Mr. Market Has Given Many People A Gift
The market is higher in 2023, that is clear. Balances have not returned back to 2022 levels, unless you have been almost entirely in semiconductors and the largest Nasdaq companies (META, NVDA, MSFT, AAPL, TSLA, GOOGL). Even with the incredible appreciation, balances have not made up the differences in real terms (i.e. adjusted for inflation).
Financial Plans Catch A Big Break
The market uptick is presenting a huge opportunity.
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Those without a plan can get their house in order. It doesn’t get much better than this, because…
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Those with cash can now get 5% in interest income, without excessive risks. This has not existed for the better part of 3 decades. The rational reason for excessive risk-taking has been the lack of alternatives. Those alternatives are here, now. That said, getting the return does depend on the amount of time that you are invested in interest-bearing/interest-crediting instruments.
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These two, when combined, have made life insurance and annuity return profiles attractive. Why? The crediting rates inside universal life insurance and annuities are directly tied to the level of interest rates, which are now MUCH higher than two years ago. In addition, the higher rates allow the insurance companies to increase the return profile of all of the indices and complicated stuff that is inside.
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Low volatility has provided a kicker to indexed annuities. If you want to hear a 3 hour long video where I talk at blistering speed, in describing how this works, let me know (no one will watch, that is why I don’t create this, not because I cannot, it would not take any preparation by me to spew out the three hours).
Life Insurance And Annuity Guides
There are a couple of brief PDFs that are on www.gh2benefits.com. I stated that the website will be greatly improved, and it is. These are things that you can ask yourself to think whether or not these instruments work, and the functions they serve. You can download the PDFs, you can read them online.
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Life Insurance Guide (click here).
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Annuity Guide (click here).
Focus On The Function, Not the Jargon
The challenges are numerous when it comes to anything that is not stocks. There is no Jim Cramer of annuities or life insurance.
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Language is bespoke, highly-customized by the carriers/sellers. It isn’t unlawful, it is, however, difficult to understand. The key is to NOT lose track of the function these instruments can serve, and the solution it can provide to your specific situation.
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Much of the negative is due to the fact that many people lose sight of this, they get discouraged, they listen to the underqualified, they listen to those who are inherently against you deploying your money to these instruments.
Candidly, It’s Not That Much Fun For Me, Either
For us to help a client, we have a very long checklist that we need to complete, which we will do. I have to:
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Explain the guts of the language, and answer every question, which I will do.
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Make sure that the due diligence and suitability questions satisfy the carriers. This is funny to me, because in my instance, there is NO CHANCE that I would suggest these complicated instruments, in the absence of laser focus and agreement on the rationale of our recommendation, and that it fits your budget. We are involuntarily unemployed if we don’t: no thanks.
Medicare Is A Piece Of Cake
Now, you can understand why book #1 was about Medicare.
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Language standardized
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Carriers have no choice but to follow very specific rules.
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The payouts are enormously in the buyers’ favor (that’s you), and for the most important, most obvious topic: we are getting older and with that, increased likelihood for healthcare services.