When I meet with high income professionals, I am impressed by how well they know their numbers. They know their income, their billings, and their investment returns, often to the dollar. Then I ask a simpler question. What is your blood pressure. What are your cholesterol and blood sugar numbers. When did you last have…
Most people I meet in their late 50s and early 60s think of disability insurance as a problem for younger workers. They have paid a mortgage down, built savings, and can see retirement ahead. A disability feels less likely to change the whole plan. In my experience, the opposite is true. The final working years…
When I talk with business owners about their biggest risks, health care wait times rarely come up first. Cash flow does. Staffing does. A key client or a loan renewal does. Then I ask a different question. What happens to the business if you are the one waiting, months for a scan, months more for…
When I sit down with an employer to review their benefits, group life insurance is usually the first thing people point to. The assumption is simple. The company offers life insurance, so the leadership team must be covered. What I find is different. Group life is tied to the job, it is often set by…
When I review coverage with a family, I usually find the same pattern. The parent who earns the higher income has life insurance, often through work and sometimes a personal policy as well. The parent who works part time, or is home full time with the children, often has little coverage or none at all….
If you are an incorporated professional, you are used to planning ahead. Your corporation is set up properly, your retirement savings have a plan, and your own term and disability coverage have been reviewed, often more than once. In my experience, children’s coverage is the one piece that gets left for later. It feels less…
If you are incorporated and your income depends on you personally, your calendar is your business. A morning away for one test, an afternoon weeks later for another, and a follow up months after that are not just inconveniences. They are billable hours lost, client work moved, and questions left unanswered for longer than they…
Retirement is supposed to give you more choice, not less. More choice about where you live for part of the year, how you travel, and how you spend your time. I talk with retirees and pre-retirees who have planned carefully for that stage. They have saved, they have paid down debt, and many spend winters…
Being able to do some work is not the same as being able to do the job your income is built on. That distinction sounds small until an injury or illness puts it to the test. I talk with dentists, surgeons, and other specialized professionals whose income depends on a very specific set of skills….
When I ask employees what life insurance they have, the most common answer I hear is simple. I have some through work. That is a good starting point. The problem is that most people have never looked at how much their group life insurance actually pays, how that amount was chosen, or what happens to…