The Sugar Daddy Podcast
Ready to normalize talking about money? Then welcome to The Sugar Daddy Podcast. Every episode will get you one step closer to your financial goals. Whether that is learning how to invest, budget, save, retire early or talk about money with your partner, Jess & Brandon have you covered in a way that's easy to understand, and easy to implement. Tune in as they demystify the realm of dollars, so it all makes cents, while giving you a glimpse into their relationship with money and each other.
Brandon is an award-winning, licensed financial planner, and owner of Oak City Financial, with over a decade of experience and millions of dollars managed for his clients all over the United States.
New episodes published every Wednesday.
The Sugar Daddy Podcast
110: How to Maximize Your Employee Benefits When Premiums Keep Rising
Health insurance costs are climbing, and this year’s open enrollment feels tougher than ever. Premiums are up, deductibles are higher, and plans seem designed to confuse you.
In this episode, Jess and Brandon walk through how to actually compare your options by looking at total yearly cost, not just the monthly premium. You’ll learn how to plan for high-cost years with surgeries or pregnancies versus lower-cost preventive years, and how to understand how network changes, prescriptions, and hidden fees can impact your real out-of-pocket costs.
They also break down the tools that help you fight rising healthcare costs:
- HSAs: triple tax advantages and long-term growth potential
- FSAs and Dependent Care FSAs: pre-tax savings for medical and childcare costs
- Short Term Disability: using it for maternity or recovery time
- Group Life and Disability Insurance: what’s covered and where the gaps are
If your health plan feels more expensive but offers less, this episode helps you make the smartest choice for your family and your wallet.
Head over to our YouTube channel to catch this episode in full video form.
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Money, relationships, and the mindset to master both. Hosted by financial advisor Brandon and his wife Jess, The Sugar Daddy Podcast breaks down how to build wealth, unpack old money beliefs, and have real conversations about love and finances. Our mission? To help couples and individuals grow rich in every sense of the word: emotionally, relationally and financially.
Open enrollment is here again, but this year it hits different. With rising costs, election year chaos, and healthcare premiums going up, up, and up. Your choice this year matters more than ever. Our premiums went up 17%, so we had to navigate this as well. If you want to learn more about how to get the most out of your open enrollment benefits this year, stay tuned.
SPEAKER_01:Sugar Teddy Podcast Yo. Learn how to make the pockets grow. Finance and freedoms where we go. Smart investments, money flow.
SPEAKER_04:Hey babe. What are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_00:Today we are talking about the dreaded. I say dreaded because who really looks forward to open enrollment? But we're talking about open enrollment because it is that time of year. And that's the HSA, S FSA, PPO, high deductible, like all the acronyms that we dread and confuse us. And every year it's like you get locked in, you know, unless you have one of those um life-altering events. What are they called? You know, when you have a baby, get married, get divorced. Uh qualified event. Qualified event. Yeah. Unless you have one of those, you're gonna be stuck once you hit submit. So it just feels, I don't know. I hate it, I've hated it every single year that I've ever done open enrollment. I always feel like I'm going to make the wrong decision. And even though we've been navigating it for, I mean, what, 12 years together now? Uh, and we sit down and we like go through all of our costs for the, you know, the previous year and we really do analyze, I still always feel like this is not the right choice. I hate it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because you overthink everything.
SPEAKER_00:Am I overthinking or am I thinking just enough? I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:Because I'll give you, you'll ask me a question, I give you the answer, and then you're like, oh the- But is that really the answer?
SPEAKER_00:I know, because again, it's like once you hit submit, you're locked in, and I just don't like that feeling.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know what to tell you.
SPEAKER_00:That's how that's I think most people feel like I feel. Not everybody has this like calm, rational brain that can just like make a decision and move on. Like you are the anomaly. I'm the norm.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I think it's also a matter of understanding. So obviously, in this scenario with what I do for a living, I have a better understanding of all these things. And, you know, for our family, based upon our needs, I have a good understanding of what we should be choosing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think also, okay, so that's the logical side. But in our household, I'm the one that uses the benefits. So without your Achilles tendon surgery, which was again an anomaly. Our kids are healthy, thank, thank you, universe. You're healthy, and I'm fine. Everything's fine. But if anybody is using the benefits, it's me. So I just feel like I need to make the right decision. So it just stresses me out.
SPEAKER_04:And I would also say that I would say, you know, this year for individuals making these selections, it feels a little different because of the current political environment and things aren't favoring us as the U.S. population when it comes, especially more specifically healthcare.
SPEAKER_00:No, because our premiums went up 17%. We posted something on social media and somebody else in the comments wrote that their premiums are going up 35%. That's insanity. Because, you know, ain't nobody's salary going up 35%.
SPEAKER_04:No, and the sad part is like, you know, obviously we want to give you the information from a financial standpoint so that you can learn more and take care of your family and do things that you need to do. But the reality is, is that this is an administration issue.
SPEAKER_00:This is why votes matter.
SPEAKER_04:This is why voting matters. And like, you know, you can be left, right, whatever. I'm talking about pure facts on what the situation is. The way that insurance works is that you have all these people saying, you know, on the right side that I don't want to pay for someone else's insurance. That's how insurance works.
SPEAKER_00:Y'all, it's the amount of times I've had to hear Brandon rip and rant. We should have made a rip and rant about this, about how insurance works and how the more people oh, actually, just go ahead and do your analogy because you made a really good one last night.
SPEAKER_04:Well, this is the way that insurance works, all right? So think about you're going to dinner with five of your friends, right? Say the bill is$100. You're each paying$20. Now, if you went to dinner with 10 friends and you had a$100 bill, now you're paying$10. So the more people you have that have the insurance, the lower the cost it would actually be for everyone else. The less people you have on insurance, the more the cost is going to be for everyone else. Insurance is a shared expense. The idea is that the more people you have on it and paying into it, it counteracts those who are going to need to have the higher payouts for accidents, being older, whatever it may be. So it actually behooves our country to especially have more young people on insurance because they pay into it and they don't use it as much. So people need to understand exactly what insurance is. There's no such thing as saying, like, I don't want to pay for someone else's insurance. Because if you don't want to pay for someone else's insurance, you don't have insurance. That's called simply self-insuring, and you don't have any type of insurance and you're just paying out of pocket.
SPEAKER_00:Take a breath, babe. Take a breath.
SPEAKER_04:But the issue is that, you know, they're not doing anything to help. They're cutting benefits that otherwise would be helping us to lower our premiums, that we would have to be paying for our health insurance. Also, in addition to that, you know, the the cuts that they're making for these large corporations, they got to make up for that money someplace else. And also taking away regulations in regards to, hey, let's put some standards in place that prevent these corporations from increasing these premiums drastically. All those regulations are being taken away. So at the end of the day, you could say that um, you know, I don't, I don't get into politics. Politics gets into you regardless. Politics is in your money, it's in everything that you do in your life. And that's just the reality. You know, we're going to do our best to kind of like, you know, go through some of this information for you. But at the end of the day, you know, you have to hold politicians accountable to making things better for us as a people.
SPEAKER_00:And us as a people is broke. Like, society is struggling. I mean, I saw a video the other day of active duty military in line at the food bank because of the government shutdown. You have active duty military who cannot afford groceries for their families right now. And that's that's the simple fact is most people are living paycheck to paycheck. That includes six-figure earners are living paycheck to paycheck. You have people active duty in the military lining up at the food bank because of the government shutdown because they cannot buy food for their family right now. That is shameful. Like if you are not ashamed of that happening in our country, we are not the podcast for you.
SPEAKER_04:And let me explain hard stop. For anybody out there, you know, we have a, I like to think that we have a very educated base that listens to us. But for anyone that maybe doesn't understand it, currently all aspects of the government, all three areas, are controlled by Republicans. Republicans. So it would be very easy to pass things and have things done. So regardless of what you maybe be seeing, if you're seeing, you know, quote unquote the alternative news saying that this is a democratic issue in regards to the shutdown, it's not. They don't have the control to do that. So, you know, there's that to, you know, think about as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But this is enough for a rant.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Okay. We we took a little detour because money is political. Again, hard stop, 10 toes down. However, we're gonna talk about open enrollment. And in this crappy situation that we're in, because we're in it with you, we still have to make the best out of the situation. And if we're trying to find the silver lining and if we're trying to be positive, which we typically try to do, sometimes we do just need to get it out and vent. But at the end of the day, it is what it is, and we have to make the best of the situation. And so when we did our open enrollment, actually I hit submit this morning, literally this morning. Um, you know, my company still subsidizes 69% of our of our plan. And, you know, we're going through, we're looking at, you know, should it be bronze, silver, gold? Definitely can't afford the platinum. Um, you know, we also don't need the platinum. We don't need the platinum. We even asked, you know, Chat GPT to help us do some analysis of, you know, excluding Brandon's injury this year, et cetera, et cetera. Like, how much do we typically pay? Again, I am the person who uses the benefits the most. Brandon and the kids, it's all just preventative care. And even then, looking at the numbers, looking at what comes out of every paycheck, the fact that the company still subsidizes 69% and we feel like we are hemorrhaging money every time we step foot into the doctor's office is wild. So I can't.
SPEAKER_04:But every time she means when she steps in.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, but even then, you know, like yes, every time I step foot in a building, it's like whoop$80 right out the door. And now it's gonna be like 90 or 95 for a specialist, which is essentially all I see. Um so yeah, so let's get into how to not only look at your benefits and hopefully make the best decision, but understand what it is that you're selecting. And then making sure also that if you have other benefits that are available to you, like I do miss, you know, we had MetLife for a while for our legal benefit in the last couple of years. I don't have access to that right now anymore. So there are other benefits that hopefully you as listeners have access to. And if you don't understand what they are right now, hopefully we can help shed some light so that you can make informed decisions.
SPEAKER_04:Well, say to start out, first and foremost, you need to get all the information. So if you've chosen the same plan year after year after year and you've been at your company for a while, do not simply assume that everything is the same and just opt into what you were in before without actually looking through the details because things in these plans do change. And you always want to make sure that you have the most up-to-date information when you're making that choice. So don't get lazy. As soon as the information comes out, schedule time for yourself or you and your partner, spouse, whatever it may be, to actually go through the information and be up to date on all the different options that are available to you for the current year. Because, like I said, I mean, some of the things with the healthcare plans, they change, but then also your company might also add additional benefits or take away benefits that, you know, were their previous years.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. And as an aside, your providers also add and drop uh who they accept as insurance carriers all the time, like even throughout the year. I get letters constantly like, oh, my endocrinologists, my rheumatologist, like, oh, we don't accept this. And then a month later, it's like, oh, we do again. So, you know, providers are going through their own struggle with insurance carriers. So if you really love your doctor, you know, you might want to pick a plan that covers the majority of what you need outside of, you know, having to stick with a certain provider because they could easily drop off that list at any time.
SPEAKER_04:I would also say, um, on top of that, schedule as early as possible to go through the information.
SPEAKER_00:It's a lot.
SPEAKER_04:You want to leave yourself time because if you have questions, you want to have enough time for you to reach out to perhaps your HR person. More than likely, they might have to direct you to somebody else that is um more knowledgeable on the specifics of that. But you want to give yourself time to receive the answers to the questions that you may have. Because I know a lot of people, because uh small little sidebar is that when I started off in financial services, I started working for Delity. And part of what I was doing there also was doing open enrollment for health insurance. And I can remember numerous times it being the last day for enrollment, and people are calling in, asking all these questions that obviously they had not looked through the information at all. And and now they're panicking. And the reality is that you know, you're calling in, even if you're calling in, that person that you're talking to knows your plan. They don't know your situation. Also So it they really can't provide you with a lot of guidance because they don't know anything about what your needs are.
SPEAKER_00:We usually I'm used to getting, you know, all my information for open enrollment easily a month in advance. This year, we were given barely two weeks, which was also shocking. So I don't know if that's anybody else's experience right now or if that was kind of a one-off for me, but I got the email I told Brandon and I was like, wait, that's like next week. So um, you know, make just make sure as you're getting those emails from your HR or your, you know, people benefits team that you are looking at that due date, marking your calendar, designating some time on your calendar to actually go through it, write down your questions. And then, you know, if you're at large companies, a lot of times they hold information sessions where they tell you here's what's changed from year to year, here's what we took away, here's what we added. Go to those sessions because those are also the places where you can put your questions in the chat, connect with the person who's leading it afterwards to ask more individualized questions, use those resources because again, once you hit submit, this is it for 12 months.
SPEAKER_04:Also, the thing is, too, those sessions you were talking about, that's also could be the chance for you to advocate for a benefit that's not currently available.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Because it's called the employee benefit package.
SPEAKER_00:And if your employees are not happy and they're leaving because they can get better benefits somewhere else, the company should be listening.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So we are going to spend probably a little bit more time talking on the health insurance because that is the one that obviously is the largest expense for most people when it comes to their benefits package. Yes. And it's also the one that maybe people feel the most worried about when it comes to picking and making sure that they're picking the right one.
SPEAKER_00:That's where all the acronyms are.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. But um the way that we started out looking at, hey, what are we going to do this year? Is that obviously we just still the same company. So we had a lot of the same plans. And once again, we still looked through all the information to see that there were any, if there were any changes. And there actually were some changes in regards to, you know, increases on, you know, out-of-pocket max, which is the maximum that you would pay um for any type of medical services within a given year. Um the deductible, which is a um amount that you have to meet in order to receive an additional benefit, which would be a reduced cost on different services from a medical standpoint. Those went higher in addition to obviously the premiums that she's paying on a monthly basis going higher as well. But the first thing that we actually really did is that we looked at how much have we spent this year when it comes to medical expenses. That's going to be the one of the main determining factors on hey, which plan should I pick moving into the next year? So most people probably don't realize this because they don't quite dive into all the details is that you have an online portal for your current health insurance provider. You can look in there and see all the money that you've spent throughout the year. So it would tell you how much you spent overall, how close you were to meeting a deductible, how close you were to possibly getting to your out-of-pocket max. All those numbers are important and you should know those before going ahead and picking a plan for the next year. So, what we did is that I pulled those numbers up and was looking at it. And in comparison, I was comparing how much we spend on average in a given year for medical expenses in comparison to the plans that are available for next year. Because what ends up happening is that sometimes certain plans, like you know, the platinum plan that just was talking about, everybody thinks, oh, it's it's it's better, it's better. And even if you have the money to afford to pay for it, do you need it?
SPEAKER_00:If you don't need it, why pay for all of that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because most of the time, um, for plans like that, that is for someone who has a lot of medical issues and is consistently seeing a doctor, a specialist, whatever it may be. And often if you're someone that's pretty pretty healthy, like for example, I'm just gonna use myself. I'm a fairly healthy individual outside of the surgery I had this year, but I go to the doctor for a physical, you know, an annual physical. So that would be overkill. So I'd be wasting money. The money that I'm paying towards that plan on for the premiums on a monthly basis could be better served somewhere else in my financial life. So first and foremost, you want to look at what your spending is for medical expenses in a given year and then compare that to the plans and see if it makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Can I make a call out that if you know you have something upcoming, right? If you're pregnant, you know you're gonna have a baby in the new calendar year, if you know you're gonna have a certain surgery, you know you need to have certain maybe, you know, MRI CAT scans, you know, PET scan, whatever, like those things that typically have a high cost associated. Maybe you want to go to physical therapy. I know you were spending$80 a session twice a week, so$160 right out the gate, times four. I mean, again, when I said I felt like we were hemorrhaging money. And then, you know, if you look at the things that I've been dealing with with my back and various injections and imaging and all those things, it's like, all right, well, maybe we do go for the higher plan if you know something is upcoming.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So the example that I'm gonna use for our scenario was is that um all the plans had a deductible where once you hit a deductible, you get an increased benefit. So it either lowers the amount that you have to pay out of pocket for a given service, or on some of the plans, it completely eliminated any type of copay. No, that was obviously the platinum plan. Platinum plan, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But um But you had to spend like, I don't know, sixteen hundred dollars a month to So you have to look at when their scenario would to look at the deductibles on each one.
SPEAKER_04:And even on like the more expensive plans, which quote unquote were supposed to be the better plans and cover more, we weren't going to hit the deductible based upon our average spending in a year. So it didn't make sense to have the better plan because we weren't gonna have enough medical services uh done throughout the year to even hit the deductible to have that additional reduction in cost.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, and prescriptions. You can look up how much you've spent on prescriptions. You know, you can talk to your pharmacist and see if you, you know, if you know of the medications that you take all the time, if there's gonna be an increase in those. Sometimes the generics are free, but the, you know, name brands have an added cost, et cetera. I know I also get uh certain prescriptions through mail-in pharmacies or specialty pharmacies. So um, you know, most things we get at our local Walgreens because that's what our plan prefers, but there are other ways to get certain medications at reduced costs as well. So definitely always explore your prescription costs and don't just go with the place that's closest around the corner because it might not be the most monetarily beneficial.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you really, whatever plan you end up selecting, you really do need to make sure that you dive in deep and understand all the benefits of your plan, the way that it functions, and based upon your needs, understand what benefits does this provide. And if I do A versus B, I could save more money doing A than doing B. Like you said with the prescriptions.
SPEAKER_00:And it does suck. Like it is homework. You have you're gonna spend time on the phone, you're gonna be, you know, uh weeding through documents. I mean, it's not a fun process by any means.
SPEAKER_04:Or in addition, you can hire me and I will help you.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, there you go. Shameless plug.
SPEAKER_04:So this is one thing that I do with my clients, is because I look one of the first things I do do with clients is that we look through their employee benefits package because we want to make sure that we are maximizing anything that could potentially be free or at a reduced cost. And so I want to make sure that we're maximizing that and also that they understand everything that's in their plan and making sure that they are, for example, with their health insurance, picking the plan that works best for them and that maybe they don't have a plan that's overkill or a plan that's not enough for their, you know, medical needs.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Okay. Do you want to get into like the typical medical plans?
SPEAKER_04:Um, I'm not gonna necessarily go into like HMO versus PPO and high deductible health plan. Okay. Um, I think we've covered that. We've had previous episodes. We've had previous episodes. In no honesty, just the overall definition of those, that is something that you can easily look up.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And I think understand. You know, most of the time, PPOs are gonna be something that covers a little bit more, a little bit more uh focused towards like a family where you are gonna maybe it's someone that either has a lot of, you know, has more health needs, or as a family where you might be having kids that are going to the doctor and stuff like that, as compared to like, you know, a high deductible health plan is gonna be more or less for someone that maybe like if I was by myself and on my own plan, that'd probably be something that I would go for because I don't go to the doctor often. I just have those preventative annual physicals. And I could save money on my premiums by going that route. But that's something that you can look up if you have questions. Obviously, reach out to us. But I think we're gonna kind of go into the things that are plaguing people and kind of like ways to navigate that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Just one more quick thing. Vision and dental are typically one provider. So select those and move on with life.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's pretty easy. And also for those individuals that that have kids, um, you know, around two or three is when you should start having them on both of those plans.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because the biggest thing is here is like, for example, like, oh, you know, my kid doesn't have all their teeth in, they're two, three, they don't have all their teeth or whatever it may be. Hey. But the thing is, that what if they have they fall and hit their mouth, have an emergency, and also with the vision as well, get hit in the eye. Like, for example, we our you know, our daughter had a collision with uh a classmate where the girl's forehead hit her right in her eye socket.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh. She had the biggest black eye. Yes. And her eye was black for m I mean two months easy. Like it was, oh, poor girl. I think she has PTSD from it.
SPEAKER_04:So even if they're too young to necessarily go to them on an annual basis for a cleaning, whatever it may be, it would still cover those, you know, extreme emergencies if something does happen.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, better and those thankfully are not so expensive.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, those aren't the ones that most people like. Those aren't the ones that pain you.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. They're they're good to have. And I mean, we both wear contacts and glasses, and so vision for sure makes sense. But you also, if you have young kids, think at like five or six is when they need to start getting their annual like vision exam as well.
SPEAKER_04:Here's one call out for the uh for dental. So I'm someone who's luckily I naturally had straight teeth. Never never had to have braces, but as I've gotten older, you know, there are some shifting and stuff going on in my teeth. And me being bane about my teeth, I was like, hey, let me look into possibly getting invisalign to see just to keep them as straight as you know they naturally were. To find out, our dental coverage doesn't actually have orthodontia for adults. It's only if you're under the age of uh if you're 18 or under.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I thought it was the opposite.
SPEAKER_04:No.
SPEAKER_00:I thought it was yes, it would cover adults, but not children.
SPEAKER_04:That doesn't make any sense. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I know, but isn't that what this the plan this year said?
SPEAKER_04:Our plan unfortunately, because I I was trying to get like I said, uh Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I remember you made disappointment.
SPEAKER_04:And I was like, why is this cost so high? Like, is my insurance not going to cover any of this? And they're like, no, actually, your insurance only covers kids, basically. So if you're an adult and you're looking to get Invisalign or whatever may be to help fix your teeth, you need to look at your plan because a lot of these plans unfortunately don't cover adult uh orthodontia.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Well I don't know why you thought it was reverse.
SPEAKER_00:Well, because I thought that was weird, but then when we looked yesterday, I thought that it said it is for adults and it it's excluding children. So we'll take that. I know, but a lot of things don't make sense. We'll take that as an aside and we're gonna look that back up. Because our daughter will definitely need orthodontia.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's your fault.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it is a hundred percent my fault. She has my my teeth, but thankfully we can fix those things. All right, let's get into some of the things that if you have access to these, like I don't have access to any of these with my current employer.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know which one you're talking about. I was gonna go ahead and jump into like disability insurance itself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't have any of that.
SPEAKER_04:Oh. I mean, we you have a disability. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I don't have it through my employer. I don't have any disability insurance benefits, no life insurance benefits, no other benefits that we are used to. I wish y'all could see this man's face right now.
SPEAKER_04:I did not Yeah. I don't think you told me you don't have 60% group disability insurance.
SPEAKER_00:Uh if if it exists, I don't know where the paperwork is for it.
SPEAKER_04:We need to hop on the computer after this.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Learning in real time. Like I let her handle I honestly let her.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't talk about it because it wasn't on it.
SPEAKER_04:I let her handle that part assuming that like it was on there and she hadn't mentioned it.
SPEAKER_00:There is a term life insurance benefit that you're not worried about the life insurance.
SPEAKER_04:I'm not worried about the life insurance because you have plenty of life insurance. Right. It's the disability insurance.
SPEAKER_00:None.
SPEAKER_04:See what happens even in our household if I've sometimes hop on it.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know why he's looking all confused. I did not mention anything. And so you know what they say about assumptions.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I would have thought that you would have said, hey, babe, like I don't have disability insurance as an option.
SPEAKER_00:Uh hey, babe, I don't have disability insurance as an option. This is not new. We I've I really feel like we talked about this last year because it wasn't an option when I joined this company. Uh it did not. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I don't recall you saying anything. Also, who you work for matters because So yeah, that's your your your job, your employer also needs to hire me to handle their benefits because this is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00:Let's keep it moving.
SPEAKER_04:All right. So for those who do have group disability insurance, this is something that you should definitely opt into. Most employers that provide this as a um option on your employee benefits, they actually pay for it. So you should always opt to opt into it, especially if they're paying for it. Now, normally, kind of the industry standard is that they will cover 60% of your uh base salary up to a certain point. All right. So the reason I say that is because when I say up to a certain point, if you're a higher earner and they're only covering up to a certain point, but 60% of your income would be higher than that, then you are not adequately insured. You don't have 60% coverage, you have less than that. So you would have to look into possibly getting an individual disability insurance policy outside of your employer. But it's important to know that so that you are properly insured. Now, also for those individuals who are maybe in a role where they have like a base salary and then either a commission or bonuses is a big portion of their um yearly income, then you probably also are underinsured, also, because it's only covering your base salary and not taking into account your bonuses or your commissions. So understanding and knowing that is huge. And I'm gonna say this like 10 out of 10 people are underinsured. No, 10 out of 10 people don't even know if they're properly insured. Don't know. They have no idea. Because er I've never in my life sat down with someone that knew exactly the details of their disability insurance policy. And that's the norm. So, like if it's you're you're listening to this, you're like, I don't know anything about my disability insurance policy. That is not a shame. That is the majority of people. That's why we're doing this podcast. But then also, if you want additional help, that's why you can also work with me as well. All right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Why don't you tell the story of one of your clients who is a very high earner and was like grossly underinsured for the disability insurance policy.
SPEAKER_04:So what ends up happening in this, and then I'm assuming that this happens often with a lot of people in the medical field, like doctors. All right. So he is a cardiothoracic surgeon and he was transitioning from being a resident to an attending. Yes. And that's a big jump in your income. So, you know, you're going from making, you know, this individual is going from making, you know, under, you know, around maybe 200, which is still a great income for someone, to making, you know,$800,000 a year.
SPEAKER_00:That's the kind of increase I'm looking for. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So he had a disability insurance policy based off of his$200,000 salary, but then that switch to the$800, he didn't have a policy for that. And so he was drastically underinsured from a disability standpoint. And when it comes to surgeons, this is extremely important because with disability insurance policy, you also want to make sure that the policy is what's called an own occupation, which means that if you cannot do the specific duties of your specific occupation, doesn't matter if you could do another job. If you cannot do the duties of your specific occupation, then you are disabled. And so for a surgeon, you know, something might happen to their hands. And you might be able to do something else.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But if you don't have that dexterity in your hands to perform surgery, then you can be no longer be a surgeon. So it's very important for, you know, medical professionals who have put in all this time into their education and um their career to have this in place. And the easiest way that I kind of like give an analogy is that any of you people out there that are into Marvel and you've seen Doctor Strange. Doctor Strange was a world renowned surgeon, Playboy surgeon, you know, in the beginning. Making all this money, living the Playboy life, and he's he loves fast cars in a car accident, ends up having a terrible accident, unable to, you know, perform surgery because he can't use his hands the way that he used to. Didn't have disability insurance. And that's the person that stuck out to me as a weird person now watching the movie. But that's kind of the analogy I give for people who've maybe seen the movie.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So, but the thing that I wanted you to call out is that he makes more in a month than the majority of America makes in a year.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And his policy was going to pay out like what,$10,000 for the month, which like most of us are like, ooh,$10,000 a month.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but$120,000 in a year compared to$800,000. Correct.
SPEAKER_00:And so when you think about that. And then um one of the other things that I know we've talked about in the past is sometimes there's a cap too. Yeah, as I said.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Up to a certain amount.
SPEAKER_00:Up to a certain amount. Yeah. So if you're used to getting$10,000, but the cap is at five, well, where's that delta going to come from? Where are you going to make that up? So it's in real very important to look up the details of your disability insurance policy. And then what you said about there are some policies, is my understanding, where, hey, you might not be able to do your job, but you can do a job. So if that's not what you're interested in, right? If you're like an engineer, but it's like, well, you could go work at Starbucks, but you don't want to in the event that something happens, then you have to make sure you have the right policy in place.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, normally the wording is own occupation.
SPEAKER_00:Which my understanding, again, is those costs a little bit more.
SPEAKER_04:Can.
SPEAKER_00:But again, if you don't want to just be out here doing any job to, you know, get your your income, then you need to make sure you're properly insured. So it's a whole thing. The amount of hours that I've spent with Brandon learning about all the different insurance vehicles. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Also, just one more thing to point out is that most of the time when it comes to insurance, you know, obviously we have health insurance. Most people think of life insurance. Disability insurance actually is probably, I might argue, almost more important. Reason being is that you've a significantly higher probability of it occurring. Being become becoming like not permanent disabled, but disabled for a certain period of time where you are unable to work and you know, otherwise would not be able to bring an income. It's a significantly higher probability of that occurring. And then also, too, in the event of like a permanent disability, you know, nobody wants to think about death, but death is finite. You're you're gone. As compared to a disability could bring in significantly high medical expenses and ongoing medical expenses. Right. So you're not gonna be able to do that. And an emotional burden on your friends and family. Yeah, if you're if you're an earner, no longer making bringing in an income and now bringing in significantly higher expenses. So it's extremely important. Since we did mention it, a lot of um employers also offer, you know, some form of life of term life insurance often, maybe normally one to two times your salary, which is a great start. Normally it's either paid for or it's highly subsidized. You might be able to get some additional amount, maybe up to three times your salary for a little bit more. I always say go ahead and take advantage of that. But from a lot of people out there, that's gonna not gonna be enough insurance that you would actually need. Now, how much insurance you need as an individual, that's gonna vary from situation to situation, which I can also obviously help you out with. But taking a look at this and assessing, you know, your own personal needs in regards to what your employer is offering, if it's free, I always say take advantage of it.
SPEAKER_00:And what we learned when I went through my layoff at Cisco is that a lot of these policies are portable as well.
SPEAKER_04:No, I wouldn't say a lot of these policies are portable. Some policies are portable.
SPEAKER_00:Some policies are portable.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Because the thing is you also have to weigh out the cost. Yeah. So a lot of them are portable, but then like the cost of them changes.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:And so, for example, in uh just a scenario when um the layoff happened, the option was there, but from a cost standpoint, it didn't make sense. So we didn't cut it.
SPEAKER_00:But we did look into it and we weighed the options and ran the numbers.
SPEAKER_04:I just knew that I could potentially get it for less if that's what we wanted to do. Right.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Um, some of the other ones, like you said, one funny thing is you mentioned the you know, the legal services. Um, some of these employers provide um a legal service benefit for employees that they can opt into and pay for. And what it does is it provides you access to attorneys for things like if you want to have a will created contracts, even if you, you know, disputing, you know, ticket, uh speeding tickets and stuff of that nature, provides you access to attorneys for extremely reduced costs. I remember um when we used it last, it was through MetLife, and I think where she was paying approximately$200 for the year to have the service.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was like$11 a month, maybe.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And we had a will created and a trust, and we didn't have to pay anything additional. So we got that for, you know, a little under$200 from obviously paying for the service, but didn't have to pay anything else. And normally I could tell you to have that done is gonna probably be anywhere between$800 to$1,000.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm gonna use some, not a lot of, but some of those policies now will also allow you to add on your parents.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which is nice because, you know, as our parents are aging and we know we're in the sandwich generation where we're taking care of our own kids, but also now starting to help take care of in a variety of ways our parents and making sure that they're squared away. So it's really nice to be able to, for a very nominal fee, uh, be able to add on legal services for parents as well, so that you can help them get their will and trust up to date or, you know, deal with any kind of other legal issues that might come up.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and here's the thing is too, with any of these benefits, ask the question. If you have a question about it, ask it. Sometimes in people's heads they're like, oh, this sounds like a dumb question. Who cares? Because it might not be. Like, you can't.
SPEAKER_00:Have you seen the internet lately? Literally, who cares?
SPEAKER_04:It might not be a dumb question. So, therefore, you need to go ahead and ask it and find out. Like, for example, like that scenario there, like adding your parents. Like, our parents are all getting older. Maybe you need to do some changes to their will and whatnot. Some people might think it's a dumb question to ask, like, why would my parents be covered by this?
SPEAKER_00:Closed mouths don't get fed. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04:So ask the question. Um, I mean, there's a lot of other benefits. Like I said, we've done this episode multiple times, or other, I just say explore all the different options. Like, you know, there are sometimes employers that offer adoption assistance, fertility support, even like pet insurance, you know, all these different things. So that's why we say take the time to look through all the things that your employer offers and opt into the things that, especially if they're free, opt into the ones that you think you could potentially use.
SPEAKER_00:And I will say if you are with a large company like Fortune 100, Fortune 500, they are trying to stay competitive. And a lot of them will have very strong competitive benefits packages. So you're thinking of things like um uh what's the word that I'm looking for? Like identity theft protection type services. Um, I mean, I use my corporate codes for hotels, for flights. I mean, those are things that you don't even think about as employee benefits. Yeah, but you might not see a huge difference.
SPEAKER_04:You might not have to enroll in them. They're just there for you. You need to know that you need to know they exist.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like I had a whole note in my phone of every corporate code that I could use with an airline and a hotel. And you better believe I looked there first before using any of my own points or miles or anything like that. So explore. And this is where we go back to the very beginning of the episode. You need some time to do this. Yes. Don't wait until the last minute. Don't just give yourself 24 hours. Like actually explore. Think about what's happened in your life. What did you not like that happened in the last 12 months that maybe you could help prevent, you know, in in this new open enrollment, what benefits did you not take advantage of that you you maybe heard other people had access to that you didn't enroll in, et cetera? So really do your due diligence.
SPEAKER_04:And also kind of going back to some aspect of the health insurance, um, the tax advantage accounts that you could possibly enroll into based upon which healthcare plan you choose. So, for example, if you have a high deductible health plan that you know works well for you, taking advantage of that ACS HSA is huge because with a health savings account, you are able to put money in pre-tax, it stays in there pre-tax, which you can actually invest it technically and it grow. And then you use it for qualified medical expenses and it's tax-free there. So it's completely triple tax advantage. So, you know, utilizing that can also be helpful in the sense of if your premiums went up for the year in regards to the plan that you're, you know, you're with, you can help offset maybe some of those costs by utilizing a health savings account or even a flex spend a flexible savings account, which is similar to an HSA, just not quite as many benefits, unfortunately. But it can help offset because it'll allow you to use pre-tax money to pay for medical expenses. So you save from a tax standpoint.
SPEAKER_00:And remember, FSA fast, F fast, you have to use it that year.
SPEAKER_04:Well, some of them do allow a certain amount. A little bit of rollover. So a little bit of a certain amount can roll over. So once again, it's understanding the details of your specific plan because unlike the HSA, where you can roll over, you know, an infinite amount, the flexible spending account, you do have to use a majority of it, but it some of the plans do allow you to roll over a certain amount.
SPEAKER_00:And for my skincare care girlies listening, you can use your FSA and your HSA for things like La Roche-Posay and maybe some of your higher-end skincare. So you can go through a lot of times there's a portal, like an HSA.com essentially portal. Um, and yeah, as long as it's a qualified expense, you know, maybe that skincare product goes with maybe an acne concern that you're having.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know why you said just girlies, because I got a skincare routine.
SPEAKER_00:Brandon is on his new skincare routine now.
SPEAKER_04:So some of us guys, you know, we're getting, you know, in our 40s.
SPEAKER_00:He's like, should I be using this? I'm like, yes, everybody should be using a toner. What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04:I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_00:So he's got his whole routine down, y'all. Doesn't he look beautiful? Doesn't he look beautiful? So, anyways, yeah, keep that in mind too. Those FSA and HSAs.
SPEAKER_04:Uh then also the uh dependent care FSA, which can be used to cover, you know, child care expenses, after school program for your kids, and even some of the like, you know, track on the summer camps as well. But then also it can be used for if you're caring for um an uh a parent of yours and they're dependent and there are some needs for them, you can actually use it for them as well.
SPEAKER_00:That's really important.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So these and then once again, this account works the same way where you're using pre-tax money. Okay. So it's allowing you to save some money.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Very nice. Awesome. Uh what else?
SPEAKER_04:And all honesty, like I just really want people to understand that you need to give yourself time to go over the information and ask questions if needed. Now, if you're looking through the information and you have questions, which is going to be normal because I don't think I've ever met someone who doesn't do this for a living that doesn't have questions, please reach out to myself or another qualified professional to help you out with this. Because here's one of the things that I want people to understand too is that your natural thing with this is to reach out to your HR person. And to be honest, that's not really their job. They coordinate the benefits, but they're not going to be the ones that are qualified to give you all the specific details of how these benefits work and how they coordinate and how they would actually, you know, be applicable to your given situation. That's really not their job. And I wouldn't, so don't expect them to provide you with that information.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So give yourself time, understand the benefits, ask the questions, write down your questions, and look at what you spent last year.
SPEAKER_04:I do have one more little, you know, I like to use personal stories when I can, is that um short-term disability.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_04:Understanding your short-term disability through your employer as well. Because I had a scenario where I have a client who unfortunately they don't their employer does not provide maternity leave. And they're not pregnant now, but you know, potentially in the future, they might want to use this. And we were looking into short-term disability, which in some states and some policies do allow you to use that for maternity leave. So understanding the specifics of if that's an option available to you. Like, do you have a short-term disability policy through your employer? A lot of people do. And what are the specifics of that policy and would they possibly cover that maternity leave or a portion of it to help out with that? So once again, it all comes back to knowing what benefits you have available to you and understanding all the details within your specific plan.
SPEAKER_00:All right. I love it. Well, if this was not enough open enrollment talk for you, we have several other episodes where you can dive into the archives and explore those episodes. But this one is the one for 2025. And if your premiums have skyrocketed like ours, so right now we're sitting at 17%. We've already heard from others going up 35%. We want to hear from you. If it went down, very unlikely. But congratulations, take the win. Uh, but slide in our DM, send us an email, let us know what your premiums are looking like this year. And if you do need help going through your benefits, Brandon is here for you. All of the ways to get in touch with him are in the show notes. We'll talk to you soon. Don't forget, Benjamin Franklin said, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid. Until next time.
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