And good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene Dickison your host, your personal financial advisor.

Happy to be with you.

Happy to be with you each and every week that we air more than money specifically for you.

We are the.

This is bold.

Listen carefully.

We are the most relevant financial show on television today.

Doesn't matter what station, doesn't matter where in the country doesn't matter what time of the day.

Coast to coast.

Border to border.

The most relevant financial show on television today.

I say that boldly and accurately.

Accurately because.

Not because of me and my amazing talents.

Although they are significant.

Let's be clear.

That's because of you.

You ask the most interesting questions.

You are some of the most interesting people ever, and I know that on a couple different levels now.

If you are a loyal viewer of more than money, then you know, this past couple of weeks we've had a two part mini series, so to speak, of a live studio audience right here on Sesame Street in our PBS 39 studios.

It was so, so much fun.

It was certainly so much fun for me, and I didn't.

I don't recall seeing anyone nod off.

I don't I don't think we lost anybody during the tapings.

So that's a good sign.

And then we had a chance afterwards, to do some, some meet and greet, some mix and mingle some.

Hey.

Hi.

How are you?

Introduce introducing each other.

And it was.

That was great fun as well.

So I've gotten to know lots of you through your emails, and now I've gotten to know many, many more of you, personally.

And, what a wonderful, wonderful group of folks you really are.

Interesting.

Fascinating.

You ask a wonderful questions.

You have wonderful lives.

And for those of you that were, gosh, I guess, eavesdropping a bit on our interactions with our our studio audience, you missed maybe the most important part because you missed Annabel and, Annabel and my, granddaughter, just turned one.

And she, she charmed an entire studio audience.

It was pretty cool to see.

I gotta say, maybe she's got just a little.

I'm just saying, I don't know.

Genetics?

Who knows about genetics?

She can't figure this stuff out.

It was a great fun.

And we covered a ton of ground.

Far more than, perhaps we expected and far more than we had time for.

So we may even slip 1 or 2 in, to this show just to, cover as much more of those interesting questions as we possibly can.

I know I've got at least one that I'm going to throw Javi a curveball and and just jump right in with.

But, for all of you that were with us here, thank you very much for all of you who watch.

Thank you very much.

And there are rumors.

Rumors?

Just rumors.

Nefarious folks just circulating terrible ideas, that we might do that again.

I don't know, once a year, twice a year.

Something like that.

Invite you in?

I know we have a long, waiting list for folks who could not make our first event.

And maybe we'll do that again.

That could be, That could be a hoot.

And after all, isn't that what life's about?

To have a hoot every now and then?

Well, hey, it is more than money.

If you're joining us for the first time and you're going.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

It's a simple problem to correct.

You can go to our website.

More than money online dot com.

You can go to PBS39's website, and we have those, available for you to view.

So just check back.

Oh, a whopping less than an hour to watch both parts.

And I think you will get a real sense of who we are and what we try to do for our viewers and what we try to do.

And what we're committed to doing is service.

It's providing a service, serving you with as much quality information as we have available to bring you closer to your financial goals, closer perhaps, to, peace of mind, closer, even in in confidence in terms of of making the decisions that need to be made from a financial standpoint.

So, how do we do that?

We collect your emails.

We answer those live on air.

And, goodness, if you're saying I would like to take advantage of that.

The email is very simple.

Gene at ask mtm dot com.

As you're trying to figure out that ask more than money ask mtn.com.

So send us your emails and we'll be happy to answer.

We answer all those back to you.

If you haven't gotten an answer back, chances are one of two things.

Either you sent it, on a, Sunday night late and Gene overlooked that, or it's in your spam filter.

But either way, we answer every question back, and then we select some to be aired.

So let's get right to it.

Where do we go, sir, for our first question.

Very good.

It's it's actually the questions.

Quite brief.

Is it worth the time and effort to invest in a long term care insurance policy?

The answer is quite long.

And, I apologize in advance for my long winded this, but losing your health in your senior years is the serious concern.

There are two major concerns for folks in retirement.

Number one, running out of money.

Is it possible that they will, live longer than their money lives?

And the answer is, of course, without proper planning, good advice, long term relationship with a trusted financial advisor that they that makes adjustments on a regular basis and keeps you on track.

The answer is, of course, there's there is that risk of running out of money.

And those risks, by the way, are rather easily solved.

But that risk is very, very much top of the mind for folks who are retired or soon to retire.

I just don't want to run out of money.

Close second, maybe for some folks.

Number one.

What happens if I lose my health?

Nursing homes.

Dreadfully expensive.

Dreadfully expensive.

And, care home.

Very expensive.

They're simply doesn't seem to be a solution that isn't dreadfully expensive.

And while part of that is true, those challenges are very, very real.

We we start this question starts with long term care insurance as a as an option.

And that indeed is an option.

Many years ago, when this, issue, started to become very, very prevalent for retired folks, the idea that I at some point may need to be cared for and how are we going to pay for that?

One of, I think the most, well spoken, counselors, consultants in this arena said, for most folks, for most folks, the long term care plan, long term care plan, not insurance long term care plan is to be cared for by whichever daughter lives closest.

And while you go.

That sounds rather tongue in cheek.

Don't be so quick, because lots of folks who have heard that from me and others have kind of went, oh, actually.

Yup.

Our, our our daughter lives two blocks over, one block down, and she's usually here and we're kind of counting on her.

Wow.

Have you talked to her about that?

She may have a life of her own.

Obviously she does.

But bottom line is, the, reliance on family members to provide the care that you need can be, very unsettling.

Not just for you, for them, for the entire family.

So, long term care insurance.

Is that a possibility?

And the answer is absolutely.

The question is, is it worth the time and effort to explore?

And that's that very, very good phrasing example for long term care insurance is issued by insurance companies based on your age and your health.

So you will apply they will go through a process called underwriting.

Not terribly difficult or terribly different, I should say, from life insurance underwriting, with a very significant difference with life insurance.

The insurance company is worrying that you will die very quickly and that they will have to pay out a lot of money very quickly with long term care insurance.

They are concerned that you're going to live a very long life requiring care.

So in one case, they're out of pocket because you die too soon in long term care.

They're out of pocket because you live so very long.

So the underwriting, the medical review that they do is looking at you in a very different sense.

If you have a concern, a medical concern that might cause you to pass away early for long term care, that's not a problem.

A lot of folks go, oh gosh, I had a bout with cancer.

I probably can't get it.

You probably can, because that reduces the probability that you will live a long time.

If you have a medical concern but it does not affect your mortality, you might very well live with in some need of care for a very long time.

That's an issue.

That's something you have to look very carefully at.

Many years ago, 30 plus, when long term care insurance first became available.

It was always done.

It was traditionally done on a pay as you go basis.

It was a very similar to, homeowner's insurance.

You had a house, you bought the insurance.

If nothing bad happened at the end of that that year, you started all over and your, your new premium might be a little higher.

Benefits might be the same or a little bit better, but the new premium covers the next year.

If nothing happens next year, you start over.

And year by year by year, you've accrued no real benefits.

Other than it's a benefit when your house doesn't burn down, I get that.

But in terms of insurance, it was each individual packet did year.

For many insurance companies, there were only a maybe a dozen or less that were ever very active in the long term care insurance base.

That ended up becoming a very challenging, scenario for them to figure out how to, charge the correct premiums, pay the benefits that they are promised, and, to be blunt, not go out of business, because long term care, benefits, expenses rose dramatically when, long term care insurance first arrives on the scene, a monthly, expense for care of about 3000 a month was considered very generous.

And now I don't know where you would go for 3000 a month.

I know that there are lots of places where it is three times that 9000 a month, four times that 12,000 months, five or 6 or 7 times that.

Not unusual to hear of an expense cost in the 15, 16, $17,000 a month range.

So it becomes a very challenging, conundrum for insurance companies to figure out exactly how, to process that.

And sadly, what they ended up doing was raising the rates, raising the premium rates, and, the, client got older, the the increases got larger.

And at one point, one of the major long term care insurance companies, had a one time annual premium increase of 60%.

So folks who had secured coverage earlier in their retirement based on a premium they knew they could afford, maybe a bit of a stretch, maybe it was a bit more than they wanted to pay, but they knew they could afford it.

At that point, let's say it was $5,000 a year, a 60% increase, as it's now $8,000 a year.

And that was followed by a 40% additional increase that took it over 11,000.

And eventually people said, we can't afford it, and they would drop the coverage, typically right about the time they might very well need it.

So the industry was under tremendous pressure.

The folks who were looking at the insurance program said, I can't take the risk.

It makes no sense.

When likely they're going to price me out.

So, the entire process changed and it changed rather interest to are in a very interesting direction.

The industry, started looking at not annual premiums, but single deposits.

So in the past, while you might, evaluate what you think you're going to need in terms of, monthly coverage, hey, 7 or $8000 a month and that cost this much per year under a single premium, you deposit an amount that you can afford to deposit.

Maybe you have a CD at a $100,000 CD in the bank.

And it's earning an okay rate of return, but not great.

And you feel like you need more long term care coverage.

A single deposit of $100,000 might provide a pool of benefits for long term care.

350 to $400,000.

So if you had the CD needed care, once the 100 was gone, it was gone.

If you transferred that as a deposit into a long term care contract that had a 350, call it $400,000 pool, now you've gone from 100 to 400.

That's a substantial increase in protection.

And down the road, if you've never needed it and you pass away, that money is returned to your family.

And, subsequently, many years down the road, if you decide I've, I've decided I don't need that anymore.

Some or all of that deposit comes back to you.

So interesting evolutions, interesting iterations.

It requires, time and effort, exploration and an open mind.

And working with, an advisor in the long term care space that is familiar with not a company, but many, many companies so that they can evaluate your situation and put you in the best possible, position.

And then the decision becomes yours.

Fascinating.

A one line question.

And what half of our show.

That's pretty unusual for us, but necessary.

Thank you for the question.

Indeed.

Shall we go next?

Indeed.

Interesting.

Short questions, two in a row.

Please recommend an annuity company.

No, no, I won't, and I don't mean to be harsh.

I mean to be accurate.

I mean to actually be serving you by refusing to name or recommend an annuity company.

And and there's a pretty reasonable, no, not reasonable strong set of reasons why I would not do that.

The kind of the easy one, as is that our our videos, our shows are, archived on PBS.

They're seen across the country.

They're they're archived on our, our, our website.

More than money online.com.

And seen across the country, different companies, operate legally are licensed in different states.

So someone watching in, say, Montana may not have access to a company.

I might mention, number two, because they're archived.

Someone might be watching this a year from now, two years from now, and perhaps a company that we really, appreciated today has fallen out of favor for any number of reasons.

And so that makes it, kind of inappropriate to say, hey, definitively, here's a great company.

It's the ABC company.

They're the best the only ones that you should be, taking a look at.

We can't do that for another very important reason.

Annuities come in multiple flavors.

There are fixed annuities.

Kind of like a CD with tax deferral.

That's one flavor.

There are, fixed indexed annuities, where you've got a lot of principal protection, and then your interest is calculated off of an index.

There are RILAs registered index linked annuities.

These are again annuities that are deferred.

And your return is calculated based on some very interesting, new index linked processes.

There are variable annuities, so there are at least four different flavors.

I assure you, if I thought just a little bit more, I could probably come up with 1 or 2 more, but let's use four as an example.

It would be now I was going to say it would be a rare instance.

Now, I have never seen in my 780 years of experience.

I have never seen one company being the best annuity provider for all four flavors.

Never seen it.

As a matter of fact, the fixed, annuities, you give them money, they tell you exactly the interest rate you're going to get per year.

They tell you exactly the number of years it will be on, on deposit and exactly when it will mature.

And you can have your money back without a penalty or a fuss.

They will tell you all of that.

Gosh, there must be several dozen companies that do that.

And they change the interest rates that they provide to their clients weekly.

So this week, company ABC is offering 5.5% per year for the next five years.

Next week, they're offering the same contract at 4.9.

And there's a different company offering it at 5.3.

So even week to week to week, particularly in that flavor annuity, things change rather dramatically.

So can I recommend, an annuity company?

I certainly can we certainly can.

More than money advisors certainly can, but only under the proper circumstances, which is that we know exactly who you are.

We know exactly your current circumstances.

We know exactly where you are heading, what your your financial goals really are, and precisely how whichever flavor of annuity might be appropriate fits to get you from point A to point B.

Once we've identified all of that, we can go immediately.

Technology can be quite wonderful.

We can go immediately through our technology and identify the one or 2 or 3 companies it would best fit you.

And that's the only reasonable way to do that.

I hope that helps a little bit.

Now Javi, before we get to our next...Javi By the way, obviously in charge back there.

Thank God somebody is you don't want me just roaming around running amok.

Before we go to our next question that's already in, I'm going to shift gears a little bit to a question that's extremely important.

It came from our live studio audience.

As we age, there may be declines in either our health or our mental, capabilities.

How does a financial consultant handle this situation?

If they notice a decline in the ability to participate in the management of one's accounts, this is such an important question.

And in some cases, the ultimate service that a financial advisor might provide to a client or the client's family.

Ticklish at best.

Of course, of course.

When we talk about a trusted, experienced financial advisor, those, attributes come into play.

Dramatic, when they are faced with a situation where it becomes clear to the financial advisor that the person sitting in front of them is struggling.

They may be struggling physically.

Their health is declining.

They may be in pain.

They may be facing, medical treatments that are difficult, to meet the challenge, they may be experiencing, that a feeling of being overwhelmed by the challenges they face on the health side.

And as a result, the financial picture becomes far less important to them.

And they may be dismissive of important issues because it's not high on their, their radar.

At that moment, of course, the other issue that can be, a problem can significantly be a problem is fill in the blanks.

Alzheimer's, dementia.

So no, the the words are varied, but the impact is rather direct.

Folks who are making choices that are inappropriate for them, folks who are, challenged to make a choice at all.

Folks are easily distracted.

And if you have a trusted, experienced financial advisor, particularly one that follows the pattern that we encourage all financial advisors to use, our show is seen coast to coast and border to border.

So nationwide we have advisors watching and we advise them meet with your clients as often as you can using quarterly reviews as your framework.

So if you're seeing a client every 90 days, you see a pattern.

Some folks are naturally, happier than others.

Some are naturally more serious than others.

Some are more organized than others.

You get the idea.

And if you see a a deviation from the norm, whatever that norm might be, because you know these folks now your financial advisor has gotten to know you personally, not just as an account number.

If you see that change from happy to serious, serious to happy, interested to disinterested, fill in the blanks.

Or if you see something occurring in their accounts, totally unexpected.

Sadly, scams on seniors particularly have exploded with the advent of email, internet, etc.

it's easier and easier for folks who are, the lowest of the low to prey on the vulnerabilities of our seniors.

So it may not be a health or a mental capacity issue.

It may be a vulnerability, a personal, an emotional, vulnerability that causes them to go off track.

So how do we protect number one?

By being aware by number.

Being aware not not just of things going off the rails, but when things are correct, paying attention, having that strong relationship with the client.

Number two, identifying the signals, being well trained in what should we be looking for?

To make sure that our clients are well protected as far as to the greatest extent that we can offer, number three, we encourage every advisor and every client to name what's referred to in the industry as a trusted contact.

A trusted contact is not a co-owner.

It's not a beneficiary.

It is a person that you are giving us permission to contact in the event that we notice something off.

And when I say off, all the things that we've talked about so far are appropriate, scams are particularly impactful.

In this past 12 month period, we have saved clients over $200,000 by preventing them, assisting them in avoiding being scammed.

And those issues were brought to light.

The client resisting their trusted contact, not resistant at all.

Got involved.

Could be a son, a daughter, grandson, granddaughter, a close friend, someone from church.

It doesn't matter as long as they're your trusted contact.

That's the key.

Someone that if they said to you, Jimmy, I'm concerned.

I think you're not looking at this correctly.

You would listen.

That's the important piece.

So for us, we have a number of tools, including being able to report suspected scams to the regulators, being able to report, senior abuse to the regulators.

We have legal authority to do all of those things.

But the most important way that we can serve is to be aware, be knowledgeable, be close, be in a relationship that is worthy of the word relationship and have a trusted contact.

Name someone that we know we can pick up the phone, reach out to, for your best interest.

Folks, we covered a lot of ground.

Simple questions, complex answers, lots of detail, lots of content.

Hopefully you picked up some ideas that will help you.

Hopefully you pick up some ideas that you go that fits me right away.

But if you didn't, if your questions are very different, make sure that you phrase them together, put them together.

Phrase them in a way that we get as much information as we can to help send those to me Gene at ask mtm dot com and we'll have one of our more than money advisors answer that question back to you.

And of course, perhaps you'll even see your question answered on the Future More Than Money show.

So everybody, it was part of our, live studio audience and everyone that's out there watching this evening.

We thank you.

And we hope that you'll join us next week when we return to this podium for another edition of More Than Money.

Good night.