condolences to you. That's definitely heavy condolences. I'll take it right back to me, to my brother in law. Yeah. Two years. So, you know, we've kind of gotten a little bit more over it. It's three months or a couple months. It's still fresh. So I just remember because it's two years, three months, you don't forget.

So,

I want to pivot, though, from the life insurance conversation to

Can you dive into what it means to be a business owner,

with the agency and what you do for recruiting, training and mentoring people and

how you kind of establish these business owners? Absolutely. That's my favorite part. Okay, let's talk about it.

so I'll give you there's three fields in this in this industry.

There's the first field where it says,

I'm in here, I'm building a business. Like you said, I'm training other people. I'm building something here. I'm doing I'm doing it full time. There's that. There's that world. Then there's the second world where people come in and I'm just an agent. I'm just I'll help out policies. But

just

doing this part time just, you know, I'll make some money when I can help out when I can.

But

I got I got bills to pay. I got the state job. I'm doing this full time.

Then there's the third camp, which is just a referral partner in this industry. There's people that will partner with me and they'll be like, okay, so

I

can get a license I could send people over to, I could refer people over to.

And then you're saying I get a cut from that, like, we can develop a partnership or you're, you know, it's basically a partnership and

you

get paid off that there's so there's those three fields, like in the PHP world, there's the full timers, the part timers, and the people that are just referral partners. And then there's the clients, of course, there's the client aspect.

And a lot of times the clients see how easy it is there. Like, wait a minute, that was it. That's all you just you made how much of that you made, how much off this for this rollover.

can I do this. And then you start getting that curiosity. And that's my favorite part because nothing I I've, I've found what makes me probably the happiest is

helping someone else get to theirs, being a bridge builder.

And that's what I get to do in this business because like I said, I talk to anybody from zero to whatever age.

So

if I'm able to impact them on their life and help them one get protected to show them education on, there's other options out there. It might not be for you, but maybe you know, a friend that might want to build something.

Maybe you might know someone who might need a policy.

So

it's just word of mouth. And that's beautiful because it requires conversation. And I love that.

So

within those three fields of PHP Agency, you have the freedom to do any of them. I have teammates that are

do do totally different things. Maybe real estate agents, maybe they're

one.

One of my teammates owns a gym. Shout out to you. Kenny,

they own G4 fitness. He's actually, one of my partners, and he understands it. He sees, like, okay, I have a license. He does commercial real estate. He's that guy. But when he comes along, he talks to someone who might need a policy or might want to make some money on the side.

Send them to Rob. And we have that line where it's like, he trusts that

when I take someone under my wing, when I bring him into this industry, it's it's hands on. It's. Hey, I appreciate you coming in here and trusting me to

help you on something. Help build you. But. And I'm not going to build it for you.

I'm going to be here to your your your sidekick. I'm here to support you. And whatever I can do, I'll show you exactly what I do

to

help you build something. I'm a builder. I love that, and it gives me opportunity to help everyone in different aspects of their life. Because everyone falls into those three,

see

their focus on their own thing.

Maybe they're fully bought in or hey, I like what you do. I'll send you people because I love what I do over here, and that's not a problem. I'm not saying life insurance is for everybody. It's not. It's a very hard job to do,

but it's my favorite thing to recruit and train people and get people on board because

I love when I it.

I think the biggest achievement anyone can have in their life is how then they're measured is who did you build up? That's what I want to be measured by. It's not Rob could be great. Me and you can have a great time. But

what I feel truly measures my character is who did I affect to to build them up?

If you're around me, do you improve? Is are you in better rooms? And that's I thrive on that. So if I could bring someone who sees that vision and wants to be in those rooms, wants to.

I

don't care if you're selling cookies. You could also talk about life insurance. And it's very easy. And a lot of times it's just having asking a few questions.

And that might lead to who knows. But it's finding that relationship. And that's what PHP has allowed me to do with the recruiting,

being able to train. They have one of the best training programs. I mean, Pat is one of the best trainers on planet Earth as far as just business goes. As far as etiquette pouring into yourself.

What books? I mean, we have books to read every. I have a homework every month about what book we got to read, and some of these books are very big,

Starting a Career in Life Insurance

so but I've never been pushed to that. And and we have the option. You don't have to. You don't have to read. That's fine. Good. Good luck. And I'm so blessed that I have because it's shown me ways to become better leader.

It's shown me better ways to communicate on a more

okay, you're this type of person, this person. Usually I have to level with this.

And I've learned to be patient. I've learned to handle my emotions because before I'm I'm half Italian, so I'd be

I'm ready to flip, you know, and and sometimes I got to hold back and hold my emotions and understand that there's a lot of types of people out there.

And that's what I love about this business is

learning the types of people. There's so many types. There's so many. I love mannerisms. I love seeing like body language when you're saying and now when I start studying it and you start learning like, oh, okay.

And

you can read people a lot easier when someone has like ill intent or they you just you piss them off in some way, like, damn, maybe I should have said that, maybe I should.

And it helps me as a person and I don't take offense. Everyone's

everyone sees her way and and I just assume everyone's good. I know there's, like a little bit of a bad apples out there, but it's opened a lot for me to be able to do exactly what I love.

Yeah. That's awesome. It sounds like there's multiple ways to become a partner.

Join. If someone reaches out and says, hey, I like what I'm hearing, I want to join you already

turning into a PHP employee or the independent contractor, are they right? What are they? Are they just a referral partner or. They're like different. So but not working for PHP or are they. Are they. You're like, how does that work?

Yeah okay. So how it works. So I'm an organization within organization. So think of PHP as like my Costco and I'm a hot dog vendor.

Costco might have all the hot dogs in the world and I'm the middleman for that. That's just the product I use. But I run my hot dog stand over here how I want it got.

Misters, you got lights, you got entertainment, live entertainment,

everyone. Hot dog stand is different, you know what I'm saying? It's probably a weird analogy, but.

So pretty much I'm building my own business within a business. So PHP, what they encourage is everyone come in here and build something for yourself. Something for you to leave with. My book is my book.

A lot of companies that you go to is, hey, this is our CRM. Whatever you put in here is our property. When you leave, leave that behind.

Not not PHP, it's hey, whatever you're building, how can we help you build that?

so what a partnership looks like. There's those three categories that we talked about earlier, but a lot of people like the referral.

A lot of people will be like, I got to get a license to be able to have a basket of income because,

Ellie Baxter, shout out to you, always says there's you need seven streams of income. And the average millionaire, she says if you met her,

she's a wild one. Okay. But she always preaches that, and I agree.

Ironically, she doesn't do insurance, which blows my mind. But.

So

one of those baskets is insurance. You talk to everyone. Anyone can do it. We have people that are doctors. We have actually shout out to Mr. Wells to he's the guy that runs helps run

Sleep Nation a basketball organization where they help out youth.

There's

a lot of people that are involved in different things I'm involved with.

I'm involved with a lot of other entities, and that allows you to develop partnerships, because

getting a license with life insurance, it takes a couple of weeks just to study. It's a 60%, 60% pass rate to be able to get your license. It doesn't say much, but there's there's you still got to get a license to make it legit.

But that opens up the opportunity for you to hang your license at a brokerage like PHP that gives you the freedom non captured agents, gives you the freedom to go and operate and build it for yourself. Of course, there's guidelines don't build a bad business, but we want you to build something for yourself. And that's what's so attractive about this

is I go by LFG, Low Financial Group and I might see it on my things.

That's just my small team inside a big team of EPO, which is Empower People United, the Sacramento chapter

followed by PHP. There's like there's levels to it, but they encourage you to go in and build your own. They eventually want to kick me out and run my own office, and that's what I want to do. So they're not they're not pushing me like when I'm not ready.

They're just like, okay, Rob, how how are we going to build you?

Because this is what you want to do. And so I take that and now that's my mindset okay.

You all right? You want to come in? How can I build you up? What are we doing? And that's so powerful. That's so different. And the the X factor about this business is we have people that do everything in life.

We have a correctional officer that works with us.

Shout out to you.

And we have and you're able to do this part time. I literally for studying I do three days a week where I go into the office and it's just class. It's like, hey. Okay. F ING is doing this product. We're going to learn a little bit about it.

And that's what's really cool is we don't have to do that. The people that you want to shout out to

you, they

don't have to do that, but they choose to because they want their agents to be applicable to what they do. And that's better knowledge leading from cause and values and helping people and building people. So if you are ever interested in investing into getting your license, which is two weeks,

it's

a, I believe about 500 bucks to really get the license, backgrounds, fingerprints, because it's legit.

It's not like you're selling knives or vacuums. It's you're you're actually helping people out, figuring out their situation.

And and the learning curve is not you learn as you go. So a lot of it we have a lot of new people that will come in and they'll set up a meeting with someone. But you, you have a mentor, you have a team behind you that's wanting you to build you up, wanting to teach you, and wanting to push you out on your own and go do your own damn thing.

Because that's how we become more powerful is when people are building a castle over here. I got a castle over here.

How PHP Agents and Teams Work

Now

we're more powerful and united. So that's it. I don't it's I don't know why more people don't do it. I get it. It's a it's a little bit of time consuming, but there has there there's never been a pathway

to

freedom than with this.

Everything that aligns with me core values, talking to people, building relationships, building a team, helping other people. Freedom. That's I've never seen I haven't seen it this close. So if someone was open to it, someone wants to understand. It's a short conversation. It's who are you? What are you about? Because that's first and foremost important to me. When someone wants to do what I do, I got to know you.

Let's have coffee. I want to know why. I want to know your concerns. I want to know your motivations and all that stuff. I want to know that because I refuse to work with someone who's just. I need to get rich quick. Rob, I need money now. I'll do whatever it takes.

don't want I, I, I appreciate that, but unless you have like the good values, unless you're a good human, I can't work with you.

I need good humans around me. And if you are a person who's a good human, truly wants to do more with their life than just work this 9 to 5, then then just. I mean, look at you. You're chasing your dream, right?

It there has to be that I want more in life because some people are meant to flirt burgers.

And that's fine if you want to be a librarian, if you want to be a dentist, there's no problem with that. Those are fantastic things. But there's also options where you can do both,

because

then it gets to a point when you build your business and you're working 95, your business will eventually, if you're doing the work, doing the right things, it'll eventually get to that point.

We could leave this business behind and truly chase what you really want to do. And that is the platform that many people use in this company to pursue all kinds of dreams. So highly recommend at least having the conversation to know what this is about.

So PHP is kind of like a launching pad. It gives you the resources, that infrastructure, the roadmap, the pathway on how to become a life insurance broker or agent gives you all of the steps on where you need to go get certified, and it probably has documentation, training program and so on and so forth.

But really, it's on you to take one of those 3 or 4 roles. You do the referrals, are you going to be just the agent?

Or you can do your be the broker or somewhere in between and stuff like that. So that's awesome.

What qualities do you think someone needs to have to be successful as a life insurance broker or agent. So you have to have a team around you.

The people that have the most success is they're building their own offices. It's no different than anything else. But what is super important, a good quality to have is leading with value. What I preach to anyone that gets involved with me

is you're not asking for first, you're giving first. And that's the basic building. Any relationship is how do I give value first?

God will reward you in other ways.

Some way or another it'll come back to you. But as long as you leave with the value, lead with integrity, and you truly want to help, there's nothing you can't do. And that's. Yeah, that's that's what anyone that comes in an organization that's a must is that you have to leave with that value,

or

And you may not think you have value, but just offering a way to help. Maybe it's a post I share, maybe it's something, but I'm always like how can I help you? I don't, I don't you don't need to help me. And I, I get selfish like that when someone like, well, how can I help you?

Don't worry about that.

What can we do first? That's what you got to lead with? Yeah. You're almost selling. Your integrity, in a way. Is like I'm here not just for the dollar signs. Sure, we get paid. Obviously, there's. It's a business, there's money

involved. But that's secondary to the fact of like, hey, is there something do you have a need?

Can I feel that first?

Is there something else going on? Maybe life insurance is not the right time for you. Maybe you have other issues you want to just explore. Let me just educate you. That's

perfectly fine too. And so it's not really just trying to push them into a policy is just

educating them and seeing whenever the opportunity presents itself,

the that relationship will flourish.

The, the, the policy will get established whenever it may be, but you're not leading with that.

And so I think if I'm just pulling it back and my takeaway is you're, you're in the business of more integrity, not just the numbers.

Like, you're in the business of building culture or building relationships

as a company says, people helping people rather than, some type of brand or some type of name. So that's pretty awesome.

So you we kind of understand why people would succeed in that sense. And let me ask this in reverse. What do you what do you see as a common mistakes

that life assurance agents make

when they first start out?

So a lot of issues is, is people will just

they

get blindsided by the glitz and glamor. And it's very important as what I like to do is I'll sit someone down and make them understand. Hey, how many hours do you want to put in this? How much are you expecting to make? I want $1,000 a week, and.

But I'm only gonna put it in 30 minutes, okay? This doesn't add up. How can we. Can we negotiate a little bit, how much or time? And we get realistic?

And you hear stories of people like tried.

They

scam me. They wanted it. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's places where they have mentors that are just terrible.

They just didn't care about them. Maybe they didn't show the effort, I don't know, but you can always pick out holes in the story like, well, why don't you try this? Well, it took you three months and then you

you

always see that. So the people that fail or try this one don't have some good leadership, don't have someone in your face like, hey, I'm going to tell you I don't, I, I care about you, but I'm going to give it to you black and white.

Because

at

the end of the day, I you can never say, well, Rob, promise me,

Rob, promise you, if you did this, this would happen. But this part was mixed or was missed. So it's like the chain link again. We go back and we look at it. So that's probably when you hear people that are just have a bad experience.

They just didn't have a good mentor. They didn't have a good

someone that cared about them. Because this business is so hard and it's so hard. You have kids, you got all this,

you

got a lot of life stuff. This is something on the side that people are doing for the majority.

So

I get it. But you need someone in your corner to keep pushing you because if you have, people are like are just making anything anyway, just go back to Amazon and work that 25 bucks an hour after that dream, and it's so easy to just be pulled away.

Leadership, Mentorship, and Building People

Majority of people aren't aren't willing to put in that work or at least get better. So

that's where I have with that. Yeah, it sounds like it's almost twofold. It's one, it could be. Did you join the right team? Did you have the right mentorship? And two, did you have unrealistic expectations? Did you come here for a quick buck for the wrong reasons?

And

you

realize, oh, it's not a money grab. So

you came, you got burned out. You realize it's not as easy as it seems.

And then you're like, it's not for me.

let's say you're doing this ten, 20 years from now. Where do you hope to be? What is your vision? What is your goal?

my 20 year plan is having a nice office, people that I'm building that would never have gotten to that point if they didn't have a connection with me at some point. That's that's what it's about, is changing other people's lives. My life, I know will be nice, but my goal is to really have other people around me, flourish.

That's my goal.

Yeah. In the way you're gonna. It's more community service is how do you build

not

just your own business, but the people around you and your team and and their lives. And so it's, again, people helping people, but it's just at the scale of Rob at that point. Yeah. So we spoke to two different audiences today.

We spoke to the client side, people that are in industry of maybe looking at life insurance and getting that some of that protection. And we also spoke to people that

may want to join PHP, may want to join your team and be part or

part

of that partnership. And so what would you hope for these two

groups of people to get out of today's conversation?

The people that are

are in the market for life insurance. What would you hope that they get out of this conversation. And the people that are like, you know I, I like Rob, I like kind of what I'm hearing. I like those values. And I'm considering joining his team. What would you hope that they got out of this conversation as well.

Okay. So for clients wise I hope

it

I hope it motivates them to ask a few more questions and not discount. Life insurance is just something that I get when I die. I hope it motivates them to be like, wait, you could build something in that? Because I get the puzzled faces every time. Like I said, I hardly like to talk about what I do.

Like when I go to events or when I sit down with people. It's more about how am I helping you first? And then then we'll get to me. So I'm hoping that people that are shopping

understand a few questions that they need to ask and keep their agent in check. At least understand that there is a relationship that you do need to have there.

It's not. I mean,

if shopping online, getting a quote and you hear someone on the phone, if that works for you and that's all you want, that's fine. It as long as you have something, that's all I care about.

But

it's just I hope that you build a relationship with someone that you know and trust that does this and actually takes this really serious and cares about getting you to your next not just in life insurance.

Because it goes more than that.

We

talk about when we sit down and talk, it's all things covered. So my biggest hope is just have that conversation, know that it's there's options for every kind of person out there

and

that at least not even just consider me, but just considering have that conversation because you might live in Texas, you might live over here.

And not that I can't help you. I can help anybody in even Puerto Rico. But I, I like having that relationship. And so if you have someone that you know that dabbles in it, if you have someone that's been doing

it, it

has a good person you trust that is a good company and you can have a conversation with do that.

That's the mask for that. As far as the people that you said on the on looking to possibly do life insurance or join your team. Yeah. My big get out of today's conversation, I hope that they got out of this is understanding that it goes more than just being a life insurance company. What does life insurance at this scale for this company is more of a personality.

It's more of like a

it's become who I am. And it's not just live insurance, it's how do we help each other? Like you said, play on words, people helping people. How can we help? And I hope that people are looking to join, not just look to add, just want to become Mr. Life Insurance. Mis life insurance. It's how can I help

do something that not only builds me up, but also gets me to a position where I can elevate others because that's what life insurance is for.

A lot of people don't come in

just wanting to be doing this. They want to use it to get to their next, but it's also helping people so they feel good about it too. So if you're looking for something that one, you get paid really well.

Two, you get to help people out and build people out that this is there's no question this is something you at least need to look into.

So if you're pondering it, have a conversation. Have coffee. Let's go. Yeah. So for the clients, at least get educated. Find something that works for you and for the people that want to join the team.

potentially a very good company to work for and a good team to be a part of.

Is there anything that we left out that is on the top of your mind?

You're like, I wish I would ask this question. Or for the audience that's watching, they're

like,

Corey,

we really want you to ask this question, but you missed it.

Is

there anything that comes to mind that we missed that may be a hot topic that people would want to us to flesh out a little bit more? Yeah. One thing I would love to talk about is the importance of having conversations and being a part of organizations that open that bridge.

And I want to give a huge shout out to Link Alliance. That's how actually you and I met through Dylan. Shout out to you, Dylan and Anna.

That's how you and I met. He was like, this would have never happened if I didn't have that courage. And and that's like one of the biggest things to is having courage to step out and actually put yourself out there and meet other people.

That is the biggest thing, and I always sound like a commercial for them,

but honestly, I help out a lot. I, I don't know about a lot, but I help out and

what I like about the organization and what I, I stress for people to do, whether it's a biz link, whether it's a B and I, a Chamber of Commerce, get out there and start talking to people because it doesn't matter if you have a business or not.

You always need to meet someone who's a plumber, and you might want to know who's going in your house to do your HVAC.

I

just had Ray, Ray, Laura Cadillac heating there. I'm not everybody, I don't care. He came through all the way to my house. Cosmin from his handyman services came all the way to my house because I went to an event, and I started going and getting involved in this organization,

going

out there, putting myself out there.

But I met connections that are lifelong friends now

that

I can call on. And hey, if anybody had a problem like, hey, I know and trust this guy, you can let this person in. They're not going to be doing anything weird and you build those relationships. So I always stress that to people if if you haven't, I don't care what you do.

If you can make a mixer, a business mixer, something where you meet individuals, where you're just outside of your comfort zone,

go

meet some new friends.

don't care who they are.

Everyone has some kind of story. Everyone has some kind of people that they know and may need some help. So have those conversations.

Yeah, people building people. I mean, Visiting Alliance is a great networking group. I, I definitely like them as well.

Shout out to Dylan at a gold watch. And yeah it's you never know where to spiderweb connections lead you to. You know, it's just one little string of a bridge that opens up a whole new world for you. And sometimes it's all it takes

for people that want to find out more, that want to get connected.

Where can they find you? Your social, your website, your contact information, whatever that may be? How do they get in touch? Absolutely. So

should be easy to find my profiles public. I, I post a lot on Instagram. That's like the number one right now. There's TikTok, but I don't know if I'm at that age range yet. It's tough. It's tough.

So

I post on all the socials, LinkedIn, find me on LinkedIn, find me on on Instagram, have a conversation because I might not be the right guy for you, I don't know, but at least have that conversation so you can find me there.

What Consumers Should Ask an Insurance Agent

So please reach out. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, my phone number I'm sure like you could find it easily on the internet. I don't know if that's a good thing,

but

the same phone number for 20 plus years.

But it's easy to contact me. Even if it was a simple question on like I it's I don't mind answering texts. I tell people I work eight eight days a week, 25 hours a day because I'm literally that available. I'll pick up my phone

in

the middle of night and and whatever you need. I'm here for you because it's not about just life insurance.

Think of me as a person that you can actually talk to and use as a resource, because I'd I'd want to be that person for there. For anyone who thinks that they don't have anyone in their corner, that's me. Even if we don't talk life insurance, how can I help you? So

absolutely. And we'll get the socials in the description below.

We'll find your phone number and that as well. For the audio listeners, go ahead and pop into the description. It'll all be there. So awesome. Rob, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure talking about life insurance

and

PHP, and just digging into some of the misconceptions that even I had and things that I didn't know about life insurance.

So it's been a real eye opener and I really appreciate your time. I appreciate your time, man. Thank you for this. Yeah, absolutely.

For the viewers, I think the biggest takeaway from today and I mentioned at the top of the show is

don't have life insurance for ourselves.

I think it's the most important thing that you can look at.

I

know it's not forced upon us like when we're driving or we're buying a house, but

it's in your hands.

You have to make that decision.

And,

it's your family, you know? So take care of yourself.

Take care of your loved ones. And thank you for tuning in, and we'll catch you on the next one. Take care and goodbye.

1 in 3 women, one and two men get some type of cancer. Dishonesty is the number one. Why someone will not get paid up. Dishonesty because the life insurance company has no feelings in this. But Rob they just stay home parent. But that that means they need more because now that's your child sitter. That's your taxi. That's your your chef.