The Basics of Financial Wellbeing, with Andrew Sullivan, Sullivan and Schlieman Wealth Management
Andrew Sullivan: A lot of discussions we have with clients in our regular reviews. One I’ve already mentioned earlier is making sure that your beneficiaries on life insurance, retirement accounts, pensions are up-to-date, so that you’ve got that primary and secondary beneficiary. We see this often as a problem, sometimes in a blended family where someone gets divorced, remarried, or a death of a spouse and then gets remarried. We’ve seen cases where the old spouse was named X or deceased. Now the new spouse is cut out of the equation, and it gets into legal wrangling. So make sure your beneficiaries are up to date on these various accounts that you have.
It’s also making sure you’ve got adequate long-term care insurance in place. Just had a client the other day that had to go to an assisted living facility/memory care: $18,000 a month for care, right? And you talk about devastating a set of assets or a portfolio at $18,000 a month. She does not have long-term care insurance. But it’ll rip through some assets very quickly. So you’ve got to be prepared for that.
That’s probably the biggest risk that retirees have. It’s not that I’m going to go on a cruise or that I’m going to retire. It’s that long-term healthcare cost equation. Disability insurance for younger people, and then making sure you have life insurance in place while you have an up-and-coming family independence.
Another one I would say is not having estate planning. This is probably one of the second-biggest issue. It’s amazing how many attorneys I talked to that don’t have wills, powers of attorney in place. So we strongly encourage people to have up-to-date wills and powers of attorney in place.
Having proper liability coverage, property and casualty or umbrella policies in place. So do a property and casualty review with your insurance agent. Very important to do that probably every couple of years.
This is really a dirty word: budget. Most people don’t want to talk about a budget. Unfortunately, I find that most people spend more time planning their vacation than their finances.
But I emphasize a budget, and set goals, and stick to those goals on an annual basis.
And then finally hire the professional, right? If you need counseling and investment advice, or estate planning, any of those things—use a professional. It’s worth the expense. There are people that can manage their own affairs, but most people, again they don’t want to go down that path. And they want to delegate that to someone that’s a professional in those fields.
Listen to Andrew’s full ProfitSense with Bill McDermott interview here.
The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.
Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions, with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management, and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.
