Latest / Financial Survival Network / Guaranteed Income for Peaceful Retirement - Tom Wall #6220
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You know, generally speaking, no matter how much you're able
- 0:02Speaker 1: to save, you will show up a retirement having earned
- 0:04Speaker 1: your last dollar in the working world, hypothetically, and you
- 0:08Speaker 1: will be terrified to spend your money because that's the
- 0:11Speaker 1: last of the money you're going to earn. And I
- 0:13Speaker 1: think that is creating an epidemic in our country where
- 0:17Speaker 1: people are under enjoying their retirements, spending far less than
- 0:20Speaker 1: they could because of all the possible what ifs that
- 0:24Speaker 1: come along with retirement.
- 0:25Speaker 2: You are listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network where
- 0:29Speaker 2: you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else
- 0:33Speaker 2: to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial
- 0:36Speaker 2: Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork
- 0:42Speaker 2: dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial
- 0:45Speaker 2: Survival Network now more than ever.
- 0:52Speaker 3: And welcome.
- 0:53Speaker 4: You are listening to and watching the Financial Survival Network.
- 0:56Speaker 4: I'm your host, Carrie Letz.
- 0:58Speaker 3: Will feel like me.
- 1:00Speaker 4: You're getting on in your years. You're thinking about retirement.
- 1:06Speaker 4: Even if you're not going to retire soon, you should
- 1:08Speaker 4: be thinking about retirement planning. We've got a real expert
- 1:12Speaker 4: on with us now, Tom Wall. Tom actually coaches other
- 1:19Speaker 4: people to help you.
- 1:21Speaker 3: Figure out how to retire.
- 1:23Speaker 4: You can find his book over at Permission to Spend
- 1:29Speaker 4: dot com. Tom, it's great to have you on the show.
- 1:32Speaker 4: So if there's one piece of advice then you give
- 1:35Speaker 4: to somebody in their say, mid fifties, looking forward to
- 1:39Speaker 4: the day that they one day might retire, what would
- 1:42Speaker 4: that be?
- 1:43Speaker 1: My advice or my caution to you would be that
- 1:46Speaker 1: you will be afraid to spend. You know, generally speaking,
- 1:49Speaker 1: no matter how much you're able to save, you will
- 1:51Speaker 1: show up at retirement having earned your last dollar in
- 1:54Speaker 1: the working world, hypothetically, and you will be terrified to
- 1:57Speaker 1: spend your money because that's the last of the money
- 2:00Speaker 1: you're going to earn. And I think that is creating
- 2:04Speaker 1: an epidemic in our country where people are under enjoying
- 2:06Speaker 1: their retirements, spending far less than they could because of
- 2:10Speaker 1: all the possible what ifs that come along with retirement,
- 2:13Speaker 1: and you know, in terms of how long you're going
- 2:15Speaker 1: to live, what kind of health shocks there may be,
- 2:17Speaker 1: does World War three breakout in three years?
- 2:19Speaker 3: All the things that keep us up at night. Yeah, sure,
- 2:22Speaker 3: And that's that's really the crux of my work.
- 2:24Speaker 4: So how do you get past that, how do you
- 2:27Speaker 4: like give yourself permission to spend?
- 2:30Speaker 3: It's a good question.
- 2:31Speaker 1: So in the past, you know, and you think way
- 2:34Speaker 1: back when people just worked at companies for thirty years
- 2:36Speaker 1: and got their pension and the pension took care of them.
- 2:39Speaker 1: That was what you did and someone else kind of
- 2:41Speaker 1: handled it for you. So we now live in a
- 2:43Speaker 1: world where the majority of folks don't have that arrangement anymore,
- 2:46Speaker 1: and they need to take a pile of money and
- 2:48Speaker 1: basically be their own pension fund manager, you know, manage
- 2:51Speaker 1: that for the rest of their life. So there are
- 2:53Speaker 1: you know, time tested one hundred and fifty two hundred
- 2:56Speaker 1: year old strategies, you know, with life insurance and annuities
- 2:59Speaker 1: and very unst products with names like that that actually
- 3:03Speaker 1: their sole purpose is to help people do that, to
- 3:06Speaker 1: transfer risk to major insurance companies so that they can
- 3:09Speaker 1: spend and enjoy all that they've been able to accumulate
- 3:12Speaker 1: rouring their lives.
- 3:13Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
- 3:13Speaker 4: So you think you still think insurance the time all
- 3:16Speaker 4: tested product is the way to go here.
- 3:19Speaker 3: I think for a lot of folks it is.
- 3:21Speaker 1: You know, I want to look at my planning, you know,
- 3:23Speaker 1: the reason I own permanent life insurance is you know,
- 3:25Speaker 1: people talk about buy term and invest the difference right,
- 3:27Speaker 1: So usually.
- 3:28Speaker 3: So relatively savvy folks will say, I'm just.
- 3:30Speaker 1: Going to own cheap term insurance while I'm in my
- 3:32Speaker 1: working years and then I'm going to cumulate my millions
- 3:33Speaker 1: in my investment accounts and then i won't need life
- 3:36Speaker 1: insurance later on, which is true, you know to a
- 3:39Speaker 1: large degree.
- 3:39Speaker 3: That's that should work that way.
- 3:41Speaker 1: But the problem is if you don't, if you don't
- 3:42Speaker 1: continue to have, you know, a guaranteed legacy to the
- 3:45Speaker 1: ones that you love, and you don't have a liquid
- 3:47Speaker 1: source of capital outside of your investment portfolio, and you
- 3:51Speaker 1: don't have something that guarantees an income stream for.
- 3:53Speaker 3: As long as you live.
- 3:54Speaker 1: You know, you're always going to be investing and managing
- 3:57Speaker 1: your money based on probabilities and those employees you know,
- 4:01Speaker 1: may not be accurate, and they're based on what the
- 4:03Speaker 1: last one hundred years gave us in terms of returns
- 4:05Speaker 1: and volatility. But there's absolutely no reason that the next
- 4:09Speaker 1: hundred years needs to look the same. So that's where
- 4:11Speaker 1: where it fits is guarantees and predictability, not necessarily performance.
- 4:15Speaker 1: It's just it's just a matter of putting in that
- 4:17Speaker 1: predictability into the plan, right, So.
- 4:21Speaker 4: So maybe it's not your whole retirement, but it's kind
- 4:25Speaker 4: of no pun intended uh an insurance policy if you will.
- 4:31Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think there's there's there's some bad
- 4:33Speaker 1: actors in the business that have given, you know, some
- 4:35Speaker 1: of these strategies of bad names. And I say bad actors,
- 4:38Speaker 1: I think most advisors are trying to do the best
- 4:39Speaker 1: thing for their clients. So it's not always unsc unscrupulous individuals.
- 4:43Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just uneducated folks. So I think there are
- 4:47Speaker 1: people in our in our space who will tell clients
- 4:50Speaker 1: just put all your money here, it's all guaranteed it's
- 4:51Speaker 1: going to go up like it's a triple A rated company,
- 4:54Speaker 1: and that's that's that's not a good idea either, you
- 4:57Speaker 1: know it putting all your eggs in one basket and
- 4:59Speaker 1: regardless of safe, that less it is.
- 5:01Speaker 3: So yeah, absolutely not. It's it's a balance of the two.
- 5:05Speaker 3: So what kind of insurance companies you look at.
- 5:07Speaker 4: You're looking at mutual life insurance companies.
- 5:11Speaker 3: Yeah, my preference is the big old mutuals.
- 5:13Speaker 1: So you know, it's just some names that people might
- 5:15Speaker 1: recognize is like Northwestern Mutual, New York Life Mass Mutual,
- 5:18Speaker 1: you know, guarding those kind of companies. You know, they
- 5:20Speaker 1: all date back to the eighteen hundreds, you know, and
- 5:22Speaker 1: they've they've been paying dividends reliably to their to their
- 5:25Speaker 1: policy owners since that time. And I think the big
- 5:28Speaker 1: the big reason that I say that is because they're
- 5:31Speaker 1: mutually owned, so you know, they are not necessarily owned
- 5:34Speaker 1: by their policy owners. But I'm ready for the better
- 5:36Speaker 1: policy owners. You know, the stock the stock companies that
- 5:39Speaker 1: you can trade in the open market.
- 5:40Speaker 3: They are serving two masters.
- 5:42Speaker 1: They are trying to provide value for their policy owners,
- 5:44Speaker 1: but also you know, pay quarterly dividends to their investors.
- 5:48Speaker 3: So it becomes hard.
- 5:49Speaker 1: To sit on the same side of the table as
- 5:51Speaker 1: your clients and deliver value over long periods of time
- 5:53Speaker 1: when you're at the same time trying to extract value
- 5:56Speaker 1: for others who are not part of that contractual arrangement.
- 5:58Speaker 1: So that's that's big reason and why I personally think
- 6:03Speaker 1: that the big mutuls are the place to go. That's
- 6:05Speaker 1: really what you want to build in your portfolio.
- 6:07Speaker 4: Okay, so you know what about commissions that you pay
- 6:11Speaker 4: for life insurance? I mean that comes out of your return,
- 6:14Speaker 4: right it does.
- 6:15Speaker 1: So this is another knock against you know, insurance based
- 6:17Speaker 1: products is typically their commission based product, So there's an
- 6:21Speaker 1: upfront commission that comes out. It's not it's not something
- 6:23Speaker 1: that directly is paid by the client, but it comes
- 6:26Speaker 1: in the form of you know, the early the early
- 6:28Speaker 1: years in these contracts tend to have lower values because
- 6:30Speaker 1: of that. That said, you know, if you work with
- 6:33Speaker 1: an investment manager who's managing a portfolio of investments for you,
- 6:37Speaker 1: there's fees and charges on that as well, much lower,
- 6:41Speaker 1: but on an ongoing basis, and based on the calculations
- 6:44Speaker 1: I've done, that'll actually cost you more over the course
- 6:47Speaker 1: of your life in terms of fees and expenses than
- 6:50Speaker 1: a typical insurance contract that's well designed.
- 6:52Speaker 3: So I think that's overplayed.
- 6:53Speaker 1: I think that's there's a there's a space that tries
- 6:56Speaker 1: to paint the industry as a bunch of salespeople that
- 6:58Speaker 1: are trying to to pull one over on you. But
- 7:01Speaker 1: all financial products that you acquire, no matter how you
- 7:04Speaker 1: acquire it, have a fee structure that you're paying and
- 7:08Speaker 1: I don't I don't think that's necessarily at odds with
- 7:11Speaker 1: with the client success story.
- 7:13Speaker 4: Yeah, there's no free lunch. It's here right, exactly right.
- 7:17Speaker 4: But there's fees and then there's fees. How do you
- 7:20Speaker 4: judge you whether you're paying a fair fee or not.
- 7:23Speaker 1: Well, again, that's where it comes down to mutuality. So
- 7:25Speaker 1: these companies are operating for the benefit of their policy owners.
- 7:27Speaker 1: So you know, there's when these these companies will put
- 7:30Speaker 1: products in place that are guaranteed. They'll guarantee a death benefit,
- 7:33Speaker 1: they'll guarantee cash values, they'll guarantee that premiums can never
- 7:36Speaker 1: change on the annuity side, which guarantees an income stream.
- 7:40Speaker 1: They'll guarantee payouts for as long as you live. And
- 7:43Speaker 1: typically they do as they control the expenses through the dividend.
- 7:46Speaker 1: The dividend payout, so you know, to the extent that
- 7:48Speaker 1: the insurance company is profitable. In generating profits, they really
- 7:52Speaker 1: can only do two things. So they can make they
- 7:54Speaker 1: can make strategic investments to make their general investment account
- 7:57Speaker 1: perform better or and or they can give that back
- 8:01Speaker 1: to the policy owners in the form of a participating dividend.
- 8:04Speaker 1: You know, they these policy owners essentially you know, own
- 8:06Speaker 1: the company indirectly. So when there's profitability, it comes back
- 8:10Speaker 1: to you. So again, these these contracts tend to have,
- 8:14Speaker 1: you know, high, high guaranteed cost structures. But because they're
- 8:19Speaker 1: sitting on the same side of the table as you,
- 8:20Speaker 1: they're operating for the benefit of the policy owner. It
- 8:23Speaker 1: all comes back. It all comes back in the form
- 8:25Speaker 1: of a non guaranteed dividend. When I say non guaranteed,
- 8:28Speaker 1: it's not like the market where it goes up and
- 8:29Speaker 1: down and can be taken away from you. You know,
- 8:31Speaker 1: it's really just the rate at which they enhance those guarantees.
- 8:35Speaker 1: So it's it's hard, I would say that's that's probably
- 8:38Speaker 1: the hardest part about these participating whole life contracts is
- 8:41Speaker 1: there they have an opaque fee structure. You can't actually
- 8:43Speaker 1: see exactly where every dollar is going. Uh, they just
- 8:47Speaker 1: kind of give you. They just give you the performance
- 8:49Speaker 1: and you have to interpolate, you know, what performance you're
- 8:53Speaker 1: not getting, you.
- 8:54Speaker 3: Know, to kind of come up with with what those
- 8:55Speaker 3: fees are.
- 8:56Speaker 1: But like I said, over over a long time horizon,
- 9:00Speaker 1: it's typically less than be paying inside of an investment account.
- 9:03Speaker 4: So in today's modern world, you got cryptos, you got
- 9:07Speaker 4: a lot of competing investments here, Uh, is the amount
- 9:11Speaker 4: going into these uh insurance contracts. Is it still increasing
- 9:16Speaker 4: where these companies at now.
- 9:18Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always increasing, you know, as as the consumer
- 9:22Speaker 1: base grows and the population grows. I think where it's
- 9:26Speaker 1: going toward is you know, there's there's a few different
- 9:28Speaker 1: markets in this space. There's a there's a market known
- 9:32Speaker 1: inside the industry as like the infinite banking crowd, and
- 9:34Speaker 1: these are people that are using the unbelievable tax advantages
- 9:38Speaker 1: that life insurance has and they're they're overfunding these policies
- 9:41Speaker 1: and using it as a separate, you know, investment if
- 9:45Speaker 1: you will.
- 9:46Speaker 3: There it's it's not an investment, it's an insurance contract.
- 9:48Speaker 1: But they're they're funding these vehicles to the point where
- 9:51Speaker 1: they look like you know, alternative to savings and bonds
- 9:54Speaker 1: and some of that stuff. And then there's the other
- 9:56Speaker 1: side of the spectrum, which frankly I think I live
- 9:58Speaker 1: closer to, which is really death benefit focused.
- 10:02Speaker 3: You know.
- 10:02Speaker 1: For me, you know, I've got two boys that I love,
- 10:05Speaker 1: and you know, my future spouse in retirement, like these
- 10:08Speaker 1: people are, I'm going to be obligated at the very
- 10:10Speaker 1: least to provide my spouse with something when I die.
- 10:12Speaker 1: I make sure that there's there's money left over for her.
- 10:15Speaker 1: But also I want to leave a legacy to my children,
- 10:17Speaker 1: so a permanent death benefit guarantees that delivery of future money.
- 10:21Speaker 1: I know that that legacy is covered, so that when
- 10:24Speaker 1: I get to retirement, I can take my investments and
- 10:27Speaker 1: annuitize them or aggressively spend them down. And if I
- 10:30Speaker 1: do that over twenty or thirty years and there's not
- 10:32Speaker 1: a whole lot left, I've got that backstop and I've
- 10:34Speaker 1: got those guarantees in place. So it's less about you know,
- 10:38Speaker 1: fighting over rates of return and you know what, I
- 10:40Speaker 1: think this aviation of this asset classes, and more about
- 10:44Speaker 1: I know that those things are covered, so I can
- 10:47Speaker 1: then go with the rest of my money shoot for
- 10:50Speaker 1: the stars and buy crypto and invest invest in businesses
- 10:55Speaker 1: and real estate and all the things that have historically
- 10:57Speaker 1: generated big wealth. But if that's all, I think that
- 11:02Speaker 1: the takeaways, if that's where all of your money is
- 11:04Speaker 1: in these risky asset classes, and then you know, a
- 11:07Speaker 1: year or two after you retire, some you know, geopolitical
- 11:11Speaker 1: calamity happens in the much it goes down sixty percent,
- 11:14Speaker 1: Like that's just untutable.
- 11:16Speaker 4: I just remember in economics class, the professor quoted somebody saying,
- 11:21Speaker 4: you know, in the long run, we're all dead.
- 11:24Speaker 3: So hopefully the long run.
- 11:29Speaker 4: So when you're looking for the company you want, I mean,
- 11:32Speaker 4: these companies have been around for like one hundred and
- 11:35Speaker 4: fifty plus years, a lot of them, haven't they Yeah.
- 11:38Speaker 3: I mean the majority of the majority of the big ones.
- 11:40Speaker 3: They predate.
- 11:41Speaker 1: They predate any company you can think of in the
- 11:43Speaker 1: financial space. You know, the mutual fundedn't even wasn't even
- 11:46Speaker 1: invented until early nineteen hundreds. So yeah, they are time tested.
- 11:52Speaker 1: If if anything, if there's a knock against them is
- 11:54Speaker 1: that they're boring. They're boring, they're predictable. They're going to
- 11:56Speaker 1: be here in one hundred years because of the way
- 11:58Speaker 1: they invest and manage things. And that's that's where they live.
- 12:02Speaker 1: That's essentially the space I think people get. People get
- 12:05Speaker 1: it a little bit twisted when they try to compare
- 12:07Speaker 1: these contracts to other investment classes and say that I
- 12:11Speaker 1: can do better elsewhere, And the answer is, over long
- 12:14Speaker 1: periods of time, on average, you should. The point is
- 12:17Speaker 1: to have it in place when when the market doesn't
- 12:20Speaker 1: go up and you're in a period of time when
- 12:22Speaker 1: you can't just go earn more money in your job
- 12:25Speaker 1: or your business to make up for that.
- 12:28Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 12:28Speaker 4: Interesting, And you know, this kind of formula works all
- 12:31Speaker 4: over the world, Asia, Europe. You know, started in England,
- 12:36Speaker 4: in the UK in the seventeen hundreds in these coffee
- 12:40Speaker 4: shops and here it is now even in the digital world.
- 12:46Speaker 4: It's still the same basic contract. Yeah, a lot of
- 12:49Speaker 4: things have changed, but the contract, it's all about a
- 12:52Speaker 4: contract between you and a company, right, That's where it
- 12:56Speaker 4: all starts.
- 12:57Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's an important distinction. It's not some people
- 13:00Speaker 1: will call this stuff, you know, an asset class. It's
- 13:02Speaker 1: not an asset class. It is a life insurance contract.
- 13:05Speaker 1: But what I what a lot of my research and
- 13:06Speaker 1: study has been done is we're basically how I got
- 13:10Speaker 1: here was I've been on stages for twenty years in
- 13:12Speaker 1: front of advisors, you know, talking about whole life insurance
- 13:15Speaker 1: and does this make sense? And basically the question in
- 13:18Speaker 1: my mind was always is this just a good a
- 13:21Speaker 1: good product that's probably going to serve you well that
- 13:23Speaker 1: you don't have to apologize for, you know, twenty years
- 13:26Speaker 1: down the road, or is this actually actually the best
- 13:29Speaker 1: thing someone could be doing with their money, and what
- 13:31Speaker 1: I what I found in my in my studies historically
- 13:34Speaker 1: was these contracts tend to give you bond like returns
- 13:37Speaker 1: over time because they're backed by portfolio of long term
- 13:41Speaker 1: corporate bonds and mortgage lee among all the stuff that
- 13:43Speaker 1: these general investment accounts of these major mutuals invest in,
- 13:45Speaker 1: so that that flows through the contract to you. But
- 13:49Speaker 1: because there's a contract between you and that portfolio, there's
- 13:52Speaker 1: guarantees in place that your cash values must go up
- 13:54Speaker 1: in value every year. The only question is how fast
- 13:57Speaker 1: you've got complete access to them along the way, and
- 14:00Speaker 1: that's that contractual nature.
- 14:03Speaker 3: Is actually the positive.
- 14:05Speaker 1: Of this is that there's there's an insurance company indemnifying
- 14:08Speaker 1: you from all of the risks inherent in building a
- 14:11Speaker 1: portfolio of your own, and you get better risk adjusted
- 14:16Speaker 1: returns as a result. You know, you get basically bond
- 14:18Speaker 1: like returns, but none of the risk and volatility. And
- 14:20Speaker 1: that's what the smartest minds of all street are trying
- 14:22Speaker 1: to figure out. They're not necessarily looking for the best
- 14:25Speaker 1: absolute returns, They're looking for the best returns relative to
- 14:28Speaker 1: the risk and downside we're taking on.
- 14:31Speaker 4: Everybody wants the risk free return, but you know treasuries,
- 14:36Speaker 4: and there's obviously risks in bonds as well. You're not
- 14:40Speaker 4: worrying about the equitable or you know mass mutuals bond
- 14:46Speaker 4: portfolio when you sign the contract, that's their.
- 14:48Speaker 3: Problem, right, exactly right?
- 14:50Speaker 4: Yeah, So all right, hey, Tom, just tell us again
- 14:53Speaker 4: how we connect with you, how we find you on
- 14:56Speaker 4: the internet.
- 14:57Speaker 1: Yeah, I do a lot of I actually publish a
- 14:59Speaker 1: lot on LinkedIn, so you know LinkedIn and Tom Wall,
- 15:01Speaker 1: I'm easy to find there. Permission to spend dot com
- 15:04Speaker 1: is where my book is, so for if there's advisors listening,
- 15:07Speaker 1: they can actually use that book as a tool with
- 15:09Speaker 1: clients to help have the conversation. But individuals will get
- 15:12Speaker 1: a lot of it too. It's available on Amazon and
- 15:14Speaker 1: all formats. And you know, I'm just here to serve
- 15:17Speaker 1: individuals and try to tell the story in an objective
- 15:20Speaker 1: academic way, which a lot of the industry frankly isn't
- 15:24Speaker 1: doing well.
- 15:25Speaker 4: We appreciate your candidness and your depth of knowledge is
- 15:28Speaker 4: quite obvious. And if you have any questions or comments
- 15:31Speaker 4: for Tom myself, shoot me an email kl at Carrie
- 15:34Speaker 4: LUTs dot com.
- 15:36Speaker 3: The link to tom site get the book is in the.
- 15:39Speaker 4: Show notes to this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com.
- 15:43Speaker 3: While you're there, we.
- 15:45Speaker 4: Just ask that you please sign up free free newsletter.
- 15:48Speaker 4: Like over sixty five thousand other FSN community members, have
- 15:52Speaker 4: a lot of useful info there.
- 15:54Speaker 3: Tom, thanks for coming on. We'll talk to you again soon.
- 15:56Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
- 15:58Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Carrie Let's Financial Survival Network your
- 16:02Speaker 2: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
- 16:06Speaker 2: Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,