Is your insurance setup rock-solid, or are you unknowingly leaving gaps that could cost you big time? Today, we break down the essentials of managing risk in our no-nonsense (but totally entertaining) guide to insurance.
- How much coverage do you really need? We tackle the must-haves and the unnecessary add-ons that might just be draining your wallet.
- Auto, home, life, and disability insurance—what’s essential and what’s overkill? We walk through the key policies that keep you protected without breaking the bank.
- Oddball insurance policies—are they worth it? From pet insurance to that ‘just in case’ coverage you saw on late-night TV, we separate the smart buys from the money traps.
- A TikTok minute that perfectly sums up the difference between dogs and cats. Trust us, you’ll relate.
- Listener questions: Breaking up with a financial advisor—when it’s time to walk away and how to do it right.
- Insurance company showdown: Who’s the biggest player in the game, and does size really matter?
- DIY money moves: How to take over your own investment accounts without making costly mistakes.
Stackers, this episode is packed with tips, laughs, and real-world insights to help you protect what matters—without wasting a dime. Don’t miss it!
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/navigating-the-insurance-maze-1649
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- What is the biggest insurance company in the USA, based on assets?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker Chris has a question about how to go about dumping his financial advisor – and what the implications may be in so doing.
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Other Mentions
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday when our roundtable tackles the question of what should be in your “financial go bag.”
Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: My podcast has a first name. It’s S-T-A-C-K ing. My podcast has a second name. It’s B-E-N-J-A. Hmm. [00:00:20] Live from Joe’s mom’s basement and the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:34] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And how will you cope when disaster strikes? For some of us, that’s easy. You’ll use insurance, but how much do you need? When are you being ripped off? And when should you ask your insurance company for more? Today we’re talking insurance 1 0 1 Bud. That’s not all. Wait, let me do that, right bud. [00:00:54] Wait, there’s more. On this Wild Wednesday magazine, we’ll feature a TikTok minute that just might reflect a few of our stackers when we head to the grocery store to buy Oh Eggs Plus we’ll answer a question from stacker Chris who wonders about. Firing his advisor. Should he leave a note on the pillow or just tell the advisor he is headed down to the store for some smokes? [00:01:18] We’ll help him decide. And you know what else we’re gonna do today? Of course, we’re gonna wind up old Doug’s trivia question so you can brag to all your friends at work about your clearly superior intelligence. And now speaking of intelligence, here comes two guys who. Can calculate compound interest, but still can’t figure out how to assemble Ikea furniture. [00:01:42] It’s Joe and OG. [00:01:49] Joe: It is an easy Doug, [00:01:50] Doug: have you tried it? [00:01:50] Joe: Yes. [00:01:50] Doug: Have you tried it? I’m like the yin of your yang. ’cause I can kick ass at IKEA furniture. I’m like, there’s a blur when I’m doing ninja. It’s amazing. I’ve got special tools. It’s, but I can’t do compound interest. [00:02:03] Joe: I feel like that little drawing person is just baiting me like, oh, this looks easy. [00:02:07] Come on, come on. [00:02:07] Doug: Always got the smile on his face. Yes, except where it says used, like if it says do it alone, and he is got the frowny face and then when there’s two people, there’s a happy face. [00:02:16] Joe: And then I, and then the other rule for IKEA furniture is, I think it’s mandatory. There’s. Three pieces left over at the end. [00:02:23] It looks good and I’m fairly certain it’s together, but I’m not sure why there’s three extra just things, dunno. Two hickeys Yes, [00:02:32] Doug: I think is the the thing that gets left over to [00:02:34] Joe: everybody. Welcome to IKEA Furniture Assembly for the Wind podcast. I am Joe Saul Sea. Hi, and this is your Wednesday edition of the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:02:43] We’re super happy you’re here because Mr. Og, we are talking insurance and I know there’s nothing you and I like better to do on a Wednesday than talk insurance, like light of fire. Get some cabernet. Chat about insurance. If [00:02:59] OG: you would’ve told me the agenda prior to today, I might have come down with a little something. [00:03:04] Joe: Oh, come on. Insurance is fun. You know the amount of money we’ve saved people and insurance coverages that were unnecessary in the past, so sick right now. I might have to take the rest of the show off. It is super thrilling as you can hear from og. It’s a thrill a minute. It actually is gonna be really good. [00:03:24] I can’t wait to save some people some money. That just [00:03:26] OG: generally means that there’s an article of somebody getting cornhole. And we we’re just like, oh God. Again, [00:03:32] Joe: believe it or not, we actually don’t have one of those today. I, oh, that is a first. It actually is a first. [00:03:38] Doug: Somebody getting cornhole. Oh my [00:03:42] Joe: gosh. [00:03:43] Doug: We have [00:03:44] Joe: a, [00:03:45] Doug: it’s, it’s the most vivid phrase and not in a good way, Doug. I’m picturing every colonel right now. That’s a game. [00:03:53] OG: Isn’t that what it’s called? When you lose a game of cornhole? [00:03:56] Doug: Yeah. That’s what it [00:03:56] OG: means. [00:03:57] Doug: That’s exactly what it [00:03:58] OG: means. I mean, that’s what I yell at the cottage. I got cornhole again by my kids. [00:04:03] Oh God. They’re so good at it. They’re little athletes, [00:04:06] Joe: man. It’s always frustrating when the kids beat you and then they hold it over you. I know. I know. It’s very difficult. We’ve got a phenomenal show today. Can’t wait for you to save some money on your insurances. Can’t wait to talk about the price, eggs and more. [00:04:23] Uh, we’ve got a couple sponsors that make sure this is the real goodness. They make sure that this show is free and that we can keep on keeping on. We’re gonna say hi to them and then let’s talk about insurances insurance. I. [00:04:41] Doug: Here’s why I hate this episode. Whenever we do this topic, Joe, it’s because I have to spend the hour listening to OG say it wrong. I, I mean, I, I would’ve called in sick if I’d known we were doing insurance today. You mean he says insurance wrong? Huh? Look at the time, time [00:04:58] Joe: to press the button, everybody. [00:04:59] We’re just gonna press the button [00:05:01] OG: over and over and over on this episode. You can never take Joe to the zoo. Because when he walks in with that big broomstick, they’re like, sir, what’s that for? He is like, it’s for poking all the tigers and bears [00:05:14] Joe: are, are you inferring that Doug is a tiger or a bear? Maybe like a cuddly little koala bear roar. Our piece today comes from. Fast Company Magazine. I told you there was something. Well, no, this is actually good stuff written by the co-author of the book that, uh, CNN said was the number one book to learn about personal finance called Stacked Emily. [00:05:37] Guy Burkin wrote this piece. Which insurance should you choose it? Sorry, let me do that again. 3, 2, 1. Which insurance should you choose? A quick guide on the coverage you need. Emily says, as a subject for delightful conversation. Personal insurance rake somewhat between polyp removal and credit default swaps, which means most of us don’t know what we. [00:06:00] Don’t know. Let’s talk about number one when it comes to insurance. See, I just gotta make sure I get the inflection right, that we’re really focused on the right thing. Because I think og, what the insurance industry wants us to do and what we should do are really two different things, right? I mean, the insurance industry wants you to take a look at Aflac. [00:06:19] And go, Ooh, do I need this? Do I need this coverage? Do I need this Allstate? Do I want mayhem in my life? You know, I can do all of them. By the way, do I really wanna end up like my parents? Is Flo my buddy? I don’t know who’s this gecko and why do I care about [00:06:32] Doug: the IMU and Doug? I don’t know. The best part about insurance right now is they are crushing it in their advertising campaigns. [00:06:39] I know they’re the best ads on TV of any industry. Is the insurance, the insurance industry? [00:06:44] Joe: I don’t know Those mayhem ones. I do wanna end that campaign. Let’s end that campaign. Fairly soon. I’m not a fan of the mayhem. There were [00:06:51] OG: a bunch that they never released on TV that they put on YouTube that were justhe Prime time Mayhem. [00:06:56] Yeah. Yeah. Just even worse. Uh, that ought to tell you a little something, right? Insurance companies, uh, I haven’t, uh, have a couple banner years to be able to throw together some pretty good advertising, so, [00:07:08] Joe: right. Hey, if I can throw a bunch of those on the Super Bowl, and I got too many, I, I paid my place so many, we can’t do them all. [00:07:16] But seriously, og. I mean, insurance is an important part of this risk management thing, but truly I think we should be thinking about what are my risks first? Not what insurances do [00:07:26] OG: I buy first? I mean, the biggest thing that you have to start with is what am I trying to solve for if something goes wrong? [00:07:34] Like, what are the things that can go wrong in my life and, uh, catastrophes and what does this mean to me financially if those bad things happen. If my house catches fire or gets blown away by a tornado, like what does that mean? And for most people it’s like, well, it means that I would be homeless, so therefore I need to have some coverage there. [00:07:58] Also, it’s mandated by the mortgage company that I have some base level of coverage because of their interests to be taken care of. Same thing with cars and that sort of thing, and where it gets mistaken. I was on a Reddit board. I really wasn’t arguing about it, but I was, you know, it was an interesting conversation about this person was like, I make X dollars and I’ve maxed out my 401k, and my financial advisor said I need to put 40,000 a year into my insurance plan, because that’s what rich people do. [00:08:31] Joe, you and I, and Doug, you probably know this, having listened to the show a long time, that’s utter bs, right? That’s starting with. Not solving a problem that’s starting with a product first. And this insurance salesperson’s product is this commissionable product that he’s selling this guy. And not saying that that isn’t the most appropriate thing for him. [00:08:51] I doubt it, but, but just starting with the product is more likely than not gonna gonna put you in a bad spot. It just, you’re not solving a problem. You’re buying something. First and then trying to figure out what problem it solves. That doesn’t make any sense to me, [00:09:08] Joe: and I think that’s why the first two things we wanna think about. [00:09:10] We think about managing our risk. We wanna think about two things. I wanna think about magnitude first, og, like what would be truly devastating to my family? I’m 30 years old, I have three children. My spouse doesn’t work. They rely on my income and I pass away. That is a huge devastation. That’s huge magnitude to the family when it comes, the ability to just continue to exist. [00:09:36] I think magnitude then is, is definitely the number one thing we wanna think about. And then I think the second one is probability, right? The probability that this will happen, like as an example, your house. Your house, that’s for a lot of people. Big magnitude. You know, that’s, that’s generally the biggest asset most of us will buy ever, is this piece of property that we have. [00:10:01] But in terms of probability, the chance that something’s gonna happen where you use your homeowner’s insurance, a hell lot less than your car, which is why. Because there’s a bigger probability that something happens to your car. Insurance companies have deemed that car insurance costs more for the average person. [00:10:19] Maybe not for everybody, but for the average person, car insurance costs more than homeowners insurance. When you look at the probability probability’s so much higher, you’re gonna use your car insurance, that they’re going to charge you more for that than they will for the magnitude on your house. But I think in that way, thinking OG like the insurance companies is what I wanna do. [00:10:39] You know, I wanna think about, okay, what are my biggest risks and how do I cover those? And that immediately eliminates all of these insurances that are just, you know, I won’t say that they’re garbage. But, but there are insurances that are for these risks that it, you know, just there’s a sliver that it might happen. [00:10:55] Cancer coverages. Why would I have a cancer coverage versus having a good disability coverage and a good life insurance coverage? I think coupling it with those two versus the specific of cancer might be a better idea. Accidental death and dismemberment insurance. If you work in a factory, I think that makes, might make some sense. [00:11:15] But for the average person who’s in a cubicle with a keyboard or working from home on a keyboard, you know, again, disability coverage I think is a higher probability. [00:11:26] OG: Yeah, I mean, ultimately it’s starting from the perspective of trying to figure out what is the, uh, what are the things that can go wrong in your plan? [00:11:36] Talk about insurance, and we talk about, you know, having different policies, but this also affects your decision making within those policies in terms of how much emergency fund you have and as your emergency fund goes up. Your coverage can change on the plan because you need to have less exposure to the company because you can cover more of it on your own when you have debt. [00:12:03] You know, it’s all these things kind of dovetail together. It’s like when you have a car loan, people say, well, it’s not a, it’s not a bad deal. I mean, I got a great 1% rate or 1.9% rate. That’s awesome, right? Well, maybe the car loan people might make you have a $500 or max a thousand dollars deductible. You might choose a $2,000 deductible because you have an adequate cash reserve, and because you’re gonna take care of all of that initial, you know, a fender bender or a windshield chip or something on your own, then your premiums go down so much more. [00:12:37] Is that better than. The low interest on, you know what I mean? Like all of this stuff is like flowing together a hundred percent. You know, you have to start with what are the holes in the plan? What are the things that can go wrong in the plan that will prevent me from reaching the goals that I have? [00:12:54] And then, you know, to your point, you’re gonna get to some pretty quickly. Well, if I get hit by a bus, that would probably suck if I didn’t make it. It would also suck if I did make it and couldn’t work. You know? Absolutely. And so you can start piecing those things together and saying, alright, if I get hit by a bus and don’t make it, what’s the exposure that my family has? [00:13:14] How are we gonna put the kids through college? How are we gonna pay off the house and maintain the standard of living? [00:13:19] Joe: This is why I opened this whole segment og we talking about, don’t think like the insurance company at first, right? Insurance company wants to ask what coverage. You wanna open with what risk? [00:13:29] Because if you think about insurance, you think about, okay, how do I cover it? But I love what you said, the number one way to cover any risk. If at all possible is the emergency fund. The emergency fund is a insurance policy. You’re insuring yourself with that insurance policy man when you’ve got that and you can raise those deductibles and you lower all that premium expense that you’re paying out to other people to do a job that you could do to cover all these little things yourself. [00:13:56] And you’re not buying these crappy coverages where the probability isn’t high or the magnitude isn’t high. And I’ll tell you another, this might upset people. Pet insurance is not a great insurance policy. Now it’s not because your pet doesn’t get sick. I, I get hell mail about this OG every time I bring this up. [00:14:15] I’m [00:14:15] OG: glad you chose to do it then. [00:14:16] Joe: Yes, but there’s a reason for it and I hope our pet lovers understand why. The reason why this is a crappy thing isn’t because your, your pet isn’t worth it. It’s because who buys pet insurance, which is another piece of this. People that love their pets. Absolutely love their pets. [00:14:33] They see ’em as a member of the family. So guess what they do? Every time, you know, Mr. Whipple gets the sniffles, they’re in there with the cat taking the cat to the vet every time. And so studies show that people that get pet insurance, so the people that care about their pets, and so they take ’em to the vet all the time. [00:14:51] So every study I’ve ever seen has shown that it costs just as much money to just take your. Pet to the vet and pay for it. Yeah. As it does to have the coverage. Now, dental insurance, by the way, very much the same. Very much the same. It’s, it’s close to now. The thing about dental insurance and pet insurance, where I can get on board is because you’re paying for it at a monthly premium versus this one out of pocket expense that hits your emergency fund. [00:15:18] Or if you don’t have an emergency fund, you know, you’re kind of doling it out a little bit at a time versus these big hits to your budget. But I think thinking about risk management, what are my biggest risks? Og, you’re gonna go, yeah. Pet insurance. I’m not gonna get, because if I take my pet to the vet, it’s gonna cost X amount anyway. [00:15:37] I’m not starting with the insurance policy. [00:15:39] Doug: I. Those emotions of being a pet owner are powerful. I listened to you guys talk about how bad pet insurance was for years before I finally did the math and canceled our pet insurance. We have two dogs and thought it’s gotta be better, you know, to pay for the premiums. [00:15:56] And with pet insurance vets never submit. To the insurance company on your behalf. That’s one of the great reasons. The veterinarian industry right now is getting focused on by private equity and, and other investors, because it’s an all cash business. They don’t have to deal with insurance, but that’s a whole separate topic anyway. [00:16:15] You pay cash upfront and then you submit your, your bill, your receipt to your insurance company. You’re never getting that back. And so we were paying an enormous amount in premiums and never making up for the premium cost. We never came out positive. You never did on that deal? Never once. And it took so many years of doing, you know, going back and doing that math and realizing, what are we doing here? [00:16:38] Yes, of course we love our pets, but it doesn’t mean we’re not gonna go to the vet, but we’re spending less money by just. Paying cash and not trying to submit for reimbursement. You spend less money if you just pay the bill. [00:16:50] Joe: Well, and to be clear, this is because pet lovers are in that pool, and I wanna take a second OG and talk about the pool of people that you, when you buy insurance. [00:16:57] Insurance, I’m sorry. When you buy insurance, oh my God, that you’re in the pool with. Because I think that’s important too, but with pet owners, I got a dog next door to me here that barks nonstop. [00:17:08] OG: He’s gonna need his pet insurance. [00:17:10] Joe: Here’s the other. Well, I know these people don’t have pet insurance ’cause they clearly don’t give a damn about the dog. [00:17:15] I feel bad for the pet because if there’s a dog that’s barking 24 7, there’s clearly a problem. There clearly is something going on, but the owners don’t care enough about their pet. I feel horrible for the pet. Those people. I could bet you a bajillion dollars. They do not have pet insurance. Pet insurance are people that love their pets and because of that, that pool is full of people that are gonna use the coverage like Doug. [00:17:39] And that means it’s very difficult to get your money back ’cause there’s so many people accessing that pool all the time. But og, it’s the same with life insurance premiums or disability in premiums or when you drive, the premium goes up based on, can you talk about pooling your risk with these other people? [00:17:56] OG: Yeah, I mean, I think that ultimately all of this stuff comes into play with all of your financial plan. I’ll give you an example. In our, in our situation, we have had two roof replacements in our house and everybody, you know, in different parts of the country are, are different. But kind of hot topic right now is homeowners insurance in different areas being kind of through the roof and there’s lots of reasons for that. [00:18:18] But we’ve had two roof replacements in the time that we’ve lived here. In both cases, the insurance company approved for and paid a larger amount than what the actual roof cost to fix was. And I was like, what? What is going on here? Why, why, why are you guys giving me $10,000 more? And they’re like, well, that’s just how much we approved. [00:18:40] And I like, okay, well I figured out why my freaking premiums are going through the roof, you know? Because you guys are, are paying too much. But anyways, the deductible that we have was equal to the cost of a roof. So listen and I were talking about it and I’m like, okay, so hold on a second. The number one thing that could go wrong in our house is a hailstorm, and we have to get a new roof, right? [00:19:04] So if we have to get a new roof, we’re paying the deductible of the new roof. Like that’s how much it costs. So we’re not gonna file a claim, therefore we’re out of pocket. This money regardless. So, a. Our cash reserve needs to have this money kind of at the, the right roof replacement in it. You know, I mean, it really, it’s unlikely that there’s giant holes through the roof, although that happens on occasion. [00:19:24] It’s more subtle damage and, you know, long-term issues if you don’t fix it. But we need to have that available. And, and then in looking at the premium numbers, it was like, well wait a second. If we made that number twice as much, which, what’s the next thing that happens besides roof replacement? In my mind, and I’ve lived through a house fire in my mind. [00:19:45] Your house is either okay or it’s not. I, I’ve, I’ve never seen too many, like middle of the road, like I had half my house. There’s [00:19:52] Joe: no bigger check until you get to mammoth check. [00:19:56] OG: Yeah. That’s kind of how I think about it. And there’s probably cases just like your pet insurance things where people are like, well, no, I made my money on that. [00:20:02] It’s like, right. I understand there’s, there’s anecdotal cases, but in my experience and looking at this for a quarter century, it’s like. You’re either fixing the roof or you’re rebuilding the house, right? It, it has a hole in it from a tail stone, or it got struck by lightning and you’re fixing it because it was on fire. [00:20:19] And so we looked at it and said, what else can we do here? Is the gap in our cash reserve okay? Enough to say, instead of having this deductible, can we have this? And then it takes that premium for whatever reason and craters it, because in the insurance company’s mind, they’re like, oh, they’re on the hook for the first X dollars. [00:20:37] We’re good. I think all of these things are intertwined when it comes to, you know, when it comes to this type of insurance. [00:20:45] Joe: Exactly. They know now that you’re not gonna be in a pool of people that will file a claim when hail hits. Like you’re, you’ve signaled them loud and clear. I am not filing a claim. [00:20:56] So yeah, you leave this pool of people and now you’re in a pool of people that are just, Hey, the house burns down and now the actuaries at the company that do the math, ’cause these insurance companies. Know the math. Yeah. And this is when you wanna think like an insurance company, right? How am I gonna price this to make sure that we stay in business? [00:21:15] You’re in a pool of people that are never gonna file a claim that most probably will never file a claim. Right. I. On the other side of this equation, OG Emily hits the big one where people file claims all the time that they think that they won’t. The first type of insurance is disability insurance. This pays a portion of your salary. [00:21:32] She writes, when you’re unable to go back to work, will help keep you financially stable. She points out that one out of every four current 20 year olds become disabled before they reach retirement age for some amount of time. Now again, a lot of those OG are gonna be short-term disability coverages. [00:21:48] Right. Short term disability, I’m out for a month or two. So maybe if you’ve got a good emergency fund, yeah, you can mitigate the cost of insurance by having an emergency fund, but disability gotta be the one that everybody should be thinking about more than any. [00:22:02] OG: I think the major problem here is that a lot of people think of the word disability and then they think of a disabled person. [00:22:08] Whatever that image is to you of a disabled person and you go, well, that’s not me. I’m not gonna be disabled. No. It means that you were in a car accident and you can’t go to work for a period of time, or you have a health issue that causes you to need an extended amount of time off. It doesn’t mean that you are disabled in whatever that means to you. [00:22:29] That just means you’re unable to go to work, you’re sick or hurt. I prefer just saying sick or hurt. Is there a chance, you said 20 year olds, one in four. Is there a chance that you’re sick or hurt for a period of time in your lifetime? Yeah. I mean, we just went through it five years ago where people were sick for God knows how long. [00:22:46] So there’s, there’s lots of opportunities in our lives to be sick or hurt. And thankfully a lot of companies provide kind of a base level coverage, right? You have some group coverage, but you really wanna look at that and kind of examine that policy and those benefits to find out exactly what it covers. [00:23:03] For example, many times group policies only cover your base salary, don’t cover bonuses or stock. [00:23:09] Doug: Oh, wow. Many [00:23:10] OG: times it’s fully taxable. Instead of tax free. So it’s like, oh, I get 60% of my salary. I should be good. Well, that’s 60% of your salary, not salary, plus bonus plus RSUs, and it’s taxable. So now you’re taking home 45 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar. [00:23:28] And a lot of times, especially if you get to those high income earning people. There’s maximums. So you say, well, I’m a doctor. I make $800,000 a year. If, you know, if all of a sudden I only made 500, I’d still be okay. It’s like, okay. Yeah, that’s true, I suppose, except for the fact that your policy taps out at 15,000 a month, so now you’re making 180. [00:23:47] Oh, by the way, that’s taxable. [00:23:49] Joe: And I’ve seen policies OG where it’s, you know, the person’s making, making $180,000 and the policy says. 60% with a cap of 5,000. Not even 15,000. Yeah, 5,000. [00:24:00] OG: Yeah. You wanna read into it and kind of chart those things out, but that’s true with that or with any policy. Well, I think the most [00:24:07] Joe: important part of disability policy is to look into that. [00:24:10] Second most though, is definitely this idea of own occupation protection, if possible. Can you talk about own occupation for a second, what that is? Because I think this is, this is clearly going to make disability coverage either worth it or. Throw it in the trash. [00:24:27] OG: Yeah. I mean, really when it comes to your illness or injury, you wanna be insured against your ability to do your job, whatever your job is. [00:24:35] And um, I. Again, insurance companies, I don’t think they’re your friends, right? They’re not designed to dole out money willy-nilly. Their goal is to be profitable for their association or for their shareholders, and if they can make it so by denying your claim, they’re likely to try to do that. Even the federal government with Social Security Disability is well known for always declining the first app. [00:24:59] It’s almost comical. You talk to a Social security disability lawyer and they go, oh yeah, you just have to send it in twice. The first one, they auto decline. And it’s like, this is the government, the, the like the last resort of people to help somebody out. And their policy is still, maybe not formal, but it seems as though, how bad do you want it? [00:25:16] It’s the first one. So, you know, you wanna make sure that your coverage is covering you for the things that are unique to you and what own occupation coverage does for disability is it insures you for your job. You know, there’s not an out for the company to say, well, I mean you can go work at McDonald’s. [00:25:31] You’re not, not that sick. You can go, you can be a cashier at Target. You could go do that. So we don’t need to pay. They’re saying, well, you can’t be a hand surgeon. Yeah, I could go do that, but I can’t do my job. And my job was surgery, so I. Y’all are paying, you know, yeah, I can go to other things, but not this [00:25:51] Joe: really important piece of disability. [00:25:53] Second on her list in terms of the combo, of course, it’s your auto insurance taking care of that car crashes. Leading cost of death in the United States, total of 120 people killed per day in car accidents. What’s the most important thing for us to know about our auto insurance? Oog. [00:26:09] OG: Our, uh, auto agent told us that insurance price for young men who are 16 to 22 include car replacement every two years. [00:26:17] They just assume, oh goodness, they’re gonna wreck a car every two years. Oh no. That’s how they price it. [00:26:21] Joe: Wait a minute. They’re gonna come down to your bedroom and say, dad, there’s a problem with the car. They’re gonna say that. [00:26:27] OG: Yeah. They’s a problem with the car. I ran over a mailbox anyways. I think the biggest piece here personally is uninsured and underinsured. [00:26:36] I. Coverage. Most people will, again, when you look at premium as a solution, when you, when you go, I need to have this be the lowest cost possible, you’re kind of starting from the wrong spot. You need to start from what are my exposures and what do I need to make sure is covered in case something bad happens in my plan? [00:26:55] And that’s my plan is not to wreck my car. But if I do, you know, what exposure do I have from a liability standpoint? What exposure do I have from a financial standpoint? A lot of times. Other people are involved in accidents and you can’t control what their coverage is. So I think underinsured and uninsured coverage is probably the most important. [00:27:16] Next to just making sure that you have good numbers there. Don’t, don’t go for the least expensive. [00:27:21] Joe: I would, uh, press your agent as well on any discounts you may get. Often there are discounts that, that you’re eligible for. You know about, yeah, I have like a dash cam, [00:27:29] OG: right? Like some relatively low cost. [00:27:33] Additional insurance. Right. You’re saying you, you, it’s not this he said, he said type of thing anymore. It’s, I’ve got the video and it was 300 bucks to go to Best Buy and have them put it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like that’s a, that’s an extra insurance policy and a lot of times those things in addition to like you’re talking about your discounts. [00:27:51] How close you are to a fire hydrant, how far you have to travel to and from work. Do you just use the car for school or are you Ubering also? Well, dear kids, get good grades. Good grades is an absolutely, A lot of these companies have good grades. Yeah. There’s a correlation to responsibility there. So alumni association, discounts and you know, all that sort of stuff. [00:28:12] Joe: Next up on their list is life insurance. This is the one that, for 99% of us, you were talking about putting a ton of money into a life insurance policy, og. You know, when we start off with buying insurance, we’re gonna put $40,000 into a life insurance policy. We start off with covering risk. Yeah, I think we’re gonna attack this a totally different way. [00:28:30] OG: In my experience, most people are so underinsured for what they think because they think about it like a bunch of money and not what that money is for you. You say, oh, I mean, I’ve got a million do my God, a million dollars. Like how? How much does she need? She’ll get a million if I’m dead. How much does she, right? [00:28:49] Like this is the stuff that I hear, and then you say, all right, well let’s spend the money. Let’s spend it and see how far it goes. You know, the number one thing that everybody does if their spouse dies prematurely is they say, I want to pay the house off. Almost uniformly. Oh, my mortgage is 2%. She wouldn’t wanna do that. [00:29:06] Yes, she will. Like, trust me, this is the number one check that they write is pay the house off. The number two check or checks is I want the kids to be able to go to college. I just want that off my plate. You can literally sit down and figure that out, right? You can say, the mortgage balance is this, and I have three kids and I’ve got this in the 5 29. [00:29:24] I need this to top off their college funds. So you write these checks right out the gate. It’s not uncommon for somebody to have five, six, 700,000 mortgage balance, a four. You got three kids, you might be writing another two, $300,000 of checks to the 5 29 to the college fund, and then just use that 4% rule. [00:29:45] From there. Say, okay, well I got half a million left. That’s 20 grand a year. For a lot of people, that’s not a lot of cash flow to keep the lights on. Term life insurance is so inexpensive relative to the benefit. It’s so inexpensive. Well, it’s inexpensive. Maybe for you it’s $400 a month. I know it’s $400 a month, but that’s for $5 million of coverage, or that’s 2 million, you know? [00:30:07] But that’s what it is, you know, and until your cash reserve or your asset level is high enough to offset that, then that’s what you’re transferring. You’re saying, I don’t have, I’m 35, I got three kids. They’re counting on me for the next five generations to save a bunch of money for the next 30 years. [00:30:25] I’m taking away that 35 years of savings. What do I have to do today? Well, I gotta put that 5 million in the account today, [00:30:31] Joe: and if possible for some of us, you know, we talked about the different pools of risk that you’re in. If there’s a way at all for you to get into a pool where the risk is less for the insurance company, aa, some lifestyle choices maybe that you make, uh, some risk that you take, those are things that can maybe mitigate that cost a little [00:30:49] OG: bit. [00:30:49] Plus you get a free health screening when you get insurance. Yeah. [00:30:52] Joe: Fantastic. [00:30:53] OG: Get a stranger that gets to, I’m [00:30:55] Joe: sure they’re [00:30:55] OG: great at [00:30:56] Joe: drawing [00:30:56] OG: blood. [00:30:56] Joe: It is good. It was actually really easy when I got mine done. [00:30:59] Doug: 10 minutes when we got evaluated for that for our life insurance policy way back a hundred years ago when we first got married, I watched the nurse pull up. [00:31:10] Sit in her car and smoke cigarettes before she came into our house and then proceeded to ask us if we smoke or not. [00:31:17] Joe: Hey, are you a smoker? Yeah. Sorry about that. Well, wasn’t judgment, Doug? I mean, they had to ask the question. Yeah. Also, og, when you retire, if you’ve got enough money for you to actually make it through retirement, you’ve done that. [00:31:33] Then the need for that term insurance, all these costs that you talk about. They go away over time. They are done for most of us, and then we, we don’t need that coverage again. It’s almost like your retirement planning is also a gigantic emergency fund, right? For if, if one of you passes away. All right. [00:31:49] Last one on here is, uh, homeowner’s insurance. What do we need to know mostly about our homeowner’s insurance? [00:31:55] OG: Well, the thing that we just talked about a little bit ago for us and was pretty eye-opening, the, the radical change that you can make in premium by increasing your deductible profoundly. [00:32:05] Increasing your deductible if you’ve got the cash reserve to pay for it. And just looking through all of the different coverages. It’s interesting to me like when we look at this stuff and we’ll say, oh, I see that you’ve got a, uh, you know, an addendum here for jewelry and firearms. I go, yeah. Well, how much jewelry and firearms do you have? [00:32:25] Well, none. Shouldn’t we have that just in case? It’s like, why? Why? Why wouldn’t you do that? Or the people that have it but then haven’t followed the rules of what that means. You know? You can’t just arbitrarily tack on jewelry and firearms to your policy and then just go, by the way, I had a bunch of stuff. [00:32:44] You have to do what it says, and the next thing is you have to go get it appraised. You have to make a list of all those things and you go, wait a second, I have to take all this stuff and get it appraised. Yes. That’s how it works. You can’t just, your house can’t go up and steal flames and be like, all those Tiffany diamonds that I had, [00:33:01] Joe: I found my horse got robbed. [00:33:02] They wanted serial numbers, models of my televisions that got stolen. Yeah, my computer that got stolen. They want that Now. The cool thing is I had replacement value coverage, which meant that they weren’t gonna replace my five-year-old tv. I got a brand new one. But they really wanted to match it as much as possible. [00:33:19] Yeah. Doug? [00:33:20] Doug: Yeah, no, I just actually wanted to make a clarification. There was a rare moment of misspeak from OG a couple of minutes ago. Um, I doubt. What’s that? [00:33:29] OG: I said I doubt that but go ahead. [00:33:31] Doug: I know. Well I’m 99.7% sure. You said if you have the cash reserves, you can reduce your deductible. And what I think you meant is you can increase your deductible. [00:33:40] You, you would increase the deductible to lower the premiums. You can get lower. Yeah. Premiums. That’s what I said by increasing your deductible. I don’t think you did [00:33:49] OG: check tape. [00:33:49] Doug: You gotta [00:33:50] Joe: listen to what he meant. Check tape. When he talks about insurance, you gotta think about what he meant. Oh my god. So go around and video the stuff around your house. [00:34:00] Uh, maybe once a year. I like doing that on my birthday. Just spent that day recently doing that [00:34:05] Doug: and narrate it. Yes. And by the way. Don’t try to say that you lost your diamonds in the fire because they don’t burn up. [00:34:14] They’ll find the diamonds if you say that happen. Well, I can tell you, Mrs. [00:34:17] OG: Mrs. OGs diamonds melt. I can tell you that they do. [00:34:22] Joe: She doesn’t know it. She doesn’t know it yet, but trust me, they’re gonna melt. I had that happen with a family member. I don’t know if I’ve told you guys that. I had a family member that took their jewelry to get appraised and found out that that love was not as strong Oh, as, as they had thought that it was. [00:34:43] No, just the [00:34:44] OG: budget wasn’t [00:34:44] Joe: as strong. The love was, the budget wasn’t as strong. The love is as strong. Uh, but I think it would’ve been better had the offender told the person ahead of time. They, they would’ve probably been good with it. [00:34:54] OG: Yeah. You could get rid of that whole side. Like, honey, shouldn’t we get the big jewelry policies? [00:34:59] Like, nah, nah. I mean, what are the odds? What, I mean what is the base level coverage? It says they’ll cover up to 2000. Yeah, we’re good with that. Just do that. No, you said these, uh, you said this ring was, uh, yeah, I know, but what are the chances? Look at how big this rock is. Yes, it is indeed a rock. [00:35:16] Joe: Very shiny rock. [00:35:18] Once she figures out that you can take the plastic wrapper off it and start sucking on it, it gets smaller. It’s the biggest ruby I’ve ever seen. This thing’s incredible and it’s delicious. So big [00:35:29] OG: they can only put it on a plastic ring. [00:35:34] Joe: Uh, by the way, this covers, uh, renter’s insurance too. You definitely want to have good renter’s coverage. [00:35:39] I know plenty of times when they’re so renter’s cover is [00:35:41] OG: super interesting, right? You go, well, hey, my apartment flooded. We had this exact problem with our apartment building when we had it. We obviously had insurance for the apartment. It covered the rebuild of the apartment, but one of our tenants said, Hey, there was a leak and it ruined some stuff. [00:35:57] And I said, that’s what your renter’s insurance is for. Your renter’s insurance is for your stuff. My insurance is for my stuff, which is the building and the drywall and the sheet rock and you know, all that sort of stuff. I, I don’t insure as a landlord, I don’t insure your property. They were pretty upset about it. [00:36:12] And then I pointed to the lease that said that they’re required to have renter’s insurance as per their lease. I was [00:36:17] Doug: just gonna ask you that. Didn’t you require that? ’cause most landlords do. Yeah, of course they do. And get to rent without having rent insurance. Said [00:36:23] OG: yeah. Yeah, of course. I, uh, have it, but, uh, I think you should pay for it anyway. [00:36:28] Okay. [00:36:29] Joe: Many benefits you can get through your workplace. We have a guide to your workplace benefits at stacky Benjamins dot com slash benefits. Average person changes jobs once every 4.2 years. If you don’t change jobs, maybe your company decides to either upgrade or downgrade the benefits as changes happen there. [00:36:47] And if they don’t mess with it, well then maybe the government changes plans as they have many times throughout the years. Stack Benjamins dot com slash benefits. It gets you from the 1 0 1 we did today onto how to use your company benefits. To get there. Coming up next, we’ve got a stacker at Neat stacker. [00:37:04] Chris, not sure that they’re still in love with their advisor. Uh, how do they break up with their advisor? We’re gonna answer that and talk briefly about the price of eggs. But before that, Doug, I think you’ve got, uh, some trivia for us today. What’s on tap, man? Darn right. I [00:37:20] Doug: got trivia. Joe. Hey there, stackers. [00:37:23] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and I don’t know about you, but listening to all this insurance talk, that’s insurance. I’m thinking I need to reexamine my coverage. If I decided to choose the biggest insurance company in the USA based on total assets and not whether or not they have a character named Doug in their commercials, which insurance company would I choose? [00:37:45] That’s the question. What’s the biggest insurer in the USA by assets? I’ll be back with your answer right after I go put on a life jacket. Can’t be too careful when mom’s running the washing machine. [00:38:04] Hey there, stackers. I’m seatbelt wearer and super safe skier. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Buying insurance is so much fun, isn’t it? I get to choose between calling an 800 number with a person on the other end, I don’t believe or. Getting on a website that gives me data. I don’t believe in one of those chat bots who’s definitely not a person or talking to an insurance agent. [00:38:26] I might not believe, I don’t believe it. Ah, what a frustrating process. But if I chose the biggest insurance company in the USA based on assets, which insurance company would I choose? While MetLife at number three is huge, and Prudential’s even bigger at number two, of course, it’s Berkshire Hathaway who actually owns 10 different insurance companies, including Geico, making them the biggest insurance company in the USA. [00:38:56] Didn’t know about Berkshire Hathaway being in the insurance game. Yeah, that’s because they don’t have a commercial with a crazy guy in the neighborhood named Doug. And now time for you to buckle up because here comes Joe and og. [00:39:09] Joe: True story. They tried to make Berkshire Hathaway and Doug, but it was just too close. [00:39:15] Doug: I don’t feel like enough people catch the, and Doug on those LIMU commercials because that’s so damn funny. And Doug, [00:39:24] Joe: those commercials just so, man, you know, it’s, they kind of Norm McDonald did that. Thing where they’re like, I think the whole world went, these commercials aren’t that funny. And they’re like, no, we’re gonna keep going. [00:39:35] We’re just gonna, yeah, we’re just gonna keep going. ’cause it’s not, we already [00:39:37] Doug: rented the emu. [00:39:39] Joe: We’re gonna, we’re gonna lean into it. By the way, speaking of Norm McDonald, I saw Anthony Zelnick recently on a podcast interview who’s a hilarious comedian on his own. Right, but he was talking about Norm McDonald and how he really didn’t like Norm McDonald. [00:39:53] Have you heard the story, Doug? [00:39:54] Doug: No, I know that, I know Anthony J just sellek. Yes. But, but, uh, I don’t know the story. [00:40:00] Joe: Go and he said Norm McDonald was his hero, but Norm McDonald, when he met him, did not like him. Did not like, he couldn’t figure out why Norm did like him, but Norm just didn’t want anything to do with him. [00:40:09] And finally. After a bunch of begging, Anthony gets to work on some stuff with Norm and they’re working on, they actually go and they do this project together and they end up on all the late night talk shows. I think they were going on Larry King and they were going one after the other and they’re backstage getting ready to go and Anthony’s gonna go on first and Norm goes, okay, you wanna do something really funny? [00:40:33] Like really funny, like Inside Joke. And Anthony knowing Norm McDonald goes, yeah, I definitely wanna do Inside Joke with you. Are you kidding me? Like you’re my hero. Let’s do it. He goes, here’s what we’re gonna do. Let’s not talk about this project working on together. Let’s just bust each other. Let’s like rip each other. [00:40:48] Like we just hate each other. Like, let’s totally just rip each other. And Anthony goes, oh my God, that’s so funny. This sounds like he’s getting set up. And so, and so Anthony, Anthony walks out and, uh, Larry King goes, so Anthony, how do you like Nor McDonald, he’s like that piece of crap. Like, I had to carry this thing. [00:41:06] It was absolutely horrible. Working with him was just absolutely rotten. I couldn’t believe it. He goes, and I can hear Norm backstage laughing his butt off, right? This is just going so great. And then so Anthony gets done. Norm is standing right backstage, getting ready to go on. They high five each other and Anthony walks back and, and uh, norm goes out. [00:41:26] And of course after the commercial break, they introduced Norm. They go, how’d you like working with Anthony? He’s a hell of a human being. And one of my favorite people. [00:41:38] Just, just incredible. Yank the right. Anyway, all right, time for our TikTok minute. This is the part of the show where we either see some greatness on TikTok or some air quotes, uh, greatness. We are talking about pet insurance earlier, and it’s interesting, Doug, talking about your dogs. The stuff that dogs can know is pretty amazing. [00:42:00] Mm-hmm. Like I know, uh, well, mom’s dog, you can’t say you’re going for a walk. You cannot say, ’cause they know that word. Yeah. Like they immediately know, immediately Know that word. [00:42:10] Doug: We don’t have those round things. You bake in an oven. Oh, we don’t have those. We have C double Os We have to, we have to spell it. [00:42:20] Have you given them COO yet today? We can’t say the whole word, but it’s funny [00:42:24] Joe: they haven’t caught on to COO. No, that’s true. And mom’s dog has not caught onto to WALK. They will spell it out every time. Doug’s mom has no idea. [00:42:32] Doug: Why are you spelling it, Joe? It’s not in the house with you. Mine are. I can’t say the they. [00:42:37] Why I’m saying [00:42:38] Joe: that’s what they say around the house is WALK every time. And they’ve never caught onto that. But if you say walk, I’ll say it out loud. If they say the word walk, then it’s that, but there is a difference. And stacker Julie sent us the difference between dogs and cats and, um, here, well, here’s the difference. [00:42:56] TikTok: Here’s the real difference between cats and dogs. A dog can learn up to 250 words and gestures count up to five, and even perform simple math equivalent. Human age three. A cat doesn’t give a and is sick of your equivalent Human age, 42. [00:43:21] Joe: Thanks to Julie for setting that in. Julie’s a pet lover probably has pet insurance. [00:43:25] Doug: I think OG and his cat are having that. Can you imagine the looks that go back and forth between the, those are two animals just built to flip you off without saying a word. We should have built that into that segment. [00:43:40] Because O OG doesn’t give a and is sick of your, I mean, I could just see them across the room from each other. Like, don’t even think about it. Stupid [00:43:51] Joe: cat. All right, let’s get onto something real. Uh, time for us to answer the call from a stacker who said, you know what? I better call sa See, hi and og. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on a stacker in need. [00:44:03] And you know what, uh, stacker, and by the way, stacker, Chris, this is the fifth. Fifth time that Chris has called the show, Chris is gonna point it out here guys, but five times. Call him the show. Chris, you need friends. Or apparently we’re not giving him answers that are [00:44:21] Doug: valuable. [00:44:23] Joe: This is like when you hang up and you call again to hopefully get a different person on the one 800. [00:44:28] Line, Chris, or messing with you. Thanks for calling, man. What do you got? [00:44:33] caller: Hey guys, your buddy Chris from Texas, or should we say bestie now part of the exclusive five time collar club. Wait for you to send me my special SB smoking jacket soon, but I need your sage wisdom. My wife has been working with a financial advisor for some years before we met. [00:44:47] Then after we got engaged in 2019, we had a meeting with him to discuss how he works and maybe making some changes. Given our age, I wanted all stock exposure, and by that I mean maybe an s and p 500 fund, a little international and a little single stock exposure. I wanted to give him some time to see how he worked and what value he could bring, so we changed his most aggressive option. [00:45:06] Fast forward to today, I receive our 5 29 statement for our just turned two year olds plan, and 2024 return is only 11.55%. You can imagine I’d be pretty upset when the s and p was at almost 24%. Her other accounts are underperforming the s and p 500 very dramatically, and besides the advisors management fee. [00:45:22] The funds range from 0.24 to 0.95% expense ratios. We did contribute to her Roth IRA in July, and it’s been sitting in cash, not a money market in cash at 0.05%. I need help figuring out if it’s as easy as dumping him and taking over the account and making the appropriate changes as needed, or if it’ll require a tax hit because they’re special funds that only advisors have access to, and if we’d need to sell all of those in order to have control over it all. [00:45:49] And Doug for your run in 2028. I think we need to get started now, and yes, I’ll accept the VP pick. He’s [00:45:57] Joe: so humble. Chris, great call. Well, he’s, he’s called. We are, we are besties with Chris. He’s like Steve Martin hosting, uh, SNL, right? Oh gee. Is it as easy as just taking over the accounts? Tell the advisor to go take a long hike. [00:46:14] A long walk, short plank. [00:46:16] OG: Some of those things are just completely, um, what’s the word I’m looking for? Inexcusable money put into an account and it sits in cash for seven months. Like that is, that’s pretty annoying. As far as investment performance goes, you gotta be careful comparing your diversified portfolio to. [00:46:38] One single asset class, which in your case is you’re wanting to compare everything to s and p 500 said another way, large US tech companies, be careful on that comparison. Your daughter’s 5 29 up to, you know, 11 or 12% for the year, depending on the allocation could be just fine. It’s impossible to predict asset allocation results in advance, so I would. [00:47:03] I would be careful with that, but nevertheless, the big crime here in my opinion, is uh, having your Roth contribution just sitting in cash for a bunch of time, that seems pretty annoying. That being said, it depends on where the money is. Honestly, if your advisor is an independent advisor and your accounts are at a big institution like Schwab or Fidelity, then it’s super simple to have the advisor removed from the account. [00:47:29] In fact, in that case, you would just contact. If you wanted to just skip the advisor altogether, you could just contact Schwab or Fidelity and say, Hey, I wanna remove the advisor from this account, uh, or these accounts. And that would happen that minute. If it’s at another institution, let’s say like a broker dealer at Ameriprise, Edward Jones, Raymond James, Merrill Lynch, you know, one of these type of organizations, it’s gonna be a little bit more difficult because. [00:47:58] You generally don’t have an account at Ameriprise unless you’re a client of Ameriprise. So there’s always gonna be somebody assigned to that account, whether it’s your advisor or a home office, uh, 800 number, you know, kind of person, in which case you would have to move the money from that company to a different custodian, largely Fidelity or Schwab today in order to manage it. [00:48:23] Depending on what funds they are, they may or may not move. So if they’re a bunch of proprietary. Merrill Lynch funds, then probably Schwab doesn’t hold them and you know, you’d have to sell ’em. If they’re run of the mill type of products, your SP ETFs and whatever, then largely those other custodians would be able to hold them. [00:48:46] I think there’s more, more info here than, or we need more info here than we got specifically around what types of products you have and also where the money is presently. To be able to tell you whether or not you’d have to get rid of it. All that to say if most of your money is in tax deferred accounts, it doesn’t matter if you sell it or don’t sell it. [00:49:04] In fact, I probably would sell it just because it’ll be easy to move cash and invest it the way that you want. If it’s an IRA Roth IRA 5 29 account, whatever, like. There’s no tax liability for selling those funds within there. The taxes happen when you take the money out of that, right? So if you have an IRA at Edward Jones and you say, well, I don’t wanna have my account at Edward Jones anymore, I’m gonna have those guys send me a check. [00:49:29] That’s the taxable event, versus open an IRA at Schwab at through the account opening process. Schwab says, well, where’s your money right now? And you say, what’s that? Edward Jones, and here’s the account number. Schwab will go get it and move it for you automatically, if that makes sense. I think need a little bit more info, but as long as it stays in that type of tax deferred account, it will be tax deferred still and you won’t pay any taxes on it. [00:49:53] Uh, a couple of other quick things. You may pay commissions to sell the funds, and you may pay an account closing fee. So if you’re moving from one place to another, the place that you’re leaving may charge you, uh, a fee to leave, probably relatively inexpensive, a hundred dollars, maybe one 50. And sometimes, depending on the amount of money that you’re moving, if you’re moving from, let’s say. [00:50:13] Edward Jones to Schwab. Schwab may cover the fees that Edward Jones charges, you know, if it’s big enough to move. So a couple things to look at there. But all of this is doable without telling anybody. It’s also might be worth the phone call to the person to go, Hey, kind of disappointed in this. I need you to walk me through why you know, you think this is okay. [00:50:34] It sounds like you already made your mind up though. It doesn’t require a phone call. You can if you want. [00:50:39] Joe: Do you know what makes me want to have him lose the advisor is because I feel like the relationship is on the wrong path anyway. I mean, coming in with a predetermined, this is what I want, I want this, I want this, and your advisor is a menu board at McDonald’s and you’re choosing the aggressive option. [00:50:57] I don’t want that relationship. I want an advisor’s gonna fight with me and tell me I’m full of crap and go, you know what? We shouldn’t be doing it that way ’cause you’re gonna wreck your goals. I also want an advisor who’s gonna tell you, you know what? Comparing your stuff with the s and p 500 is garbage. [00:51:12] ’cause it is garbage. It totally is garbage. And then third is there’s no talk about milestones. No talk about dovetailing, no talk about figuring out your risk management plan, your estate plan, all that stuff. That’s where the advisor adds value. Yeah, anybody can, you know, asset allocation itself is becoming such a commodity. [00:51:32] You know, a basic asset allocation is not hard to figure out. People screw it up all the time, but it’s not hard to figure out what is hard to figure out and where an advisor truly is worth a. Their money that you pay them is in all these other areas where, like we talked about today, you’re not wasting money on insurances because you have a, you’ve got a strategy around risk management versus just buying insurances. [00:51:54] You went and got your estate plan done, and it is done to coalesce with your goals. Your budgetary items didn’t order. You know exactly how much money you gotta put in your stuff to get where you want to go, regardless of market conditions. Your tax strategy is on tap. I didn’t hear any of that. Fire your advisor because this is a garbage relationship. [00:52:13] I just think it’s garbage. And then on top of that, OG the money sitting in cash. That’s what, yeah, don’t get it. So, yeah. Chris, I was annoyed with your phone call from the beginning. I’m like, this is not an advisory relationship. This is not at all, so it’s gotta go. [00:52:30] OG: The other thing, not to pile onto this, have there been no communication between 2019 and present? [00:52:35] Right? Like you said, Hey, we just let ’em, we let ’em just to see what would happen and it’s like, hold on. You should have had 15 conversations between over the last six or seven years. You know, I don’t know. [00:52:46] Joe: I’ve talked about this in the way that it’s board of directors. You know, you don’t meet with them all the time, but. [00:52:51] Hey, a couple times a year, you know, your board of directors are gonna meet. Mm-hmm. Come out with, you know, the Fed chairman don’t meet all the time, but they’re not going, Hey, since 2019, what’s happening with interest rates? Think we should do something. You know, they got their quarterly meeting right, and then they’re working their butt off on whatever they do between those quarterly meetings. [00:53:07] If the person truly is an advisor, [00:53:09] OG: yeah, they’re advising, [00:53:10] Joe: they should be advising [00:53:12] Doug: rocket science, not [00:53:13] OG: order taking. [00:53:14] Doug: Whatever you’ve got. So you weren’t irritated with Chris’s call. You’re irritated with his situation. [00:53:20] Joe: I’m irritated with the relationship, absolutely. Yeah. [00:53:22] Doug: Right? [00:53:22] OG: Yeah. [00:53:23] Joe: Or [00:53:23] OG: lack thereof. Yes. [00:53:23] Joe: If that wasn’t clear, [00:53:25] Doug: Chris, we love you. [00:53:25] I thought maybe you were trying to prevent him from calling a sixth [00:53:28] OG: time also, Chris, you don’t have to call ever again. That’s what Joe said. [00:53:32] Joe: Not, not at all. This is the stupidest call we’ve ever gotten. See, turning me into og. Is that what’s happening here? Are we switching places? Is it truly wacky Wednesday? [00:53:42] Like that? Disney show. Chris, thanks for the call man and uh, smoking jacket. We don’t have a smoking jacket. If we had one, Chris would be the first one to get one. Speak for yourself. I got a smoke jacket. Lemme think. Did you get a Stacky Benjamin smoking jacket though? That’s what I’m saying. Luxurious [00:53:56] Doug: silk. [00:53:56] I [00:53:56] Joe: might get [00:53:57] Doug: one now. Yes. You don’t have a branded smoking jacket, you don’t know that [00:54:00] Joe: with the logo right [00:54:00] Doug: on the back. Yeah, cashmere. I also use it for my boxing matches [00:54:07] Joe: to enter the ring. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. If you’d like to be like Chris [00:54:13] OG: and Colin weren’t smoking jackets designed that you would wear ’em as an overcoat so that your clothes and smell like smoke. [00:54:19] Yes. I can’t imagine that actually works, right? Because know I’ve had a cigar or two before my day. It’s a [00:54:25] Doug: mini barrier. [00:54:27] OG: Like I’ll go for a walk and wear like a big heavy sweatshirt, you know, maybe have a cigar while I go for a walk on occasion. And then the sweatshirt smells like smoke, so does my hair. [00:54:37] So do all my clothes underneath the sweatshirt. [00:54:39] Doug: Every bush that you walk past on your walk, the neighbors are [00:54:41] OG: like, oh, gee’s. Out for a walk again. You know, there it is. No, no, no. I’m wearing the jacket. No, no. I’ve got my, I’ve got my, uh, my smoking hoodie on. My [00:54:49] Doug: smoking sweatshirt is on. I have a smoking hoodie. [00:54:52] Yeah. Is what [00:54:52] Joe: I [00:54:52] Doug: have. [00:54:52] Joe: Hashtag science. Alright, that’s gonna do it for today. No real back porch today. I think we had a little something, something, but I think we’ll do that on Monday. Doug, big question. What should be on our to-do list after today’s episode? [00:55:07] Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from our 1 0 1 discussion on buying insurances. [00:55:13] First, if you focus on risk management and not buying insurance, you’re much more likely to focus on the right insurances for your situation. Second, your cat. Yeah. Turns out they’re 42 years old and they’re tired of your, not the big lesson. Ah. Don’t ask Joe’s mom what her favorite type of insurance is. [00:55:34] She’ll tell you about an elaborate plot involving an insurance policy and mushrooms and whoever she is unhappy with at the moment that woman is diabolical. But in better news, I’m losing lots of weight because I haven’t eaten in three days. This show is the property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [00:55:59] Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [00:56:20] This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Moms Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:56:47] By the way, [00:56:48] Joe: stacker, Chris, this is the fifth, fifth time that Chris has called the show. You did it again, Joe. What’d [00:56:55] Doug: I do? You skipped over the trivia. You already did the trivia. I. I did. [00:57:01] Joe: You already did the trivia we’re we’re way past the trivia. [00:57:03] Doug: I did. [00:57:04] Joe: My bad. No real back porch today. I think we had a little something, something, but I think we’ll do that on Monday. [00:57:12] Doug, big question. What should be on our to-do list after today’s episode? [00:57:19] Doug: Joe, we forgot to do the trivia again.
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