By Jamie K. Fleischner, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF
President, Set for Life Insurance
It’s amazing what can change in a decade. Today I reviewed an existing client’s insurance and a lot has changed since we first started working together in 2000.
My client, “Dr. Foot” is an orthopedic surgeon living in New York who first came to me when he was graduating his medical residency. In 2000, he was married with 2 young children and had a lot of school loans. He wanted to maximize what he could purchase while keeping things within his budget.
At the time, he purchased both a disability policy and a term insurance policy to cover his immediate needs.
Over the years, Dr. Foot exercised his increase options on his disability insurance, paid off his debt and continued to grow his family.
Now, 13 years later, Dr. Foot has paid off all of his school loans, paid off his mortgage, has 6 kids, and is earning seven figures as an orthopedic surgeon. He still has the need to protect his family if he becomes disabled and needs as much disability insurance benefit he can obtain as well as additional life insurance to cover his large family.
In 2013, Dr. Foot is now able to purchase more than the original $10,000/month of individual disability insurance benefit since the reinsurers lifted the limits. I recommended he purchase benefits with an additional insurance company as this allowed him to obtain the maximum limit for physicians of $25,000/month. We made sure the additional coverage had an own occupation definition to cover him if he could no longer work as an orthopedic surgeon yet could still work in another medical specialty. (He could purchase more with a nontraditional carrier that would allow him excess coverage but didn’t need to do so).
Dr. Foot is now at the stage where he started to consider permanent life insurance. His debt is low, his income is high, he has maximized his retirement contributions and he wants to create a legacy. After an in depth discussion, he decided to pursue a whole life policy. Since he is still healthy and can medically qualify, this will allow him to accumulate assets in a conservative way on a tax free basis while protecting his family if he were to die.
I really enjoy working with my clients over the years and see their lives, families and careers evolve. It is fun to be part of it all. Thank you, Dr. Foot!
