The Major Benefits of Life Insurance & How You Can Retire With Peace of Mind
EPISODE 4
Life insurance can be uncomfortable to think about, but at some point we do need to consider how we can set our family up for success in the case of something unexpected happening to us. In this episode, our CEO, Daniel Vander Kooi, and our friend Justin Sykes of Millennium Brokerage Group go through the major benefits of life insurance as well as how you can retire with peace of mind.
In This Episode:
Intro to Justin Sykes and How He Works Alongside Manna Insurance Group
People Never Want To Talk About Life Insurance 🫣
Tools for Life Insurance and Protecting Your Retirement Funds (even when markets are volatile)
Enjoying Your Retirement Years Without Living In Fear or Worry
Tips for Making Sure Your Family is Taken Care of Even After You’re Gone
Podcast Episode Transcription
Intro:
Welcome to the (un)covered Podcast, brought to you by Manna Insurance Group, where we pull back the curtain on the insurance industry and provide valuable insights, guidance, and truth so that you can make informed decisions when choosing the right insurance.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Well, hey, guys. Dan Vander Kooi here with the (un)covered Podcast, and I'm really excited today to have Justin Sykes from Millennium Brokerage Group. Justin, welcome.
Justin Sykes:
Thanks for having me, Dan.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah, Justin flew in last night from Charlotte, North Carolina. We've been working together for, gosh, probably 7, 8 years.
Justin Sykes:
Yeah, I was thinking about it last night. I think it was since 2015.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Okay. Yeah.
Justin Sykes:
So what's that?
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah, eight years.
Justin Sykes:
Eight years? Yeah.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah.
Justin Sykes:
Wow.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Justin and I got connected. We used to do a lot of life insurance and long-term care insurance with Nationwide Financial, and we're on their Dean's List as one of their top providers in the country for one of the years. And we got connected, somehow a guy from Charlotte, North Carolina got assigned to the Pacific Northwest Territory, and since then you've moved on from there, and you're with Millennium Brokerage Group out of Brentwood, Tennessee now, but we still get to work together, which is a blast.
Justin Sykes:
Yeah, thankfully, I always laugh and say that was the Nationwide map, but maybe it was God's map, because I feel like it was a blessing that I got connected with you guys at Manna.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Absolutely. So you're up here this week touching base with some of our agents, but also we're hosting a retirement seminar this week, and this will probably air after that, but that's okay. One of the things that we've partnered a lot on is life insurance, long-term care, disability, and then retirement planning. And when you think about all of those products in the space, they all serve a different purpose. When you start to really look at different things that people go through in life, and to make sure people are protected for the things that matter most, they all play a different role. I'd love to just for you to quick dive into really quick how you got into working in this industry, and then we can go through some of the things that we partner on, and what might help our people listening.
Justin Sykes:
Sure, sure. Yeah, I started off actually when I was in college as an intern with an employee benefits firm. So I spent the first, probably a little less than half my career now as I'm getting older, selling employee benefits to companies, so health insurance, group life insurance, group benefits. I then went to work for Nationwide, which at the time I was responsible for benefits and life insurance. I didn't really know what life insurance was other than that it provided a death benefit.
But it was neat, because as I got to understand more how these tools are used as protection vehicles, not only in the event of death, but for other means, I really found a passion behind it, because I realized how much we can help people with just some simple solutions that are brought to the table. So I did that with Nationwide for a few years and then turned over to the independent side, where I joined Millennium in 2019 and got back to working with you guys.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah, yeah. I remember that phone call that I got from you saying, "Hey, I'm not there."
I'm like, "No, I'm getting another rep."
You're like, "Whoa, but wait, I'm doing this and I can still work with you," which was a cool deal for us.
Justin Sykes:
You said, "We're in."
Daniel Vander Kooi:
We're in.
Justin Sykes:
And I was like, "Yes!"
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Because for us, it's all about relationships, right? And you've always taken really, really good care of our team here at Manna, but also our clients too. So let's talk about life insurance. Something that sometimes people shy away from talking about, because no one wants to talk about death, but also people buy life insurance because at some point we're all going to die and meet our Maker. And one of the tools that you guys have been able to provide to some agencies across the country, not all of them, but is life insurance made easy. Do you want to just share a little bit about that product, and what's important about it, and why it's an incredible tool for people, who are probably listening to this right now, could actually pull something up and get a life insurance quote on the spot?
Justin Sykes:
It is. It's connected through your website and it is live. It's ultimately a tool that allows the consumer at their leisure to go on and type in just some very basic information on themselves, their age, their gender, whether or not they smoke, and kind of an overall I guess rating of their health. Are they in good health? Are they in great health? Are they in average health?
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Height, weight, I think you put in there too.
Justin Sykes:
Height, weight is in there as well.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Which is really nice, when I don't have to ask that question.
Justin Sykes:
Everybody's always a little bit shorter than they say they are, or than they need to be for their height.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah, yeah, or they're a little lighter.
Justin Sykes:
Myself included.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
I still weigh a 175 pounds like I did my freshman year in high school, right?
Justin Sykes:
And I'm 5'11" and a half, which is about 6'1" last time I checked. But so, they can go on there and put in some basic information about themselves, they can get multiple quotes from all the leading insurance companies in the industry. We represent about 30 different insurance companies, and many of those companies offer a wide variety of products. But also, we're seeing more and more companies offer what they call instant issue. So it's allowing the client to see what's available in the marketplace. And then, if they find something that they like, that meets their needs, they can click on apply and simply do a short application there. That information gets fed over to Manna, and then Manna reaches out to that person to finish up the application process, and submit it to the carrier.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And it's really nice, because on those quick issue policies, if they deem after those basic questions that you're there, I mean, I've seen some issued as quickly as 24 to 48 hours.
Justin Sykes:
Absolutely.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And sometimes it can take a little longer too. But the cool thing about it is, you're getting to apply online, I'll call you in your sweatpants while you're watching TV or something like that, but you also still get that connection to a broker to help you with it if you have questions or anything like that. And so, that's kind of the cool part of it. It's kind of the hybrid between, it's all online, you just call some random 800 number that you have no relationship with, or don't know anyone where we actually have it. It's going to ping myself and Blake Whitman in our office, and if you need help with it, we're going to answer questions, and that sort of thing. So that's pretty slick.
Justin Sykes:
Well, to that point, Dan, a lot of times people don't realize that if they go through a broker, they get a top level of service they wouldn't otherwise get just going online, but they don't pay any more money for that. So they're getting additional services for the same premiums. And I think that that's something that gets overlooked. People think, "I'm going to go online, I'm going to shop for this." And a lot of times they get unrealistic expectations based on what they see online, or what they see on TV, advertisements for final expense policies and things like that. So it's nice to have that connection with your office.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
So a lot of that product that runs through there is term insurance. And so, that's especially young couples getting married, someone trying to figure out some final expense stuff possibly, or you're buying your first house, and all of a sudden there's that big purchase and you're like, "Man, I'm going to do that." Or you have a kid. And now it's like, "Man, how am I going to make sure if I pass away and I'm the main income..." I'm a big Dave Ramsey fan in a lot of stuff, sometimes the life insurance space, I'm a little different than him on, but his principles across from budgeting and all that kind of stuff are really solid, and making sure you're taken care of. And one of the things he always talks about is to make sure you have 7 to 10 times your actual income. And if Dave Ramsey's saying that, and he's really conservative when it comes to finances and that sort of thing, it's probably a good starting point.
So 7 to 10 times your income in life insurance, and then also paying off all your debt. So you kind of take those two together and figure that out. And two, it depends what region of the country you live in. Inflation's a real deal, so buy in. What we could do, back when I first got married, I think we bought $250,000 policies. Well, that's a drop in the bucket in our housing market today with mortgages, or with inflation going on. Even a million bucks doesn't go near as far as it used to. So being able to go on there, type in, I literally did it last night as I was kind of testing some stuff on there. It took me 30 seconds.
Justin Sykes:
Yeah, it's very quick. And that's one of the other misnomers is people think that life insurance is a lot more difficult to obtain, and it's a lot more expensive than it actually is, especially for your younger clients. You talked about the newly married people or people where they're buying their first house, you can get that million dollars of insurance for less than a cup of coffee a day. That used to be what it was. That was kind of the gauge, the cup of coffee a day, but it's much less than that. If you're in reasonably good health.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
That's because now, if you-
Justin Sykes:
Of course, now a cup of coffee's $7.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Cup of coffee is $7 if you add the oat milk to it or whatever.
Justin Sykes:
That's right, that's right. Dirty chai latte.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Dirty chai. We were talking about that last time at dinner.
Justin Sykes:
That's right, that's right.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah. So that's a really cool tool that's really simple for people to do. They can go on our website, mannainsurancegroup.com, and click on the life insurance, get a quote now, and it takes you right there. So just check out mannainsurancegroup.com for that.
Justin Sykes:
And I always say, last thing I'll say on that topic is, you're never going to get life insurance for less than you're going to get it today.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
It's true.
Justin Sykes:
You're getting older. Most people aren't getting healthier, at least significantly healthier, right? And so, the older you get and the less healthy you become as time goes on, the harder it is and the more expensive it gets, because-
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Well, let's talk about that really quick too, because the sooner you buy it, the less expensive it's going to be, like you just talked about. But also, you can lock in that rate. So term insurance is, you can lock it in for however many number of years you select, and a lot of times people are doing 10, 20 or 30 year terms. But then, let's say you lock in a 30-year term, that rate stays the same for the next 30 years. It doesn't change.
Justin Sykes:
That's right.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
But it's kind of renting. As soon as that policy's up, that policy's up.
Justin Sykes:
It's like a lease agreement, right?
Daniel Vander Kooi:
It's like a lease agreement, yeah.
Justin Sykes:
Now, and what people also feel to understand is that the insurance can go longer than that. It's just your cost goes up after that 10, 20 or 30 year period. So normally we do see those 10, 20 and 30 year period ranges. You do have the ability to go up to 35 years with a couple of different carriers, but that's where you're normally seeing people buy, by the coverage. It is meant to protect a mortgage, protect your income if you pass away and make sure your kids are taken care of while they're under your responsibility.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Let's talk about something else. One of the other things that we've done with you guys and what you're here to teach on a little bit this week, you'll be specifically teaching on some of this is retirement planning and making sure, I always tell people when they sit down with us, I go, "I don't need to know necessarily what's in your bank account, but I got to have an idea of what your net worth is and where things are going, because it's our job on the property and casualty side of insurance to protect the assets that you've built up in case there's a lawsuit, things like that." One of the things that Millennium does a good job, and we've talked a lot about, is making sure that people don't outlive what they've saved up, or that they've put in their retirement. What's some practical tools that people can use, especially right now when the world's kind of all over the map right now.
Justin Sykes:
Oh, it's wild.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And I just pray that Jesus comes home.
Justin Sykes:
Right now.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Come right now.
Justin Sykes:
How about now?
Daniel Vander Kooi:
But what's some practical tools that people can, in this uncertain time, to really secure what they've built up? I remember when oh '08, '09 happened, I knew a few people that ended up having to teach longer, because they lost a bunch of their stuff that they had in the market. And so, what are some tools out there right now?
Justin Sykes:
Well, I mean we do a lot of work. Right now specifically with the way the market is, we've done a lot of work in the annuity space, and there's a lot of different things we can do in that space.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And there's a lot of opinions about annuities too.
Justin Sykes:
There certainly are. If you listen to Dave Ramsey as an example, and you listen to what's the latest Suze Orman, one of the common themes you hear is annuities have really high fees. And that's kind of used to be the case. And with some solutions it is still a case. But there's a lot of solutions out there that have really, really incredible guarantees and benefits they can provide, such as long-term care multipliers or guaranteed income for life, which I think to me is a huge benefit of an annuity.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Okay, really quick, hit on that. So that rings, I guess a question to me is, guaranteed income for life.
Justin Sykes:
Okay.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
What is that?
Justin Sykes:
Well, so you've got a person that has accumulated a lot of wealth over their working years. They've got their 401k, maybe an IRA, maybe an investment account. Those are kind of the three main areas where we see retirement savings. A lot of people have money in their house, but of course, unless they sell their house, that's not something they can live off of. So the problem is, all those investments are oftentimes directly invested in the market, or in some sort of market volatility, or market-based vehicle, which carries a lot of volatility with it.
So you mentioned 2008. I saw that myself. I live in Charlotte, the banking capital, well, maybe the banking capital of the world, second banking capital of the world behind New York, I guess. And we saw the same thing, when the markets dropped in 2008 and the bottom fell out, a lot of people that I knew that were in the banking industry that were about to retire, had to continue to work, because their stock prices fell and they couldn't cash out. Well, studies have shown that if you portion a piece of your retirement assets into an annuity, that provides guaranteed lifetime income. And what that simply means is that once a payment begins, the insurance company is guaranteeing you that they're going to continue to pay that for as long as you're alive.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
So even if it, let's say you have X in there and they start paying that out, and you outlive what's paid out in that principle, they're going to keep paying you beyond that.
Justin Sykes:
That's right. That's exactly right. So if you live, my grandmother's 94-years-old and she's comfortable, she's got enough money, she's not going to run out of money most likely, but she's worried about it every single day. And that's where I think it comes back to the quality of life in retirement. You've got so many people out there that are worried about living too long, worried about running out of money.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Waking up and checking their bank account first thing in the morning.
Justin Sykes:
And checking the stock-
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And checking the market, what it's doing-
Justin Sykes:
Watching the stock market ticker at the bottom of the screen.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And then their day, and their joy, and their worry. I just got back from a conference talking about living a non-anxious life with Dr. John Delony, and it's the anxiety that gets created, and those alarms go off, because how am I going to live now? Now I'm going to have to be a burden to my family, or anything like that.
Justin Sykes:
And that's the exact opposite of what retirement's supposed to be. Retirement's supposed to be a reward for working hard, and accumulating wealth, and living a good life. It's so often not that for so many people.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Well, you say that too, and then there's also the other scope of it too is, I've heard oftentimes, "I'm more busy now that I'm in retirement too." And the ability also to live, we talk a lot about with our family, and I think I talked about this on the first podcast too, is living our life with our hands open opposed to closed. Because it also prevents God from putting blessings back in your life if your hands are open too. But then even in retirement, when you're so worried about having to have something there for what if, it also can prevent you from being generous to people too.
Justin Sykes:
That's very true. So I always say, make sure that your needs are covered so you're not having to worry about that. So if you look at your buckets of money, as I always put them into buckets, you've got your needs, what you need for your expenses, what you need for health insurance, what you need for living expenses day-to-day stuff, and then you've got your wants.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah.
Justin Sykes:
Well, if your wants bucket fluctuates in value based on the market, that's not a bad thing, because that means it's going up sometimes and sometimes it's going down, which just means you're not doing as much of the fun stuff. But you're not worried about how you're going to pay your bills, how you're going to pay your health insurance.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Well, if it's all in there and all of a sudden you're pulling X amount out, percentage out per year, and the market goes down, and you continue to have to pull that, your principles have a hard time. What was that book that you recommended me that I read, something about-
Justin Sykes:
The Power of Zero or The Volatility Shield? The Volatility Shield I think-
Daniel Vander Kooi:
The Volatility Shield was the one. Power of Zero is a really good book too, but The Volatility Shield, that was a short, I think I did an audible and it was maybe a couple of hours.
Justin Sykes:
I'm not a reader and I read it in a couple of hours, so I don't read a whole lot.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
But that was a really good one. It's almost like a little story, a fable type deal. And it illustrates a pretty powerful illustration about the importance of making sure that you're protecting your income.
Justin Sykes:
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And the other thing that retirees, especially as they get older, they get to the point where they don't want to spend their money, because they want to make sure they're leaving something to their family. And I'm seeing that more and more, people are going without, old people in their 80s and 90s are going without, because they don't want to leave nothing. And so again, if you have that guaranteed income stream that's paying for your needs, paying for your must-haves, you're not worried about that, you're paying your bills, you're getting what you need, you're not having to go without, and your family is still able to, you're able pass down wealth to generations.
It's interesting. I was having a conversation with a friend, I think you and I might've even had this conversation in the past, that generational wealth is becoming less and less. The ultra wealthy are becoming wealthier, but you're seeing less people pass down generational wealth. And that's because of, at least I believe it's because of a lack of planning. People aren't planning properly the way they used to. And a lot of people in our generation who haven't planned, they've spent everything that they've made, they're relying on their inheritance to retire on, and then that means that our kids get nothing.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah. And then you become... So that's almost kind of a natural segue to the next thing. You come down to what inheritance looks like. And a lot of that's going to depend on what the number one disruptor in retirement is, is a long-term care need.
Justin Sykes:
That's right.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And you look at that and you say, all of a sudden there's a long-term care need and there was lack of planning done, then there's not money to cover that need, and all your assets are going to get drained to pay for that. I mean, we've walked through that as a family.
Justin Sykes:
Yep, we have too. You guys had a little bit better plan than we did, I think.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah. I mean there was a lot that went into it. I mean, my dad got diagnosed with Parkinson's in I think 2001, my senior year of high school, and passed away this past April. And it was a long journey, and thankfully a lot of those years he was fine. But it's one of the reasons between that, and my grandma had dementia for two, two and a half years. And so, I saw my grandpa at one point, they moved here from Illinois in 1989, and my grandpa was like my best friend. He was a huge mentor to me, just in life and business, I grew up going around the county pounding signs in for different political things, and stuff like that. And he was always educating us on entrepreneurship and things like that, my cousin, Evan and I. And anyway, he had bought 20 acres when they moved here. I think they paid 25, 30 grand back in '89 for it, right?
Justin Sykes:
Good investment.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yep, good investment. And we actually finally, we bought their old house and we live in that now. And he passed away about 10 years ago. And anyway, they built on their piece of property, they gave a couple acres to my folks to build on, a couple acres to my aunt. They had these four, two acre lots left. And grandpa had said, "These are going to be for if we have medical needs down the road." Well come to find out, grandma gets diagnosed with dementia, they start to drain some of their finances and things like, and they go to sell it, but it's 2010. And so, back in, I don't know, 2004, 2005 maybe, when things were kind of humming a little bit again after that, the earlier recession, they had an offer on one of those lots for 200 and some thousand dollars.
But after the fact, they had to sell for significantly less than that, because he needed the money, money to pay for dementia care. And so, you saw that you thought you were going to get X, you thought you were going to get 200 grand for a lot, and you end up selling for 160, 130, whatever it might be. And so, there's money on the table. And so, it's great to have those assets and real estate, and things like that. But if you're banking on that for your long-term care needs, you're subject to what the market, similar to the stocks, the stock market, you're relying on what the real estate market is at the time. And also, what the interest rates are at the time, right? Because now we're seeing it right now, 8% and housing prices are dropping, because people just can't afford the mortgage anymore.
So that's the tough part about it. My folks had inherited some money, and so they had set money aside specifically for my dad's care needs. And then we took out in 2016, I think we took out a long-term care policy for my mom. And because of that, we saw some of these care facilities, you're 10 grand a month and in-home care can be 10 to 15 grand a month-
Justin Sykes:
It's so expensive, yeah.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
... depending on what level of care you need. And if you don't plan for it now, you could be up a creek. And I mean, Erin and I bought, I just turned 40, we bought, I think I was 36. We bought long-term care policies on ourselves, and we're paying for them now while we're working and we have income coming in. And by the time we retire, they'll be completely paid up in full. And we have a compounding inflation rider, so that by the time I turn 80, I think it would actually pay out close to 17 or 18 grand a month, just based upon inflation. So I started with, so if something happens to me tomorrow, I think I'm only going to get three or $3,500 a month, but by the time I turn 80, 40 years from now, it's going to pay out more, but inflation is going to be there, right?
Justin Sykes:
Sure.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
So it's a cool product, but if you don't plan for that...
Justin Sykes:
Well, and that's the thing is a lot of people don't plan for it. And a lot of people think, "Well, I'm planning for it by accumulating wealth. I won't need the insurance. I won't need the guaranteed income, my family won't need the life insurance." But what happens if they do?
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah, what happens if they do and all of a sudden they put that in their IRAs, and now they got a pull... Well, the IRA goes down, or they got to pull it out of there, and they got to pull out their other money in retirement to live off of. And then you have a spouse that needs that, and now you're pulling out double, and you're kicked into a higher tax bracket.
Justin Sykes:
Kicked into a higher tax bracket. You're exhausting it twice as fast as you expected to exhaust it. The market goes down, you lose more money, you're pulling out of a declining account. Every part of that is a recipe for disaster. And so, you might be lucky, you might be successful and you might plan well and do well and not need it. But the first thing I'll tell you is I've never known anybody to collect on an insurance policy, whether it was life insurance, or disability, or long-term care that said, "I really wish we didn't have that coming in."
I mean, even if you've got all the money in the world, an extra million bucks protected is an extra million bucks to the bottom line. And a lot of people think, "Well, I'm not going to need long-term care. I'm going to make sure I don't need long-term care."
You hear a lot of times with a conversation amongst a husband and a wife, husband says, "I'll go out in the woods. If I need long-term care, I'll go out in the woods and just take care of it."
No, you won't. No, nobody really does that. That just sounds great. That means you don't want to pay for something. But if you look at it as an investment into your future and a protection of the things that you've accumulated, it's a whole different conversation than if you look at it as an expense. And that's what I think you guys do a really good job of educating your clients about is, yes, it's a repositioning of an asset today to protect a different asset in the future.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And that's one of the things that we do too. I was sitting with somebody yesterday. Talysa and I were up here in my office and we're walking through all their different policies that they have, and they had been at another broker and we found a ton of stuff that they were paying for that they didn't need to pay for. And this was just home, auto, umbrella, RV, that kind of stuff. And then we were like, "Wow, you're really underinsured here from a liability standpoint. These are things, you know..."
I go, "We don't need to know... What's in your bank account? What's your net worth? Got that, okay, we need to have X for an umbrella to make sure you’re covered."
Justin Sykes:
Got to protect yourself, yep.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And then the next question we just naturally go into is we ask, okay, do you have disability insurance? Do you have long-term care insurance? Do you have life insurance? "Yep, we're good on that. We have that through our business. We do this, or in our buy/sell agreement, all those things," right?
Justin Sykes:
Good.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Great. That's totally fine. I just want to ask the question, because I don't want five years down the road, tomorrow you get in a car accident, your spouse comes into my office and be like, "Hey, what did we have?"
Justin Sykes:
You never offered them anything, yep.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And that's another thing too. It's critical to have these conversations with your spouse if you're married too, because those are things that you guys have to decide on together, what it's going to look like. And then also just make sure you understand what you need to make that decision. Again, you can get into different brokers and they're going to push different things and whatnot, our big thing is we just want to serve well. We want to educate you, provide options, and it's your job to make that decision. We can consult and kind of tell you what things should look like, and where you should go, and maybe multipliers of how much coverage you should have, but ultimately that's someone else's, that's your decision to make for your family.
I think I've mentioned this before, but a book I read a while back written from a guy in Spokane, an old coach, was a book called Die Neatly, and he was a life insurance salesman. He's a wholesaler, I think similar to what you guys do, but he also sells too. And he talked about in this book, it's not very long, it's what you leave in your estate planning, not necessarily the amount of money, but basically how simple you make. It is your last love letter to your family. And when I think about that, and I think about the planning that my parents did with my dad, and I think about what I want to do for my kids, and if something happens to me that's there for Erin, I don't want it to be complicated.
There's enough going on in life that creates chaos and there's enough pain that goes on there. But if you can keep it simple, and you can keep it streamlined, and you make sure your family is taken care of, that is the last love letter that you can leave to your family, right?
Justin Sykes:
That's a really good point.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
I think the number one thing more important than that is their salvation in Jesus-
Justin Sykes:
Of course.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
... but as far as what's left behind and how you're going to handle that, it's important that you have it dialed.
Justin Sykes:
Because you're leaving in peace.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
You're leaving in peace. And I'm going to let you talk for a minute while I gather myself here, because I didn't expect that to come out, but it's still fresh to me.
Justin Sykes:
But you are, you're leaving peace. You're leaving peace. When someone dies, back to their salvation, your family will have peace if they know that you were saved, and that you're in heaven. I mean, we've been through that and there's a tremendous peace. I mean, when my dad died in 2014, for many, many years, he was very far away from the Lord. But thankfully, here we go. Thankfully, he became saved, genuinely saved, and he lived a life for the Lord and the end of his life, and he was ready. When he passed away, he was at complete peace, which allowed us to be at peace.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yeah, for sure.
Justin Sykes:
So the other part of peace you're having, that you're leaving to your family, is are they taken care of? Are they worried about things? Are they worried about finding where the life insurance policies are? Are they worried about trying to figure out how to access the bills? I mean, something as simple as the electric bill. When my dad died, he paid all of his bills online. My stepmom didn't know his passwords. And she had to deal with trying to figure out how to pay the electric bill every month. It took her almost a year just to get it figured out, how to get things moved over. It's not an easy process, at least not in North Carolina. I mean, every state might be a little different, but it's just a pain.
So if you can make sure that they're financially taken care of, that your wishes for them are spelled out so that they don't have to make decisions, because we've all known someone or dealt with it in our own families, where if there's multiple people, there's multiple opinions, and there's always going to be one that doesn't agree with the others. I mean, that's just the bottom line. And when you start talking about money, it changes people. I don't care how much you love someone, when you start talking about money, things change. If you add stress into it, especially. So if you can have a simple life insurance policy with beneficiaries to where nobody's making decisions, you made that decision, and your family is benefiting from that decision, that takes a load off their plate.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And to making sure that you have it set up and there's direction in your estate plan or your will, and it's worth spending a couple of thousand dollars to make sure that you go to an attorney, get a will done up, make sure it's clear. The old saying that not being clear is being unkind, and making sure that it's dialed, and there's no gray areas. And I think that's the one thing that we really try to harp on here, whether we're dealing with huge commercial clients that have stuff in multiple states, or we're dealing with someone who's got a renter's insurance policy, and an auto coming off mom and dad's policy for the first time, or somewhere in between, is we want to create clarity and no gray areas.
Justin Sykes:
That's exactly right.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
So you know exactly what you're covered for, you know what you're buying. And that just, honestly, it doesn't happen in our industry anymore. It just really doesn't.
Justin Sykes:
Yep, too many variables.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Well, everyone's a number. You're calling into phone trees, you're calling into 800 numbers where people don't know who you are. And I hear, there's all these different insurance carriers out there now too, that they have different segments, because USA is military, or you have PEMCO has historically been for teachers, and things like that, right? So they can call in and work with them, but they don't know your family, they don't know your assets. I mean, you're calling in and all of a sudden I'm looking at policies. And the other day I had someone in here, their net worth is 20 plus million, and they got state minimum limits on their auto insurance. They're covered for 25 grand in liability. Oh, boy. I mean, they got multiple houses. All of it's on the line. And I about, I just sat back in my chair, I go, "Do you have any idea what you have?"
And I'm not saying this to, they just don't know, because it's not their space. And again, to have an advisor that can sit, and walk through you, and educate you on this is such a huge deal. And that's where even sometimes where I feel if I ever get out in front of my skis, we get you on a Zoom call, or Teams, or whatnot, or give you a call and bring you in. And the partnership with Millennium Brokerage Group and Justin Sykes, and Jason and Bill, and all those guys over there, you guys have served our team really well. And so I just really appreciate that.
Justin Sykes:
We've got a great team. Bill started the agency 25 years ago, actually 25 years ago this month, maybe it was last month, but 25 year anniversary now. And he's built a great business. He's been very successful in what he's done. Our team came on five years ago, so we're kind of expanding. We expanded the firm. But between in our team, we've got hundreds of years of combined experience. We've got certified financial planners, we've got CPAs, we've got JD, jurist doctorate, that are parts of our team. So we've got a wealth of knowledge there that I think is unlike anyone else.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
It is, because-
Justin Sykes:
Being able to bring that to you and allow you to have access, not to have access to that in an elitist way, but you can bring that to your clients without having to hire a whole bunch of people to do it.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
Yep, yep.
Justin Sykes:
So it's a great partnership for us for sure. And we certainly appreciate you and the entire Manna family.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
So if you guys are interested in checking out more about some of those tools we talked about, mannainsurancegroup.com, click on the life insurance, and they'll bring you right there. You can get some quotes on the spot, or you can inquire about more. Justin, thanks so much for being here today. I'm excited to get to hang out with you for a few days.
Justin Sykes:
Me too, man.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
And it's going to be a lot of fun.
Justin Sykes:
If my family was here, this would be my favorite place to be. I love Lynden.
Daniel Vander Kooi:
We're working on that. We just got to keep, if anybody has a house for sale...
Justin Sykes:
I'm your guy.
