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159. Asset Protection Part 2: Life Insurance | Lawrence Keller, CFP
13 Plays10 months ago
Lawrence B. Keller is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and the founder of Physician Financial Services, a company dealing exclusively with the financial needs and concerns of members of the medical profession. Mr. Keller has spent the last 33 years providing insurance and investment products and services to residents, fellows, and attending physicians. These include, but are not limited to, disability income insurance, life insurance, and investments. Mr. Keller represents many well-respected companies in the financial services industry, which allows him the flexibility to provide unbiased advice and help recommend products that best suit each individual's needs and concerns..
Recognizing that a physician's time is limited, and in an effort to remain knowledgeable to provide the most value to his clients, Mr. Keller has obtained his CFP® certification as well as earned the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU), Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), Registered Health Underwriter (RHU) and Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow (LUTCF) designations. Mr. Keller continues to keep abreast of the marketplace by attending professional conferences, and is an active member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA), the Financial Planning Association (FPA) and the Society of Financial Service Professionals (SFSP). In addition, Mr. Keller has qualified for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors National Quality Award and is also a Qualifying & Life Member of the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), an independent, international association of the life insurance industry's most successful underwriters. He is also a qualifying member of the 2023 Top of the Table®. In this show, we discuss:
- Term life insurance
- Whole life insurance
- Umbrella insurance
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Transcript
Introduction to Medicine Redefined Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to Medicine Redefined, a podcast focusing on helping you reclaim ownership of your health. I'm Dr. Darshah. And I'm Dr. Altamash Raja. We're your hosts, here to challenge conventional practices and uncover the stories behind pioneers shaping the future of medicine. Our conversations not only focus on the individual level to dissect common practices for health optimization, but also zoom out to enhance systemic change. Join us as we look to break the status quo, move the needle forward, and put the health back in healthcare.
Understanding Life Insurance: Term and Strategies
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome back to part two of our conversation with Larry Keller. Here, we spend more time talking about other insurance policies that can set you up to protect your most valuable asset. Whereas disability insurance is a complex and nuanced topic, life insurance is much more straightforward. So in this episode, we can pick up right there and talk about life insurance. Specifically, we'll discuss term life insurance and strategies to organize your policy that may be suitable for you both in the short and long term.
00:01:05
Speaker
We'll also talk about permanent or whole life insurance, which typically gets a bad rep, but does have its place as Larry's going to highlight.
The Importance of Umbrella Insurance
00:01:13
Speaker
After that, we'll switch to talking about umbrella insurance, and this is something that I need to prioritize as I have been in attending for a couple of years now. So hopefully for those of you who've always wondered what this is and why it's important, you'll have more of an insight and clarity after this episode.
Selecting the Right Insurance Agent or Financial Planner
00:01:30
Speaker
Lastly, we'll revisit some of the key questions one should be asking when shopping for an insurance agent or a financial planner. Full disclosure, I've known Larry and referred many people to him over the past several years. And every single person who's gone to him has told me how he's taken excellent care of them. And even though I don't work with him directly, he is my go to guy. And obviously, we think he's a wealth of information and brought him here on the show to share with you everything that he's taught us over the last couple of years.
00:01:57
Speaker
but he'll also be the first one to tell you that maybe he's not the best fit for you. If that is in fact the case, then you want to make sure that you are equipped with the baseline knowledge to find the fit that is best for your situation.
Podcast Break Announcement
00:02:11
Speaker
And before we begin, there is another important announcement for me to make. And you may have noticed that over the past few weeks, our output has decreased. And that's because the team is going through several transitions. Namely, my co-host Darce just graduated residency, so a huge congratulations to him for completing his medical training. This really is a big feat and he's now taken his talents down south to Tampa and we're excited to continue following his journey.
00:02:37
Speaker
And so with that being said, we'll be taking a short break for the next month so we can focus on other endeavors outside of here. And when we come back, you can bet that it'll be with high quality content like we always aim to deliver. We hope you'll take this time to revisit some of your favorite episodes as these are timeless lessons delivered by our guests. Or maybe just take a break because there's nothing wrong to disconnect.
00:02:59
Speaker
And whenever you're ready, we'll be here for you.
Life Insurance Details: Term vs. Permanent
00:03:02
Speaker
And if you follow us on social media, which you should, you'll know exactly when that is and when we're going to be back online. Now, without further delay, here's part two with Larry Keller. Let's shift to life insurance. We had this earlier on we talked about, right? This is simpler to understand. There aren't a lot of nuances to it.
00:03:23
Speaker
But there are some critical points in terms of structuring it. But I think maybe it makes sense to kind of start about with the nomenclature again, right? People might hear term life insurance, whole life insurance, and maybe even other ones. What do we need to know about that high level stuff? And what do you typically recommend for people?
00:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, generally you got to remember first and foremost, life insurance is not for you. It's for your survivors. So I'm a big believer in large amounts of term life insurance. And term life insurance is really very easy to understand. You're either with us or you're not. If you're not, the life insurance policy pays. It goes to a beneficiary or beneficiaries if you have more than one. There's no investment component to it. It's literally like your car insurance.
00:04:10
Speaker
I die. Money goes to someone else. I live. I'm paying for peace of mind in the event that I died prematurely. Then you've got this other
Estate Planning with Life Insurance
00:04:19
Speaker
umbrella. You can throw it under permanent insurance. And you might hear the term whole life insurance, variable life insurance, universal life insurance, variable universal life insurance, equity indexed universal life insurance. And I can tell you that I've
00:04:36
Speaker
For the most part, I've never seen a bad policy. I've seen bad uses of policies, and probably the biggest gripe I have within my industry is that sometimes they're selling a policy
00:04:53
Speaker
for anything other than what it really is, which is a life insurance policy. So first and foremost, you want to buy the right amount of death benefit for your family so they can meet their needs. I do think that cash value life insurance or permanent life insurance might have its place. It's definitely going to be beyond the scope of this. But let's say you want to leave money to a charity. Well, you can't really buy term insurance for that because if you're looking to leave money to a charity and you outlive the term,
00:05:24
Speaker
The charity is ultimately not going to benefit. So you have to buy some type of permanent life insurance. And I would submit to you, I would probably use what's called guaranteed universal life insurance, really like term insurance to age 100. We'll just kind of leave it like that or technically to age 121, which is your lifetime.
00:05:47
Speaker
Then let's say you were really pretty well off. You're at the point that you have an estate tax problem. And if you're above a certain limit, it's very high right now in excess of $20 million. Well, whatever that excess is, 60% of that goes to your heirs, 40% goes to the government.
00:06:11
Speaker
So you could buy a life insurance policy. There's one that's called a survivorship life insurance policy, which is generally when the estate taxes are due, not at the first death, but upon the second death. So this policy pays at the second death. And typically it's going to be owned by an irrevocable life insurance trust.
00:06:30
Speaker
So generally, life insurance death benefits are income tax-free. This also makes it estate tax-free. So you're really just doing this to prepay the estate taxes on a discounted basis. Now this type of sale, if you will, is not based on a need. This is based on a want. I don't want my children to be paying pennies
00:06:58
Speaker
I don't want my children to be paying dollar for dollar for this estate tax. I want them to be paying with discounted dollars.
Laddering Life Insurance for Financial Goals
00:07:04
Speaker
That's where insurance comes into play. So it's a strategy. It's not nearly as popular as it was in the past because the limits are so high, but there I can make a case for permanent life insurance. And then if you've got, let's say, a special needs child, and you're like, no matter how things go,
00:07:23
Speaker
This child is likely going to outlive me and my income. I need to make sure that they're taken care of. So you could buy a life insurance policy that's going to pay out a permanent death benefit. Ideally, you'll also put this in some type of trust, likely a special needs trust. And that's it. Personally, I don't think you should look at cash value life insurance until you've taken advantage of everything else that you can do in terms of
00:07:53
Speaker
tax benefits or tax planning, paying down debt.
00:07:57
Speaker
paying down your mortgage. In certain states, cash value life insurance can be used as an exempt asset, and it can have asset protection features. Would that be the main reason that I buy this type of policy? No. Go back to what I said in the beginning. First and foremost, life insurance is not for you. It's for your survivors. So general rule of thumb, at least initially, non-advanced planning
00:08:27
Speaker
is buy term life insurance, buy a lot of term life insurance. Ideally, you want to get your children out of college, if not out of graduate school, leave ongoing income to your survivor.
00:08:44
Speaker
And that's really all that you need to do. And then you'll talk to an estate planning attorney and you'll set up your typical estate planning documents. But term life insurance is not complicated. You don't need to make it more complicated than it is. Well, now that you've said that, I feel weird asking this question about laddering. But I do think it helps, right? Earlier, we talked about how most
00:09:10
Speaker
physicians and almost universally are poor in the beginning and as you continue, you know, accumulating wealth and hopefully you've been listening to, you know, Medicine Redefined early on and some of the other awesome podcasts about financial health and you've done the right things, then you can get rid of that debt and then have a good amount of assets.
00:09:34
Speaker
With that financial independence, you'll have the freedom. Maybe your kids and your heirs are getting older and they might not need that. There's a strategy of laddering. You want to talk a little bit about that and how that might make sense for people? Sure. I'm going to call this the old school line of thinking, but old school is not necessarily bad. Let's say that we've done a financial needs analysis and we've determined that your magic number is $5 million of life insurance.
00:10:03
Speaker
So you could say, you know, I love that. I'm gonna buy $5 million. I'm gonna buy a 30 year term. If I'm 30 years old, that's gonna take me all the way to age 60.
00:10:15
Speaker
I'm done. I've kind of locked it up and thrown away the key. But everything you said is true. In all likelihood, you're going to save for college education, maybe graduate school for kids. You're going to pay down your mortgage. You're going to save for retirement. You're going to pay down student loans. You know, your income is going to rise. Your assets are going to rise and your debt is going to go down along with your need for life insurance due to exactly that.
00:10:42
Speaker
So term life insurance is inexpensive generally, like almost no matter how you slice it, but you have these different terms and ideally you want what's called a level premium term. And this is where you're paying a fixed rate for an amount of life insurance for a duration. And they typically come in five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.
00:11:06
Speaker
25 years, 30 years, 35 years, 40 years is the longest. One company actually will sell, you select the term, and they have your typical 10 year, 15 year, but you can pick from year 16 to 29 in one year increments, they have 30 year term, so you can customize this. But the whole premise behind laddering is I'm gonna buy generally more than one policy,
00:11:35
Speaker
for more than one duration. And a good rule of thumb is every time you go up a level, let's call it a 10-year increment, if your cost stays the same, to get that longer duration, the amount of insurance that you can buy goes down by half. So these numbers are made up. I don't want to scare anyone in the audience away. But let's say you could go out and buy a million dollar 10-year term policy for $1,000 a year.
00:12:05
Speaker
And you're like, you know, 10 years, I think my stomach is going to get bigger. My hair is going to get thinner. I'm probably going to be, you know, on some time of anti cholesterol or blood pressure medication. Maybe that's not such a good deal. You know, I think I really need 20 year term. So I'd say, don't worry. I can get you 20 years. It's going to be the same thousand dollars, but instead of a million, it's going to be 250. It's going to be 500. And you're like, well, you know, I don't know.
00:12:35
Speaker
Even 20 years, that sounds like it might go pretty quickly. I think I need to go to 30 years. Same thousand dollars, now it's gonna be 250. So each time you go up a 10-year guarantee, the premium stays the same, but the coverage generally goes down by half. So if we're laddering, we can basically take advantage of this leverage. Essentially, for every million dollars of 30-year term that you buy, you can get $2 million of 20-year term.
00:13:05
Speaker
or $3 million of 10-year term. So really, all that laddering is doing is we're trying to put together a portfolio of policies that each of them will drop off at predetermined time periods, unless you get rid of them sooner, that's going to align with your financial planning goals.
Extending Liability with Umbrella Insurance
00:13:24
Speaker
So I might say, hey, you know what? Looking at the ages of your children, why don't we do $3 million for 20 years
00:13:31
Speaker
Let's do 2 million for 30. You add that up, that's your 5 million. If your spouse and your kids don't kill you in the first 20 years, that 3 million is going to drop off. And now you're going to have $2 million left for the last 10 years. Well, when that death benefit drops off, that first 3 million for 20 years, so does the premium for it.
00:13:55
Speaker
So again, you're really just maximizing your dollar to get the same amount of insurance. You're just doing it for a shorter guarantee period for probably the bulk of it. But you can easily say, you know, I'm just going to buy a 5 million 30 year term policy. I'm going to give up the savings upfront because I don't know what's going to happen on the back end. I'd rather pay more upfront. And then as my needs change, I could reduce the amount of death benefit.
00:14:24
Speaker
That's the other side. So one way you're doing it, the laddering is the savings is upfront. The other way you're just cutting it down on the back end and the savings is on the back. And there's no right answer, there's no wrong answer. I would say the majority of people are laddering coverage. My number one menu item, if you will, happens to be two million of 20 year, one million of 30 year.
00:14:50
Speaker
So 3 million for the first 20 years. After 20 years, it drops down to 1 million. For the majority of people, that's probably going to be pretty good. But again, a good rule of thumb is you should have seven to 10 times your gross income in death benefit. So if your income is higher, go higher. If your income is lower, go lower than that $3 million number that I just threw out there. Hmm.
00:15:16
Speaker
making me reevaluate some things, Larry, we might have to talk after it. Awesome. Thank you for highlighting that and I think the examples are super helpful for people. Let's talk about some of the other big ticket items. We've talked about getting your ducks in order, making sure that your
00:15:34
Speaker
debts paid down, and I'm going to link actually really, White Coat Investor has this really nice, a lot of people probably do have this bucket system, like waterfall systems for new attendings, for residents and stuff. And so we'll put that in terms of the key components that, you know, the absolute basics that you have to take care of. Guess what? Disability insurance is at the very, very top. So that's something that that's why we spent over an hour explaining and we didn't even get through all of that. So highly encourage anybody who is in training and maybe even medical school to learn about this.
00:16:04
Speaker
reach out to the right person and we'll put a couple of people's information that I think I have personally vetted and are trustworthy out there, but of course, Larry's a person to reach out to. So another one that I wanted to, and I got to be honest with you, I don't really know a lot about this, but I know it's important for me to kind of be thinking about this at this point is umbrella insurance. What can you tell us, particularly maybe for, I think this is going to be more important for attendings, early career physicians and really anybody who was in the attending practice.
00:16:33
Speaker
correct me if I'm wrong, is what do we need to know about that? Yeah, so umbrella insurance, that falls under what's known as property and casualty or P&C insurance. And it's really just going to be like a wraparound to your auto insurance and your homeowners insurance or renters insurance. And really all that it's going to do is it's going to extend the liability limits
00:16:55
Speaker
of your coverage. So something that I'll commonly see is someone's got a low deductible on their car. They've got $1,000 deductible. Maybe on their home, they've got a $5,000 deductible. And then they say, well, you know what? On my car, I've got a $250,000 liability limit or a $500,000 liability limit. So this is what would get paid out in the event something happened and there was a judgment.
00:17:26
Speaker
Or, you know, on my home, maybe I've got the same $500,000 limit. But what if I'm driving my car? Person finds out I'm a physician. I rear-ended them. They sue me for $3 million. My liability limit is $500,000. We can do math, right? There's $2.5 million that's got to come from somewhere.
00:17:49
Speaker
Where's it going to come from? It's going to come from your assets or it's going to come from your earnings and they could potentially garnish your wages. So what we do is we go out and we buy an umbrella policy that sits on top of these things for a million, 2 million, 3 million, 5 million, 10 million.
00:18:08
Speaker
And now, if you get sued, your homeowners policy is going to pay up to that liability limit that it has. And then an umbrella policy is also what's known as an excess liability policy, almost like an excess medical malpractice policy. So if I have a $500,000 liability limit on my auto, and I've got a $5 million umbrella,
00:18:33
Speaker
I really have $5.5 million of coverage in the event something happens. Really, all that you're doing is you're extending the liability on both your auto insurance and your homeowners insurance. Ideally, you're going to go back to the same insurance company that ensures both of these. Now, you're going to get multi-line discounts. They're going to be integrated and coordinated, so they're going to work well together in the event of a claim.
00:19:01
Speaker
And this is a pretty inexpensive insurance. Like you're talking about a couple of hundred dollars a year. You know, maybe if you buy a really big umbrella policy, you know, you're talking about like thousand dollars, fifteen hundred dollars. But at the end of the day, what it can provide is significant relative to what the premium is that you're paying. But make no mistake. This is not coverage for medical malpractice.
00:19:30
Speaker
This is malpractice for everyday living. I'm driving in my car. My son goes to a baseball game that he's playing in with your child. He swings. He misses the ball. He smacks your kid in the head. Now you're going to sue me as a result of that.
00:19:49
Speaker
Now I'm going to have my umbrella policy will take care of even things like that. So that, that should really be a must not shouldn't, it shouldn't even be anything that they question. Yeah. It should come as no surprise to people that physicians have a target on their back. And I mean, you know, luckily as opposed to, you know, getting advantage taken care or advantage taken off by insurance agents, because you don't understand
00:20:19
Speaker
or even financial advisors because you don't understand physician finances or just finance in general and the poor education that you've received, this is just every single day of life you can't predict. And I mean, you can even argue maybe more important than the malpractice insurance because your interaction with the world outside of your clinic, outside of the OR where quote unquote mishaps might happen, you're going to spend more time there. So the opportunity for something to go wrong, especially getting behind the wheel, that's far greater.
00:20:49
Speaker
So that's awesome, something on my to-do list and prioritize ASAP. What other big ticket items should be top of mind? So we've talked about some of the key ones here, but let's just say for late residents, fellows, maybe even earlier career physicians, we'll kind of
Retirement Plans and Roth IRAs for Young Physicians
00:21:09
Speaker
leave it at that. I think the demographics, majority of these people in their 20s and 30s listen to here, should be things that we're thinking about that you would say from an asset protection standpoint,
00:21:20
Speaker
I'd say you really want to take advantage of your retirement plan. And I would say a lot of physicians are doing that. So they're putting away money. It could be a pre-tax basis. It could be a post-tax basis, depending upon what the plan is. In a lot of cases, those plans are going to be protected and they're going to have asset protection. So in addition to financial benefits, you're also getting asset protection benefits.
00:21:44
Speaker
I would look at a Roth IRA, especially for residents and fellows, where income is low now and it's going to be high later. Now, kind of an exception to the rule is, well, what if someone has a lot of loans and they're going to go try to work for a 501c3 organization and they're going to go for public service loan forgiveness?
00:22:03
Speaker
Well, hey, if you're on an income-driven repayment, you want to make your income as low as possible. So now maybe you don't want to do that. Maybe you want to put your money in on a pre-tax basis. If you're an attending and your income exceeds the amount that you can make a traditional contribution to a Roth IRA, you can look at what's known as the backdoor Roth IRA.
00:22:27
Speaker
uh... you could put money into a good old-fashioned no brokerage account and there's nothing bad with a brokerage account but you should be attuned to fees not only financial advisor fees but fees in terms of the investments that you might be investing in a lot of times people say well i got a money guy and i started asking question what is your money i do for you all this and that do you know what they're charging you for these services well no i'm not really
00:22:55
Speaker
Sure, certain financial advisors also hold themselves down as financial advisors, but they don't have the licenses or certifications to actually be doing that. It's almost like a cosmetic surgeon versus a board certified plastic surgeon. You're gonna get a result either way. I would like to think that if you go to the board certified plastic surgeon, you're going to come closer to the ideal result than getting a result
00:23:23
Speaker
And do your homework. If you can do medicine and you can treat patients clinically and you can come up with a plan for them in terms of treatment or you're a surgeon and you can come up with a surgical plan, this is not difficult. This is all about a base level of learning.
00:23:43
Speaker
and then really doing continuing financial education to keep your knowledge base at par. But if you don't like it and you don't have any interest in it, neither I or anybody else can convince you to manage your finances. In that case, maybe you wanna hire someone to do it for you. And I wouldn't let them take over the reins and have zero involvement, but
00:24:12
Speaker
Be involved conceptually. You don't have to understand every detail. But I would look to get referrals. I would look to see what their certifications are or licenses that they have. I would ask them a lot of questions. How long have you been doing this? What are your certifications? I'm a physician. How many physician clients do you have? I'm a PM&R physician. How many physiatrists do you actually deal with in your practice? And if you don't like what you're hearing,
00:24:42
Speaker
walk. If you don't like the bedside manner that you're getting, walk. If you have a spouse and you like one person and your spouse likes another but together you don't like either of those people,
00:24:57
Speaker
Go on to the next. There's a lot. I mean, as a physician, any professional, you have your choice of any financial advisor that you want and you're the one that's driving the bus. So if you're doing that and you're spending good money for hopefully good advice using a Jim Dolly quote at a fair price,
00:25:21
Speaker
Pick who you want because anyone will love to work with you as a physician. The same thing is true for insurance and probably any other products or services. Yeah, and I want to emphasize the point that you made. No matter how you go about it and you could have the best agent in the business who's going to do it right by you, you still can't put your head in the sand like an ostrich. You still have to be involved.
00:25:47
Speaker
and there's no replacement for it. I mean, what are you going to do when that agent decides to hang up the cleats or whatever you hang up, Larry? What are you going to do? I mean, it is tough to find individuals who are going to do right by you, as we talked about. There is a target on your back, unfortunately. And so, Jim Dalley talks about this as well. And that's the whole premise of his business with white coat investors, helping out and
00:26:14
Speaker
giving a fair shake on Wall Street, as he says. This reminds me, you highlighted some of the important things for people to look for when they're screening a financial advisor or a planner. I think we should also know when people are looking for disability
Choosing Disability Insurance Agents
00:26:30
Speaker
insurance. We talked about last time how critical that is. What are some of the questions they should be asking of people when they are vetting them? If that is going to be the agent they're going to end up working with, how do they go about even looking for the right person?
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, so it's funny, a lot of people honestly don't even look at the credentials of the agent. There's a lot of online places now. If you go to the website, you will not find a bio of any of the agents that work there. You'll find nothing about their education, nothing about their training, nothing about their experience. That's by design. So what would I tell someone to do? And I'm biased because I've been around a long time, right? I would say,
00:27:13
Speaker
Ask about their credentials. How many physician clients do you have? Of the policies that you write, which companies do you write most often? What percentage of your clientele do you put with policies or companies A, B, C, D, and E? How many people do you deal with in my specialty? Is there a particular group of medical specialties that you enjoy dealing with?
00:27:41
Speaker
most. And typically that's going to reflect that person's practice. So if I tell you, I just want to deal with surgeons and emergency medicine physicians and anesthesiologists and pain management physicians all day long, and you're a psychiatrist and you say, well, Larry, how many psychiatrists do you deal with? I'm like, Oh, you got me on a good day. I just got my third one.
00:28:02
Speaker
then maybe I'm not the right fit and I might be able to deliver an excellent result, but I just don't have the understanding of your specific medical specialty. I'm a little biased here, but if you're talking about financials or financial planning, I think even an insurance agent should be a certified financial planner or work in the office with a certified financial planner because there's two different types of
00:28:30
Speaker
hurdles, right? So you've got these standards. And generally in the world of insurance, you have what's called a suitability standard.
00:28:38
Speaker
which means as long as the recommendation is suitable, it does not have to be an ideal result, I just have to put you in a better position than you were before we met. And if I can explain that to a regulator, I'm fine. If you're a certified financial planner, the CFP Board of Standards says, hey, we don't go by the suitability standard, you as a CFP certificate
00:29:05
Speaker
You have to adhere to a fiduciary standard. You have to disclose your conflicts and you have to act in your client's best interest and deliver to them as best you can the ideal result. And if you don't do that and it comes to light,
00:29:21
Speaker
we could take away your CFP certification. It's kind of like being board certified. You went to medical school, you did the residency, you did the fellowship, you passed the exams. But if you hold yourself out and now you're almost disrespecting the medical specialty, they can basically take away your board certification. The same thing is here. So I would submit that kind of the recommendation from a CFP
00:29:51
Speaker
could be viewed to be at a higher standard than somebody is not a CFP. But again, I know CFPs where they don't know disability insurance at all. That's not what they do. And then I know guys that are excellent at disability insurance and they're not CFPs. So it's really just comes down to
00:30:11
Speaker
Personality of the agent, their ability to explain things, their ability to differentiate among not only company A versus company B versus company C, but the provisions of a policy. And then this is myself. I don't hold everyone to this. I'm all about speed and accuracy.
00:30:33
Speaker
I want to return someone's call as fast as possible with information that's as accurate as possible. Because most of the time when I'm on that other side of the phone and I'm sending an email, I'm almost waiting after I hit the send. How quickly did they respond to me? And if it took me two days, three days, five days a week,
00:30:56
Speaker
I was interested in that a week ago. I might still be interested, but I don't have the same level of interest that I did when I sent that initial email. For better or for worse, my wife always says to me, you're not a doctor. Nobody's dying. You don't have to get back to them right away. I'm like, but if they're a surgeon and their patient's on the table and they're thinking about this,
00:31:18
Speaker
It's important to them, and they don't want to know in a couple of days. They want to know right now, and I'm going to deliver that with speed and accuracy. Spoken like a true New Yorker. I love it, Larry. Well, Larry, this has been amazing. I think it's very informative, as we mentioned, a long time coming and super important.
00:31:39
Speaker
Where is the best place for people to connect with you, find you, if they have further questions? I know you're always game to just get on the phone and you love educating to just talk, shop with people and see if it's a good fit. How can people connect with you? Yeah, so phone is great. 516-677-6211.
00:32:00
Speaker
Email is great because sometimes I'm on long phone calls and if someone emails me, I can email them back pretty quickly. That's lkeller, L-K-E-L-L-E-R, at Physician, no S, Financial Services, all spelled out, dot com. If you're looking at policies, if you're shopping for disability insurance and you're just not sure, you're looking for a second opinion, you have coverage and you want it reviewed,
00:32:27
Speaker
Thankfully, my practice is busy. You don't have to be afraid to call. You don't have to be afraid to email. I'm not going to send you email after email to chase you down. I'm just going to answer the questions that you have, make recommendations, and hopefully confirm that what you're thinking about doing or did make sense, or I'm going to make suggestions to potentially put you in a better situation.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah, that's another point that I want to emphasize. I think that a mark of a good agent or at least somebody who's doing right by you is if you already have a policy or you're shopping a policy and somebody you come across is also selling you a policy and you let them know, look, hey, this is actually available to me. So I'll use my own anecdote.
00:33:10
Speaker
A couple of my co-residents were working with some good people down in the Maryland area, and these guys were good, and they're selling a policy and independent agents, and they said, okay, let me look at your policy that you're getting from your institution, Hopkins, and said, you know what? That's a great policy. I can't offer you anything that's going to be better.
00:33:27
Speaker
that is a good sign to me. And again, that's how you and I connected, right? You referred me to somebody in Philly, you referred me to somebody in Baltimore, and it's been a successful relationship since. So Larry, thank you everything for your doing, man. I think this is so important, and I'm so happy to have connected with you because I think
00:33:46
Speaker
You do great work, and I think we just got to keep getting the word out there. That's all that we can do. Last question for you here, man, is you've been in the healthcare industry, again, working with physicians and all walks of life and all specialties, and so we're all about putting the health back in healthcare in this sick care system. When you hear that phrase, what comes to mind for you?
Financial Planning for Physicians
00:34:09
Speaker
I think a lot of doctors, unfortunately, they went into medicine for all the right reasons.
00:34:15
Speaker
And then they get into medicine and they see the business side of medicine really taking turmoil on healthcare. And you're right. I mean, the education, the training, the experience, everything that you guys have gone through, that makes you great clinicians. But the problem is, you get on this treadmill.
00:34:40
Speaker
and it becomes an absolute grind. And the lifestyle creep and the doctor house ultimately takes its toll. So to maintain that, you gotta just keep running at the same pace. And ultimately, you get older, you get tired, your focus is I wanna spend more time with my wife and kids. And to a certain extent, you get broken down.
00:35:08
Speaker
and you almost feel resentful to the hospital or your patients. And that's where financial wellness comes in. So I commend you for all that you're doing and spreading the word, because I honestly believe physicians that are financially educated, that have a high savings rate, that keep their lifestyle in check, they can keep practicing longer.
00:35:36
Speaker
They can spend more time with their patients. They're better doctors because they want to be there, not because they have to be there. The worst thing that I can see is an older physician that wanted to retire many years ago. And things didn't go right financially for any number of reasons. It could be divorce, which is tremendously hazardous to someone's financial health.
00:36:07
Speaker
And they have to rebuild, but probably the reason that contributed to their divorce was they were working too much. They got on this treadmill of buying luxury goods and they spent more than what it is they should have been spending. Like I said, once the luxury is consumed, it becomes a necessity. So they couldn't go backwards.
00:36:32
Speaker
And now they're working not because they want to be working, because they have to be working. And that's really a horrible place to be. And the earlier that you can get the financial education, because this is not difficult stuff, the earlier you can get that education down and maintain your financial education annually, the concepts don't change. Not at all. The numbers get a little bigger, but so does your income.
00:37:01
Speaker
So if you get the basics down and you map out your plan, and it doesn't have to be a long-term plan, remember to me, the best financial plan long-term is a series of short-term steps. And you monitor that. Nothing is going to stand in your way. And then you're going to get what you want. You can retire sooner. You can retire wealthier.
00:37:23
Speaker
You can extend your career if you want. You can beat burnout and you can be there to deliver the best care that you can to your patients that you went into medicine for to begin with. So that word you use, right? Freedom. That's it. It's all about the freedom and to some people, you know, the money is what gives them the freedom to other people.
00:37:51
Speaker
The money is what allows them to do the stuff that they normally couldn't do if they didn't do their planning. So I'll end with this and it's going to sound very salesy, but it's 100% accurate. Most people don't plan to fail. They simply fail to plan. Love it. Thank you for being here Larry. Awesome. I appreciate it. Have a fantastic evening and thank you for your time.
00:38:17
Speaker
Thanks for listening to another episode of Medicine Redefined. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to check out some of the additional resources in the show notes. Please also check out our social media platforms where you can find more content like this. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at MedRedefined.
00:38:35
Speaker
We also want to thank our team for the production of this podcast, specifically Ethan Ju on video, Haritha Yekwory on social media, Zana Blugmani on research, and Sarah Hahn for newsletter. Oh, and if you want to get similar bite-sized information delivered to your inbox every Sunday, please be sure to sign up for our newsletter. Also, if you enjoyed the show, please be sure to subscribe, review, and share with anyone who you think will gain value from this as well. Now, time for the ever so important disclaimers.
00:39:02
Speaker
This podcast is intended for general public use and is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute the practice of medicine, nor should be construed as medical advice. No physician patient relationship is formed and anything discussed in this podcast does not represent the views of our employers. We recommend that you seek the guidance of your personal physician regarding any specific health related issues.
00:39:23
Speaker
Altamash Raja, that's me, Darshan Shah and Medicine Redefined are not affiliated with or endorsed by Park Avenue Securities, Guardian or Physician Financial Services, and opinions stated are our own.
00:39:34
Speaker
By preventing this content, Park Avenue Securities LLC and your financial representative are not undertaking to provide investment advice or make a recommendation for a specific individual or situation or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. Optional riders are available for an additional premium. Some policy benefits and features are not available to all occupations. Lawrence B. Keller is a registered representative and financial advisor of Park Avenue Securities LLC
00:40:00
Speaker
PAS.OSG at 355 Lexington Ave, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10017, 212-261-1850. Security products and advisory services offered through PAS, Member FINRA, SIPC, financial representative of the Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Guardian, New York, NY.
00:40:24
Speaker
PAS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian. Physician Financial Services is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian. California Insurance License 0-C373-40. Arkansas Insurance License 105-7229-2024-17-5351, expiration date of 5-26.