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Insurance Planning

Many people obtain life insurance when they first have children and then forget about it, except for when the premium bill is due. However, an effective financial plan includes re-examining your life insurance needs continually throughout your life to ensure the assets you've accumulated are protected and provide additional opportunities to create wealth. At Flaharty Asset Management, we offer premium life insurance, estate, and retirement planning to help you plan for unexpected expenses that come up in life.

Other kinds of insurance, like disability insurance and long-term care insurance deal more specifically with the expenses of ongoing medical and financial needs. If you lose the ability to work, for instance, a disability policy can provide income to certain predefined percentages so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Similarly, long-term care insurance makes financial provisions for the unexpected need to have prolonged medical care due to a number of extenuating circumstances.

Insurance planning is a crucial part of a broader financial plan. It helps identify and assess risk factors in your life and adopt proper coverage to help ease your mind about some of life's uncertainties. Having life insurance or even long-term care insurance can help fill in the gaps financially for your beneficiaries, ensuring they are taken care of. In short, insurance planning helps protect you and your loved ones, home, assets, or business against the unforeseen.

<b>Talking About Life Insurance</b>

Talking About Life Insurance

For some, talking about life insurance can feel uncomfortable. You're not alone. Talking about death and planning for "what if" scenarios can feel depressing. Whereas it is natural to feel that way, it is also perfectly natural to want to protect your family, even from the unthinkable. 

Our in-house Director of Insurance, Brice Mackin, has 14 years of experience in writing insurance policies and knows how to talk about this delicate subject. He holds the Life, Health & Variable Annuity (215) license and can help you to make the most informed decisions. 

<b>Florida Life Insurance Rules and Specifics</b>

Florida Life Insurance Rules and Specifics

Every state has different laws concerning life insurance. Making sure you understand the requirements in your state helps you to know what kinds of coverage fit your needs best. 

We can write policies outside of Florida and can provide the resources you need to understand any state-specific regulations in your state as well. 

As an independent advisor, we are not tied to any specific insurance company or product. This freedom allows us to focus on solutions that fit your needs today, and in the future. With our Premier Case Services team, we help our clients find solutions for:

  • Nursing Home Expenses and Long term Care
  • Final Expenses
  • Cash Value and Tax-free Income
  • Retirement Income
  • Business Continuation
  • Hybrid Insurance Plans
  • Life Insurance

Purpose

The main goal of Florida life insurance is to provide death benefits to your beneficiaries. It helps survivors settle their debts, medical bills, and other expenses. The coverage also provides an income source to:

  • Replace your lost earning potential
  • Fund retirement plans
  • Pay for higher education
  • Serve as income for your dependents, etc.

Eligibility

Individuals aged 15 years and above can buy Florida life insurance on their lives or another person, provided you have the insurable interest when purchasing it.

Grace Period

This statute gives the policyholder no less than 30 days to make their premium payment.

Free Look Period

Florida statutes don't provide a particular deadline for settling death benefits after proving the death of an insured. But according to Section 627.4615 of the Florida Statutes, the insurer must start paying interest on the death benefits at least 14 days after receiving a contract or notice of the policyholder's death.

Incontestability

Most life insurance policies in Florida have an incontestability clause. That means if you die during the contestable period (first two years of the policy), the policy provider has the power to review your medical records before paying or disputing a claim. This may lead to delays.

In case of a disagreement on the proceeds' payment terms, the insurance company can file for Interpleader in court.

Loans

You can sometimes borrow funds from a life policy whose cash value has a lower interest rate. If you die or surrender the policy before repaying the loan, the loan amount plus accrued interest gets subtracted from the claim check.

If you cannot make premium payments, the insurer may use the cash value to pay the premium. This may lead to cash value depletion.

Upon canceling your life insurance policy, the insurer can reinstate the coverage after providing evidence of the insurability of three years of cancellation. Upon reinstatement, the insurer must pay all the premiums plus interests between the cancellation and reinstatement dates.

Long-Term Care Insurance

The most significant risk to one’s retirement income plan is the unforeseen expense for services that provide extended care for you in your home or in a facility. If you have not made a plan for this, your default would be allocating all of your assets and income, because extended custodial Long-Term Care is not paid for by Medicare or private health insurance and Medicaid is only an option for those able to qualify for its welfare benefits.

Looking at the spectrum of options below, everyone's default plan is paying out of their own pocket, aka self-funding as seen on the left of the diagram below. Making a choice to mitigate this risk offers two other kinds of plans. On the other side of the spectrum is traditional long term care insurance. This type of coverage is the best from a buying power perspective, as it is the least cash flow intensive way to acquire the most benefit per dollar spent, but if you never need care, you never reap any benefits in return. However, the hybrid solutions offer a middle ground and provide an excellent value. You will receive benefits if you need care, a death benefit of typically more than you paid in premiums would be paid to your beneficiary if benefits are not used and if you decide later that you do not want your coverage, some or all of your premiums can be refunded subject to the plan chosen.

 


The idea is that managing risk for long term care does not necessarily mean purchasing insurance the way we have always thought of it…as an expense...  rather, through the use of Hybrid products, you can retain some level of principal on your assets while at the same time magnifying their value for long term care expenses.



Frequently Asked Questions

Life insurance is an agreement between an insured (you) and an insurance company. You pay premiums in exchange for death benefits your beneficiaries will get after you die. The dependents can use the funds to pay school fees, mortgage loans, daily bills, etc.

Whole life insurance offers lifetime protection or coverage, whereas term life insurance offers protection for a specified period (10-30 years). Term life insurance is often the simplest and most affordable choice for many families. Whole life insurance comes with a fixed death benefit and cash value with interest.

Long-term care insurance typically covers long-term support and services like custodial and personal care. Such services may be rendered in various settings such as a community center, home, or other facilities. These policies compensate the insured a daily amount for a given period for services meant to help them with daily activities like eating, bathing, or dressing.

The National Cancer Institute defines disability insurance as a plan that compensates part of your income if you become disabled by an injury or illness and you're unable to work.

Insurance helps protect you or your loved ones from facing a financial crisis after tragedy strikes. It can prevent having to use your emergency funds or sell a valuable asset to settle your debts and expenses. In short, an insurance policy can help pay for medical bills, property damage, death, or disability in the event of death or serious injury.

Let's Get You Covered!

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