How to Manage the Financial Risks You Can Control
Open Enrollment Insurance Essentials: Life, Disability, and Long-Term Care
Open Enrollment Insurance Essentials: Life, Disability, and Long-Term Care
This week's blogpost - https://bahnsen.co/4zzGteu
Trevor Cummings hosts the Thoughts on Money podcast with Sarah Leitzke and Blaine Carver to discuss open enrollment and why people should thoughtfully evaluate benefits rather than defaulting to last year’s choices. Drawing on client conversations, they focus on three under-discussed protections—life, disability, and long-term care—and frame insurance as proactive “protection” against meaningful, not merely hypothetical, risks. They explain life insurance uses for young families (often beyond employer coverage), business-owner liquidity and buy-sell needs, estate equalization, and legacy/tax planning alongside Roth conversion strategies, noting death benefits are typically tax-free. They argue disability risk is more probable than premature death and that group plans can be insufficient due to caps, taxation, and narrow definitions, while individual policies may better cover income. For long-term care, they compare traditional policies (with frequent premium increases) to hybrid life/LTC options, cite 2025 median care costs (about $80,000/year in-home), discuss partial coverage targets, and urge confronting risks now and resourcing advisors with enrollment materials.
00:00 Welcome and Introductions
00:19 Name Pronunciation Banter
01:19 Open Enrollment Confusion
03:01 Why Protection Comes First
08:44 Long Term Care Reality Check
10:43 Life Insurance Use Cases
15:58 Business Owners and Liquidity
21:07 Legacy and Tax Strategy
24:34 Disability Insurance Gaps
31:46 Modern Long Term Care Options
35:57 Handling Premium Increases
38:05 Final Takeaways and Wrap Up
Links mentioned in this episode:
Trevor is a Partner, Director of our Private Wealth Advisor Group, and Author of Thoughts on Money.
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