Hello, everyone. My name is Kyle Smith, and today my father, Robert, and I are going to explain some of the important things to consider when shopping for long-term disability insurance to protect both yourself and your income from the unforeseen. Between the two of us, we have well over 30 years of experience specializing in this area with CRNA specifically. So let's go ahead and dive in. Hi, my name is Robert Smith, and I've spent the last three decades working with CRNAs on disability insurance. One of the most important things an anesthetist can do is have their own individual policy. Your greatest asset moving forward is your ability to earn money. The money you earn pays for everything you do. It pays for all your other insurances, your house, your car, et cetera. It also funds your retirement plan. So making sure that income continues to come in is the most important thing you can do. Your greatest asset is the $250,000 a year you're earning, and over a 10-year period, that comes to $5 million, and over a 20-year period, that comes to $5 million, and over a 30-year period, that comes to $7.5 million. What could be more important to insure than that? The most important thing to consider on an insurance purchase is who the company is. After all, agents can say just about anything, but if you become disabled and can't do your job, it's the company that will be paying you, not the agent. On this slide, it lists the top providers of individual disability insurance policies in the United States, and as you can see, there aren't many companies who do this. Of the companies who do, there's only three who are highly rated, and I have them at the top of the slide. Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual, and Guardian. I work with MassMutual. These are the three big dogs in the industry, we like to call them. The others also provide policies, but their ratings are much lower than the top guys, so I'm going to make sure I am with a company who has high financial ratings. That's more security moving forward throughout my career. So what are the odds of someone actually becoming disabled? On average, one in four people starting their career today will become disabled at some point over their working years, with the average length of disability being around three years. When people think of disability, they tend to think of major accidents like an auto accident or things like that as the main culprit, but nine times out of ten, that's not actually what happens. You simply just don't feel well one day, you go see the doctor and you figure out at that point what you have going on, and in some cases, you either know that you're at a higher risk for disability, or in some situations, you even know when you're going to be disabled and when that's going to start. The major thing we look at is if this happens to you, you have to have the right protections in place to make sure you don't have to sacrifice your quality of living if you can no longer work. You plan your entire life around your income, so what would you do if you became unable to work? How would it impact your life and impact your family, impact your living situation? We're trying to avoid some of these major changes that can happen when you don't have the right protections in place. These are a few of the common objections we hear when we speak to people about long-term disability insurance. The first one being some people just think that disability insurance is simply too expensive, and while I'm not going to lie to you, it is something that you might have to pay a significant premium for. Oftentimes, it's not any more than 1-2% of your annual income, so to me, it's a safe bet to give up 1-2% of your annual income to make sure the other 98% or 99% keeps coming in should something happen. If you're an employer with a W-2 position specifically, you might have employer group coverage with that hospital that you're working at, but a lot of people think they can rely on that as their sole income protection, and in most cases, you can't. Your employer usually only covers a percentage of your income, most of the time 60%, and then that 60% is further taxed if you ever have to collect from it. The other big thing is you don't actually own the coverage. Your employer reserves the right to drop that coverage, or the insurance company can drop that coverage as well. It's not guaranteed, in other words. The last thing is that a lot of people simply think that disability won't happen to them, but if you look at the stats from the previous slide we went over, the stats don't support that at all. On average, one in four people are becoming disabled at some point over their career, so it's very important that you have the protection in place to make sure that if it does happen to you, you're still taken care of. So you might be thinking, I know I need this protection, but really, my employer is going to take care of me if something happens, so I'll be okay, and this is really looking more at employer group coverage. I mentioned before that employers don't cover your entire income in most cases. Over 90% of group always function pretty much the same, and they cover 60% of your base income only, and that benefit, like I said before, is usually taxable to you, but let's take a look with some real numbers to show the actual impact here. So if you look on the left side of the slide here, you can see a situation where what's happening if you're working and then you become disabled, and we're taking the example of you making $200,000 of base income plus an extra $50,000 in call or overtime or peer and work or whatever the case may be, but you're making $250,000 a year total with $200,000 of base income, and as you look at the numbers here, as it breaks down, you're essentially out $7,000 a month in the event of a disability. So in this situation, what can we do? This is your solution. In this scenario, the company will allow you to purchase the policy to supplement your group coverage with the individual policy to fill that gap in that gap, that shortfall of income. While we might not be able to get you to 100% of your pre-disability income, we can get you very close and to the point really where what we're looking at is that your standard of living isn't impacted in the event of a disability. So kind of like what I was saying before on the previous slide, if you're in a situation where you're going to be losing $7,000 a month in the event of a disability, you can purchase an individual policy to cover $6,500 of that $7,000 a month to where you're not, like I said, you're not at 100% income replacement, but you're very close at that point. Now, this slide here is a few of the major things to consider when you're looking at an individual disability policy. I don't plan on spending a ton of time here as these are the types of things we like to go over in more detail during individual appointments. But the big two things I want to point out are the two things on the left side of this slide. The first thing being having a non-cancellable contract. What does that mean? That essentially means that as long as you keep up with your premiums, that policy is guaranteed to stay there with you and be there when you need it. The insurance company cannot drop you, cannot change your benefits, and cannot change your premium for a guaranteed time period, usually to age 65. And then the second big thing is you want to make sure you're protected in your occupation. In other words, you don't want a policy that's going to say, hey, I can't do anesthesia anymore, but I can go work in this other job. So this policy is not going to pay me anymore because I'm physically able to go take another job. That's one big thing that's a problem with group policies is that you're usually not protected as a CRNA in your profession. On the right side of the slide here, there's a few other things. Like I said, I usually like to go over this in more detail in individual appointments. But another big rider that we like to talk about is our future option. Essentially, that's a future benefit you can purchase now. So let's just say you're in a situation where you need $3,000 a month of disability right now, but you might need more in the future. You load up on that future option, and not to confuse you, but essentially it's a pool of money that you can use in the future to increase your base benefit, with the big kicker being you don't have to prove health again. Typically, when you apply for these types of policies, the company's going to check your health to make sure you qualify, but the future option takes out any future health checks so you can get the coverage you need in the future whenever your income goes up without having to worry about going through that health check again. And all the years I've been doing this, I've had many cases of people who want this and need this, but they cannot get it because of a health problem. One out of every 10 people who apply for this are declined. And when you get one of these, it's guaranteeing you that you have coverage throughout your career. The price and the coverage are locked in until you're 65 years old. Nobody can take it away from you or cancel you. One in four people who do get approved had a modified contract due to a health problem. If you have a health problem, an insurance company will A, give you a policy and charge you more premium. B, give you a policy and exclude a body part that's a problem. So if you have back trouble, they'll cover you. But if you get disabled because of the back, it's not covered. And then the last thing is they won't give you a policy if they don't think you're healthy enough. So the key to this is to get a policy while you're still young enough to do it, and you can get what we call a clean contract throughout your career. Clean means there's no extra premium. There's no exclusions and no restrictions on the policy. I've had a good friend of mine, a CRNA, one of the first CRNAs I sold back in 1990 was named Jim Burroughs. Jim and I became close friends. He referred countless people to me over the years. And usually when he referred somebody to me, they purchased insurance. So we became very close friends. And in early 2000, we started visiting the mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina for hiking on an annual basis. It was wonderful trips we had. Jim had originally bought $3,000 a month from me with $4,000 of this thing called Future Option, which Carl explained to y'all in an earlier slide. The Future Option guarantees you you can increase your coverage in the future without any health questions being asked. He bought it in 1990, and by 2000, he had used Future Option to increase his policy from $3,000 a month to $7,000 a month tax-free. Jim got throat cancer in 2003. He started collecting on the policy shortly after that, and he collected for 15 years, $7,000 a month tax-free for 15 years. That's $84,000 a year tax-free. And if you do the numbers, it comes to about $1.2 to $1.3 million. He collected tax-free. Louisiana had some health insurance problems, and one of his children was born with a defect, and he could not get coverage in Louisiana, so he relocated to North Carolina in 2009. And instead of us driving from Louisiana to the mountains in Tennessee, I get on a plane every mid-October, and I fly to North Carolina and stay at Jim's house, and we hike for four or five days. It's a beautiful house in the mountains worth over a million dollars, and he built that house, and he takes care of his wife and three children with the proceeds from his disability policy. I also had a man named Garland Reed, who I chased for six months to buy this, and he finally did it. And 90 days after his purchase, he became disabled, and when we started paying him, he could not believe that even though the disability had occurred so soon after the purchase, we were still paying him. He called me every month when he would first get his check and said, I'm so glad I did this with you. I'm so glad you kept asking, because if you hadn't, I wouldn't have done it. This is what an agent like me really appreciates, the fact that not only did I make a living and run a business, but I helped some people out who otherwise would not have been helped, because if I had not been there, they would not have done this. And the fact that I was there and they did this changed their lives and the lives of their families and children. This is the most important insurance you can purchase. Now we've spent about the last 10 to 15 minutes discussing some of the major concepts and things you have to look at when shopping for your own long-term disability insurance, but if you want any more information or have any questions for Robert or myself, feel free to reach out. Our cell phones and emails are usually the quickest and easiest way to reach us, and you'll see that information printed on the slide here. Thank everybody for taking the time to listen to us today, and I hope that we get to speak more in the future.

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