Did you know that 40% of financial professionals plan to retire in the next 10 years? That means a lot of people face a real risk of outliving their advisor's career—or their advisor altogether.

In this episode, we discuss why this transition creates unique challenges for retirees. When your advisor retires or passes away, you may find yourself searching for someone new at the very time cognitive decline makes financial decisions harder.

We explore how life insurance and annuities can serve as a hedge against this risk. These products create stable, automated income streams that require far less ongoing management than traditional investment portfolios.

You'll learn why the simplicity of insurance products matters as you age. Whether it's a guaranteed annuity payment or an automatic withdrawal from a life insurance policy, these income sources keep working even if your advisor doesn't.

We also address a concern we hear frequently: what happens to a surviving spouse who never managed the investments? Many people come to us specifically because they want income their spouse can count on without learning portfolio management.

This isn't about putting all your money into insurance products. It's about thinking through how you'll automate parts of your retirement income so you're protected no matter what happens.
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Have questions about building stable retirement income? Reach out to us—we'd be happy to discuss how insurance products might fit into your plan.

You know that uncomfortable moment when your safe assets aren't paying what they used to? That's when most investors make their biggest mistake—chasing yield right before a market downturn. We're going to show you how life insurance breaks that cycle.

The business cycle has a nasty habit of pushing conservative investors into stocks at exactly the wrong time. Interest rates drop, your CDs and bonds pay less, and suddenly risker assets look appealing. Then the market drops and you're stuck watching losses pile up on money that was supposed to be safe.

Life insurance products move much slower than the broader market. While your CDs react immediately to rate changes, whole life dividends barely budge. Index universal life insurance stays remarkably stable even during market chaos.

This matters even more when you're taking distributions in retirement. The average investor takes 40 months to recover from a 20% market decline—nearly twice as long as the market itself. Having assets that aren't whipped around by economic cycles gives you the power to wait out downturns.

We'll walk through how whole life and index universal life insurance acted as hedges during 2008 and other market disruptions. You'll see why these products let you avoid the panic that causes so many investors to lock in losses they didn't need to take.
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Want to explore how life insurance can hedge your portfolio against business cycle risks? Reach out to us—we'd be happy to discuss strategies that fit your specific situation.

In this episode, we break down the significant changes Secure Act 2.0 brought to single premium immediate annuities (SPIAs). You'll learn how the new rules allow SPIA income to count toward satisfying your required minimum distributions. This change makes SPIAs substantially more attractive from a tax perspective.

We walk through recent research that revisits the famous 4% withdrawal rule from the 1990s. The study compares the traditional approach to a strategy that splits your retirement funds between a SPIA and a stock-heavy portfolio. You'll see why this combination produces more income with zero risk of running out of money by age 100.

The numbers tell an interesting story. The SPIA approach generated about $80,000 per year compared to $68,600 with the 4% rule. While legacy values were lower, the failure rate dropped to zero versus a 20% chance of being broke by age 95 under the traditional method.

We also discuss why so many people resist buying SPIAs despite the clear benefits. You'll hear our perspective on retirement planning dogma and why guaranteed income deserves serious consideration in your plan. The conversation covers practical concerns about giving up access to cash and what peace of mind actually looks like in retirement.
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Ready to explore how guaranteed income might fit into your retirement plan? Contact us to discuss whether a SPIA strategy makes sense for your specific situation.