Reach Your Summit Podcast

Money Myths & Mixed Messages: What’s the Right Move?

• Summit Wealth Group

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In this episode of Reach Your Summit, Jessica is joined by Summit Wealth Group advisors Ross and Kurt for an in-depth discussion on navigating conflicting financial advice. They break down key financial decisions, including life insurance options, the pros and cons of paying off your mortgage early, and strategies for long-term care planning. With their combined decades of experience, they offer valuable insights on when and how to make these financial moves based on your unique situation. Tune in for expert guidance and practical takeaways!

Thanks for listening! Make sure to follow us on all the socials at @summitwealthgroup, so you don't miss an episode!

Jessica :

Welcome to the Reach Your Summit podcast, where we help you navigate the path to a better, more secure future. I'm your host, Jessica, and I am joined today not just by one advisor, but by two of our advisors here at Summit Wealth Group. We have Ross from our Colorado Springs North office and also Kurt from our Rapid City South Dakota office. Thank you both for being here and joining me today.

Ross:

For sure, happy to be here, looking forward to it.

Jessica :

We will kick off this recording with a little introduction from both of you. So let's start with Ross. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners that may not know you?

Ross:

Sure, I'm Ross. I work out of our Colorado Springs North office. I've been with Summit Wealth Group for a little over 20 years now, started off my career with the telecommunications company and then joined Summit Wealth Group, like I said 20 years ago, got three kids and a brand new grandbaby as of today. So four grandkids oh my gosh, 5.30 this morning, october 1st we don't know a name, but everybody's healthy.

Jessica :

Oh, that's awesome. Now over to you, Kurt. Let us know who you are.

Kurt:

I'm Kurt Whitesell. I've been in business for 38 years and it's a pretty amazing career. That we've been able to do is helping people navigate to a brighter and better future. I have the same wife for 38 years, which is quite an accomplishment.

Kurt:

I don't know how she puts up with me so much, but she does.

Kurt:

And we have four children and three grandkids, and actually one of our children has decided to move into our business, so we're really excited for him. That's Christian, and we're really looking forward to the future of where we're going to summit.

Jessica :

Well, that's great. Thank you again for both joining me. If you are a listener here, you obviously know that I don't normally have two guests at the same time on the podcast. But we're doing a little different bit of a format today because we came up with an idea to talk about the topics that people can get conflicting or just different opinions about, depending on who they're asking and where they're getting their information. So I brought this up to both of you because you've both been in the business for a long time. You have seen a lot of different client situations and you've had to walk through these things with clients to figure out what avenues to take with different financial situations, depending on clients' values, their goals and just overall what they're most comfortable doing and the most comfortable way to approach situations. We are going to be talking about some of the most common. There's obviously many more situations that clients bring to you, that they have gotten different opinions and things on, but we're going to talk about some of the most common ones that you guys come across.

Jessica :

What we will kick this off with first is the topic of life insurance. I know personally before I was introduced to the financial industry through working with Summit I kind of was like I mean, I guess there's part of my benefits package with my employer a little bit of life insurance, but that was the extent of what I knew. And then, through working here, I learned that there's term life insurance and there is whole life insurance, and there are a lot of differing opinions about which one you should go with and why. So I want to start off. How about, Kurt? You let us know what is the difference first, what are the main differences when clients ask you about this, and how do you go about advising them on it?

Kurt:

Well, generally I do like insurance quite a bit, and as much that it is a guarantee that often can't be met with other investments.

Kurt:

And so, you know, especially when a young couple starting out, they're having kids, they take on a lot of debt between school loans and home loans and all those things you know, term insurance seems to make the most sense. It's inexpensive, you can buy a lot of coverage, you're young, you're healthy, you've got a lot of good things happening there. You know, the thing that kind of gets me a little bit irritated is when I see a young couple buying a whole life insurance contract, you know, not, it's a month or $100 a month, and not buying adequate insurance for a future retirement benefit. There's a place in time for these types of products and I just don't think that's necessarily the right fit at that point. I'm a big believer in insurance. I started out pretty much with just term insurance when I started back in 1987. But over the years, you know, I've really grown into a different type of advisor that utilizes all types of insurance based on the needs that are available to us.

Jessica :

So how about, Ross, let's back up just a minute and could you explain maybe the main difference between what a term life insurance policy is and what a whole life insurance policy is?

Ross:

Probably the simplest way to think about this is with term insurance, you're looking at a set death benefit over a certain period of time. So, for example, I may need a million dollar death benefit. So if I pre-decease whenever when I die, there's going to be that grows million dollar payout. Now the term aspect of it is how many years? Five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. So that's the term insurance component of it. And Kurt's absolutely right, it's the cheapest form of life insurance. You're not. It's not really an investment. So, versus on the whole life side of things, you still have the death benefit component. But the term side of things is typically they're set up for the rest of your life, your end of life, so there's not typically an end of year time frame 5, 10, 15, 20 years. This is something that's going to go on until you pass away. So there's a component where you're paying for the insurance piece, for that death benefit insurance piece, but also some of your premium can go into an investment piece as well. That's the whole life component of that.

Jessica :

So when a client approaches either of you with what they should do in this case? I know, Kurt, you said you typically advocate for people to get a term life policy, but is there ever a situation that you've come across where a whole life policy is more suitable for a client?

Kurt:

Absolutely, I think. When it comes down to it, you know, cash flow life insurance isn't just whole life. For instance, we use a lot of indexed universal life and variable life types of contracts, which are different type of mechanisms as far as how the cash value goes inside of the policy. So when I meet with people that seems to make the most sense, it's because of good cash flow, because they've already been max funding their 401ks, they're taking advantage of the employer match, they may be doing backdoor Roth IRAs or even normal Roth IRAs if their income limits allow that to happen. And then, you know, we started looking at that insurance component as another way for us to shelter cash from taxation in the future. There always has to be an insurable need, though, as well, so you don't just go out as a single person and buy a big life insurance contract necessarily. There has to be some type of insurable need. Maybe something on a business partner, or you're needing life insurance to cover some debt that you have. Those types of things.

Jessica :

Ross, is there any other wisdom that you'd add to that?

Ross:

Well, I think to me, insurance falls under the bigger umbrella of risk management or risk mitigation and insurance whether it's life insurance or disability or long-term care health insurance is an important piece to your financial puzzle or financial journey.

Ross:

It's going to protect you from those unforeseen events and allow your family to continue to achieve their goals.

Ross:

What I think we get frustrated on I'm speaking for myself for sure, maybe Kurt would share that as well is a lot of times there are situations where this is the only tool that's available, or I shouldn't say available, but that's positioned, and I think when you're working with a company like Summit Wealth Group or an independent advisor, that's not the case, and Kurt has mentioned that before.

Ross:

There are certain situations where there are certain tools that are just more appropriate, and he hit the nail on the head as far as, say, the cash value that's another term, say for the whole life is just one tool under the cash value side of things that's appropriate, and he mentioned a couple of things there, like you're maxing out your 401k, you're doing Roth, maybe you're completely out of debt, maybe you want to figure out ways to accomplish some more additional tax minimization type strategies. So that's where insurance can cover a number of different things, as one is you can mitigate some risk aspects, you can shelter some of the assets from taxes, you could provide some additional income in the future from that particular tool, so there's definitely the appropriate place for it and it is. It's an important tool that sometimes either it gets misused or even, some cases, it doesn't get talked about, it's not addressed, and so I would just encourage listeners or what have you to not to not discount it. I know insurance is not probably a hot topic, but it is so, so important, so important.

Jessica :

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ross:

In fact, in fact my my early part of my career, not with summit but in telecommunications had two kids. I was sold a variable universal life policy and not much explain explanation on that and then after a few years of just studying it I was like this is not really appropriate. I was pretty disciplined in the 401k, a number of different things and then so in my case term insurance would have been the more appropriate type of strategy. So I experienced kind of firsthand where I didn't think after learning more about it, and some of these are fairly complicated. There's some moving parts in there and if you're not in the industry you don't get some of these things.

Jessica :

Yeah, absolutely Along the same lines as term life insurance and whole life insurance. I think that once you learn the basics of investing, you know investing for retirement and saving less money for when you get to be retired. This question of am I supposed to self-insure once I'm retired comes up. I know that there's differing opinions on if there's ever a time that's appropriate to self-insure versus having those life insurance policies. Or also there's long-term care insurance, which is another thing. Coming from outside of this industry, I didn't even know it was a thing until I started working for Summit. Right, we'll start with Ross on this one. Ross, do you have any experience of what you typically advise your clients to do, and was there ever a time that you know a different option was more suitable for them?

Ross:

Yeah, great question. I think there's a couple of words there that are interesting that you mentioned in terms of supposed to. You know, everybody's situation is completely different. And when is it appropriate to self-insure? That's an interesting question as well. c

Ross:

There may be people that are absolutely, from a financial perspective, in a position to self-insure, but maybe one of their goals is actually maybe they're very charitably inclined people that are absolutely, from a financial perspective, in a position to self-insure, but maybe one of their goals is actually, maybe they're very charitably inclined and using insurance to, say, protect some of the assets for future use, for example giving to a charity, for example could be a really good, appropriate use of, say, insurance at that point in time. And long-term care and life insurance are completely different, although there are now tools out there that can combine both. So I think one of the frustrations that some people have had with long-term care is it's one of those things like our homeowner's insurance, a catastrophe doesn't happen. Well, we just paid for this and we didn't use it. But that's the nature of insurance. With some of these other tools, we call them hybrid tools, where you've got a long-term care benefit as well as a death benefit, so what you put into it, at least the family's going to get out of it. But I think it's really hard to pinpoint a set recommendation without knowing the whole big picture. So appropriate for a self-insuring it could be for somebody that might have a lot of assets or maybe had a bad experience.

Ross:

I was just with a client earlier today. Her father was paid into a company called Genworth for a long period of time. In fact he was a sales agent for Genworth. Now he's in his late 80s and he's needing the benefits from the policy, having a horrible experience. She's really frustrated with that whole thing and he's been paying in for decades and decades. And Jen Worth not to pick on them, but I am but they were a really solid company for a long period of time. So I think the appropriateness and supposed to it really does come down to the client's unique situation, their unique goals, what they're trying to accomplish but that's been kind of some of my examples is I think clients may get into a phase of their life where they may not have a need for, say, life insurance, but there may be an appropriate goal that might still make sense. And some of those are on the terrible giving side and maybe Kurt's got some other stories he can share as well.

Kurt:

I think you know you hit it on the head there, ross. There's definitely those situations where it hasn't been a good experience and usually comes about the time claims come in. But you know that's not always the case, because in my mother's case, as a, for instance, you know we paid into her policy for over 20 years and paid in close to $45,000. And had she passed away geez, you know that was a bad investment because you didn't make any money on that and it was all wasted. But how it turned out is she ended up in a nursing home for almost six years and we collected almost $480,000. So you know that kind of experience has kind of led me to a different path with insurance and it's also one of those. You know not everybody gets that same experience as you said. Also one of those you know not everybody gets that same experience as you said.

Kurt:

I do think in today's market it's become very, very expensive when it comes to buying insurance. A standalone policy for a couple, especially on the female side For some reason they used to be the insurance companies would price the guys and the girls all the same and then they realized. Hey, you know, somebody here seems like the girls live longer and they do a lot in the nursing home, so we're going to charge them more. Well, kind of a funny thing, they finally figured it out. Not so funny because it's become very expensive. But there are some alternatives, and some of the things that we've been using in our own practice is, you know, looking at life insurance as an option, you know and life insurance is a great tool that becomes a question of not if you're going to pass away or if you're going to use it for long term care benefits, but how you're going to use that money. So now it's not just money into a rat hole, you know, and ultimately somebody is going to get paid at some point, and so we've been kind of transitioning a lot of our business in that direction when it comes to long-term care and planning.

Kurt:

The other thing is when you think about term insurance at the end of a term policy, you know when that goes through its 20-year time period and then all of a sudden it drops off. You know it becomes emotional. It's almost like, you know, you tell the clients hey, you know your insurance is done and they go what, really? Why we haven't got any of it back. Really, why For you to get any of it back? a

Kurt:

Well, no, it's term insurance. You know you can keep it. It's just going to cost a heck of a lot more and more and more, and so they decide not to do that a lot of times and that's kind of emotional. So there are some alternatives to that and you know, I think that it's a good thing to be looking at, especially in your 40s and 50s, as your income's getting better and you're still probably pretty good at health as far as that goes, you know, to look at those options and what they might look like in the future. You know, because it is emotional when your insurance goes away and maybe some tragedy has happened in your life, that's really creating some challenges for your family if, in the event, that's gone as well.

Ross:

Yeah I think Kurt had. A really great point is our own personal experiences. You know, dealing with your mom going through long-term care and needing that is huge. I had a client that actually she was in her forties and she's convinced that there's been this family disease that has passed down from each woman and she didn't have it yet. But she's like I got to get this now in our forties and that's just something that I really don't bring up as a topic in their forties, but yeah, those life experiences when you're going through that, and especially, I think, on the long-term care side of things, as our parents are Asian and if you're seeing or if you're even helping out taking care of your parents, that has a significant impact.

Jessica :

Yeah.

Kurt:

Well, it really. It really helps you with your controlling your healthcare environment. You know, because at the end of the day, when you get to that point in your life and you know if we get to that point we're pretty fortunate. But when a person gets to that point in their life where they don't have any control over it much, you know it's, it's nice to have somebody coming alongside and help them. You know pay the bills and make sure things are taken care of. And you know pay the bills and make sure things are taken care of. And you know understand the contracts and help their family through that process. And we've really been adamant about doing that for the people that we've helped along that road.

Ross:

Yeah, I think most people at least their feedback to me is, when it comes to thinking about long-term healthcare planning, they don't want to be a burden to anybody, they want to stay in their home as long as they can and they want to receive care on their own terms Just exactly what Kurt said, and so I think that's where a tool, an insurance type of tool, can help facilitate that. There's other answers, but that's a tool that should be seriously looked into.

Kurt:

Most of the time when clients want to look at that, they're about ready to walk into a nursing home and that's a bad time to do it.

Ross:

Yeah, think about this ahead of time, guys.

Kurt:

Yes, time to do it. Yeah, think about this ahead of time, guys. Yes, and we can have that conversation five, ten, fifteen years ahead of time and and they'll say, no, I'm not going to go in there. You know, take a bullet to me or whatever, and that's just a very good option. You know, send my kids to prison while I go into a long-term care facility or whatever, but no, it's. It's something that's a. It's a very serious situation. We need to keep addressing it with our clients on a regular basis.

Jessica :

And I think that the through line that I'm getting from both of you talking is the importance of having an advisor that you know, knows your history, that you feel comfortable sharing your concerns because of past experiences with, and someone who also will help you align with what your goals for the future are. Ross mentioned a lot being able to use insurance as a tool, and I think that that's something that you know a lot of people don't consider if they're not asking an advisor about it and having these conversations about what they need to be doing for their future.

Ross:

I think one thing okay, you talk about insurance, investments what have you? I think what's really important is the peace of mind that we bring to our clients' lives, just knowing that we've addressed many of these different things, and whether or not they purchase this or purchase that, at least they've been educated, they know what that option is and then they can make a decision. I think that's kind of what like where I am is, tell me what, where I'm at, what needs to happen, and then I can I can go from there, but that peace of mind is priceless, absolutely.

Jessica :

I couldn't agree more with that. Okay, so last topic that we're going to bring up, which I feel like is one that a lot of people will run into if they have purchased a home and maybe they are close to paying off the home, maybe they aren't, but I think there's always a constant debate on whether or not it's better to pay off your home early, like as fast as you can, getting rid of that debt, or if you continue making your regular payments and if there is extra money, you put that towards investing, and kind of which option is better for people in which situations. So let's start with Kurt on this one. And how do you feel like you tend to lean or advise your clients usually on this one?

Kurt:

Well, you know, homeownership is a great responsibility and it's also a great opportunity. And the reason I say that is because it costs money every month and at the end of the day, that purchase hopefully we'll appreciate over time. And so you know, by borrowing money against a home, what you're doing is you're using somebody else's money and you're more or less paying the rent while it's, while you're paying on the debt. Now, in these low interest rate environments that we've been through over the last 10 or 12 years, it's been pretty amazing the low interest that has been available to us. And so I'll just use an example of a client of ours who had a $400,000 debt. His monthly payment was about $1,800 a month. He had a two and a half percent mortgage that lasted for 30 years. And you know the thing is, when you factor in the time value of money, that $1,800 in the first year of that mortgage was very, it was probably $1,800. But as time goes on, you know costs are rising, inflation is happening and the purchasing power of that dollar is going down. It's one of the few things over your lifetime that you can actually lock in and have a level payment for the rest of your life. Now, for some people that really drives them crazy. They're just not really comfortable with debt. But when I started factoring in, you know that loan for that particular client was going to cost them about $185,000 on a $400,000 loan. Well, ultimately, the appreciation on that house over time, would you know? Let's take $400,000 in 10 years, it would be worth $800,000 in 10 years, more If it's at 7% it'd be worth $1.6 million. So it's appreciating on somebody else's money while he's paying on that debt. The other side of that is, if he had the money to pay cash or to pay that home down, you know what else could he be doing with that money? You know, in this particular client situation he actually had the $400,000 to pay cash for the house and we just did the math on him with him on that and the interest saved versus oh, the arbitrage that you'd end up having, because you know you're basically using somebody else's money at two and a half percent but his money's been averaging somewhere around 10 to 12%. I mean the massive, it's a massive amount of difference. You know we're talking millions of dollars of difference from that $185,000 in interest over a 30-year time period.

Kurt:

So it really gets back to retirement and managing your future and managing your day. It's all about cash flow, right? If I have money at the end of the month, I always feel good. If, on the other hand, I've run out of money at the end of the month, I got to look around and figure out what I'm going to sell in order to get that. And if I put all my money into a house, what am I going to sell if I still fall into a situation where I'm financially strapped? I think that you know I'm a big proponent of using leverage. There's good debt and there's bad debt. You know, this is not consumer debt. This is not going on vacation debt. This is not, you know, inviting all your friends over for your 50th anniversary party debt. It's long-term debt, it's very affordable and, ultimately, you can write off on your taxes most of the time. So there's lots of reasons why I believe that it's a great tool to use in that, in that direction.

Jessica :

So, ross, I know you may have a little bit of a differing opinion on this one typically, but what do you usually tell your clients when they would come to you with a question like this?

Ross:

I think we probably have actually similar opinions and thoughts on that. I think Kurt hit it on the head. Cashflow, and I think a lot of us may know of somebody that is house rich but cash poor. So that's we can maybe pinpoint to somebody. I don't think it's a invest versus paying off the mortgage. I think it's maybe more of a question of when. When does that make sense? And and Kurt alluded to that I mean we've been in such a low interest rate environment. It makes sense to have some of that.

Ross:

But I do think there's some other things that I want to look at as well how? What's your emergency fund? Do you have some other short-term goals that we need to take care of? Are you, are you saving? You know that's a starting point is, are you saving at least 15% towards long-term savings goals? You know everybody gets wrapped up in this term retirement and I mean that's a great goal. But I think there's some other things that you have to take a step back and go. Do I have these things in place?

Ross:

What about consumer debts, like Kurt was talking about? If you've got student loans or car loans, credit card debt, those things can be massive and that may be where you're looking at in terms of the order of priority and if you've accomplished a lot of those things and you're well down the path and that's kind of your last situation as far as the future and you just feel really great about paying off that debt. So we spend a lot more time doing behavioral investment counseling, and Kurt had mentioned. So this is what the math says and it's right, that's what the math says. But there's also some of the other factors that I think I'm a big, a big proponent. I don't think you can go wrong overall in paying off debt, but it's when. When does that fit in in terms of your journey? So you know, having that, that debt, is always going to be some kind of a burden that you have to think about. And so that's where, again, knowing somebody having those kinds of conversations, seeking that wisdom, and then what makes the most sense for that.

Ross:

So I think we're probably a lot more similar in terms of our thoughts with with that, thoughts with that and I don't like that term versus I just think about it as when? When do you do it? Because there's an appropriate amount of time? And the bottom line is this no matter how much you're making. There's always going to be a lot of things that are competing for your resources in the future, and this is the challenge. I think some of the challenge is just being disciplined. Most people generally may not be as disciplined, but there are some that obviously are, and so I find that when you can put things in order like okay, let's have an emergency fund, let's pay off the credit card, let's start the 401k, those are the steps that people can really grasp versus oh my gosh, I got to do all of this. Let's just break it down into some good, manageable action steps.

Jessica :

Yeah, absolutely. For me personally, when I started after college, I had student loans and I had bought a car, had consumer debt, all this stuff. And everything that I learned was you need to get rid of all your debt. All of it needs to be gone before you can do anything else. Like your income is your best for wealth, and I agree with that.

Jessica :

came to something like a mortgage, that kind of like Kurt was saying it's a long term debt that you can use kind of as leverage. And to your point, Ross, when is it a good idea to pay those things off? And yeah, it wasn't until rather recently. I think this question came up in one of our loose stones episodes and the advisor that answered that said you need to look at your interest rate, because if you have a really low interest rate from you know, these past few years and you can get a better return on investment, then maybe that's the best option for you at this point. It's not always one or the other when it comes to something like this. Yeah, I appreciate both of your perspective because I think that you both laid it out nicely that it's not a versus or one or the other. It's really depends on people's situation and the right timing of things.

Ross:

So I'll just come back to the math side of things. I mean, it's pretty easy. When you've got a credit card interest rate of 19 percent or a car loan of 10 percent, I mean that's a for sure thing. You pay that off, you for sure earn 10 percent. The variable side is well, what are we going to?

Jessica :

earn over the long term. That's another thing to take into consideration. Yeah, absolutely.

Kurt:

When I started in the financial services industry, you know we took on debt right away and it was not much fun and we were, you know, swimming in not high incomes, but we borrowed $12,000. And it was like man, how do I pay for this back? It was just a heavy weight on my shoulders. So where people are at in their career and where they're at in their earning and all that makes a big difference. But what I wanted to say is, during that time period, I attended some classes on financial planning and I realized that the only way to get out of debt is by paying yourself first.

Kurt:

You should not try to pay off all your debt before you start paying yourself.

Kurt:

In reality, you need to pay yourself first and pay all those other people that are on your payroll after you've been paid, because you're your most important employee, and I'm a big, big believer on that.

Kurt:

You know, even a year, I made $15,000, I was able to save $50 a month and then, as my income rose, I increased it and I kept increasing it and at the end of the day, you know, even when times are tough, I mean this is probably one of the most important things that I think we bring to the table as financial advisors is getting people to take action when it feels so wrong. Getting people to take action when it feels so wrong because there are so many other bills that are due. You are your most important employee and if you're not doing it for you, nobody else is going to. So we really encourage our clients to get out there and do that, and obviously, our prospects as well. But if you need help, you know, make sure and reach out to one of us or our teams. You know we're. That's what we do for a living. So it's a massive responsibility and we take it seriously.

Jessica :

Wonderful. I couldn't have said it better myself, kurt, so I guess that's our sign off there. No, so for our listeners, obviously there's been a lot of good wisdom from two advisors that have been in the business and seen a lot of situations for a while over the years. Of course, there's always really specific things, so if you have found that you have a specific question that you want some advice on or guidance on, you can always reach us on any of the socials at Summit Wealth Group or email us at info at summit wealth group dot com. We are happy to always answer any of your questions and get you connected with any of our advisors. I want to thank both of you again for being here with me. I really enjoyed this and getting to do this different format where I get a couple of different perspectives at the same time on these questions. So thank you so much for being here. It was awesome. Thank you, thanks.

Ross:

Kurt.

Jessica :

And we will catch you next time.

Kurt:

Take care guys.

Jessica :

All examples mentioned during this episode are for illustrative purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation. Your experience may vary. Thanks for listening to the Reach, your Summit podcast, brought to you by Summit Wealth Group. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with others and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. If you have any questions or topics that you'd like us to cover, please email us at info@ summitwealthgroup. com.

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