At Agili, we develop resources to educate our clients and friends about important financial concepts. Jamie Malone, CFP®, CPA, a principal and financial strategist at the firm, created an infographic and video to illustrate the importance of determining if you have adequate insurance coverage. The infographic is included at the bottom of this blog post and at this link. Jamie’s video discussing the need for adequate insurance coverage (particularly for young professionals, executives, and doctors) is accessible here. A transcript of Jamie’s video is below in italics.
Video Transcript:
Hi. My name is Jamie Malone and I’m a Financial Strategist at Agili. At our firm, we like to help our clients with more than just retirement planning and investment management.We like to help them with all aspects of their financial lives.
Today, I’d like to touch on insurance. We’ve noticed that when young professionals become new clients, they often do not have adequate life insurance and long-term disability coverage.
Net Worth vs. Earning Potential
And let me use a simple illustration to help make my point. What you see is someone’s net worth over time.
Net Worth
And as a young professional, often your net worth will be very low. You haven’t saved a whole lot and you’re trying to pay off debts. We find that to be very typical. But over time, as you’re successful in your career, as your income increases, as you save more, your net worth will increase – and hopefully gets to a point where you can retire with the financial resources that you need to have a comfortable retirement.
Earning Potential
Now compare this to your earning potential. As a young professional – a doctor or executive — your earning potential is very high. Probably at its highest point as you start out your career. And then over time, that will decline.
Gap between Net Worth and Earning Potential Early in a Career
What I’d like to focus on today, and bring to your attention, is this gap between your net worth (or what we often find when someone’s young) versus their earning potential.
Life Insurance
With life insurance, we typically like to do a needs analysis based on your situation to determine the coverage that you will need. A couple tips to keep in mind….One, we almost always recommend term insurance. It’s usually cheaper and we want you to be able to focus your resources on things like saving for retirement as well as paying down debts you may have. Another part is, while you’re young, it’s usually cheaper and easier to qualify for. Maybe down the road, you may not be able to qualify if your health changes. So to have that in place early — we think is important. Also, if you don’t need the coverage later in life, it’s very easy to reduce your coverage (if you don’t need it later on).
Long-Term Disability Insurance
Now switching to long-term disability insurance. Most people don’t realize that as a young professional you are more likely to become disabled than to die. That’s why having this coverage in place is so important. Most people can only get 60-70% of their income covered by long-term disability – and therefore it’s important to understand your coverage – that which your employer provides which could be a taxable benefit – and if you need additional coverage on your own – which we would encourage you to structure in a way that it could be tax-free.We think looking at this and evaluating this is extremely important – especially while you’re early in your career.
We’ve created the infographic [below] to help you visualize the potential need that you may have for additional life insurance and/or long-term disability coverage. You can find this resource — along with many others — on our website (www.AgiliPersonalCFO.com/resources). I hope this video has been helpful to you. Thank you very much.
Please note: Agili does not sell insurance products, nor do we receive commissions on products we recommend.
We’d love to talk to you about the financial planning, investment planning, and concierge financial services that Agili provides. Feel free to reach out to us to learn more: Let’s talk!