(Guest Lecture): July 2022 - Capitalizing Life Insurance to Pay for Your Myeloma Care

Diana is a financial program manager specializing in financial help for multiple myeloma and AML patients. As a professional financial consultant and former caregiver of her husband who is diagnosed with multiple myeloma, Diana perfectly understands the financial issues facing myeloma patients. With that being said, I'm going to turn the time over to Diana and she will be able to talk about why she chose this topic for us today. Diana, the time's now yours. Can you see me? Yeah. Perfect. Hello everyone. Thanks for joining us today. And you may have realized I have presented on this topic before life insurance, but I thought it pertinent that I talk about this again because it's very, very important. I'm surprised how many people don't understand exactly their financial portfolios and how those things can benefit, how that life insurance can benefit them, not while they're alive and their families as well. So we're going to talk about how you can capitalize on your life insurance to pay for your care. Next slide. So keep in mind when I'm going through this that we're not just talking about you as a patient, if you're the patient that's watching this. We're also talking about your family, your caregiver, your spouse, because there are some things that they can take care of, probably now, if they're not ill, that can set them up to take care of themselves as well later on. So let's go through some of the things that we're going to review. So we'll talk about the types of insurance and how much insurance do you need. That's a very personal question, but you need to figure out what that is so you can really take advantage of the opportunities with insurance. The benefits of some insurance policies, accessing life insurance death benefits while you're living, the benefits of life insurance through your employer, changing policies to meet your current needs because there are things you can do with your current policies. Can I use my policy to secure a loan? That's something a lot of people aren't aware of. You can use policies to secure personal loans. And can you withdraw from your policy? Those are some of the questions that we are going to answer here. Next slide. So some of the types of insurance, everybody's probably aware of your term insurance, except for a specific period of time, like 5, 10, 15, 20 years or more. And after which that policy expires. That means you've paid in the premiums for that period of time and you no longer have a benefit after it expires. This is the cheapest form of insurance. It's considered pure insurance because it's paying for the cost of life insurance. It's good for immediate or specific goals. Like you're going to have children going to college. You want to make sure that the children go to college in the event of an unanticipated death or to pay off a house or things like that. Okay. Then there's whole life insurance. Whole life insurance is a next step up. It's a permanent insurance. You pay for that in policy for the rest of your life, for your entire life. So the whole life insurance typically offers fixed premiums that won't be increased. They'll remain the same no matter what the market conditions are. And it also offers a fixed death benefit. So you're paying in, let's just say, hypothetically, you have a $100,000 life death benefit. You're paying a specific premium when you start that policy. That policy is not going to change. If it's $200, it's not going to change no matter your age. And at the end, if you die, then that policy is then worth still $100,000 no matter what you paid into that. Next slide, please. So again, whole life is a permanent life insurance policy. The cash value can be used as a source of emergency funds for you. And you may also use it as a collateral guess alone. The cash value component is built into the premium. The rules on how you and when you pay a borrow vary by company and by policy. Additionally, you must always be aware of the possible tax implications as well as the reduction in death benefits. Whole life policies generally have a fixed interest or a rate of return that you're going to get. It's generally a very low rate of return because you don't have a lot of riskness policy because it's a whole life permit. You're not increasing the death benefit. And you can also take advantage of taking that cash value out of your policy. Next slide, please. There's other types of permanent policy. Now, these policies are a little bit more complicated. They're universal life insurance policies, but they're also permanent policies. There's a fixed universal life policy. That means your death benefit will remain the same very much like the whole life policy. There's a fixed index universal life policy that is tied to indexes. If you're familiar with indexes like the S&P 500, the NASDAQ, those are indexes. And there are variable universal life insurance policies that have a life insurance policy as well as an investment component tied together. They also have options. You can take option A or B. Option A means you're getting a fixed death benefit. It's going to remain the same. It's not going to fluctuate. Option B, you can pay a little bit more for that or a lot more depending on how your policy is set up. And your death benefit can increase with the amount of earnings that you have in your policy. So in option A, you'll pay less in premiums for the same death benefit than under your option B. As the cash value grows, you pay for less pure insurance, which reduces your rate to the company. Instead of paying premiums based on the policy's death benefit amount, you pay premiums for the lesser pure insurance amount. This is the advantage. The disadvantage is your death benefit is only the face amount of the policy. Again, your face benefit death benefit does not grow. You're paying for additional death benefit. You're paying for that death benefit a lot faster. Next slide. So under your option B, the death benefit is increasing in this policy. Let's say you start out with a parable universal life policy, $100,000. You're paying a premium. Generally, the premium is higher than your option A because you're going to be paying more for the death benefit because that death benefit is growing. The benefit of this option is a beneficiary gets both the death benefit as well as the built-up cash value in the policy, minus any outstanding loans and interest should you have taken any outstanding loans, which also has an interest applied to them. This policy is also more costly because you're paying for a larger death benefit, which includes the cash value. If the cash value rises, then the premium would also increase to keep up with a larger amount of coverage. So your life and death insurance benefit is actually increasing. So again, you're paying for that cost of that insurance. Next slide. So there's a fixed universal life and policy, the least risky of all of these universal life policies. The interest earned in the cash accounts of this policy is based on the company's overall investment accounts. And a lot of times those are more conservative because they need to pay out the interest. They're usually tied to bonds, which are considered conservative that are relatively safe. The interest rate for bonds are not tied to changes in the market, which provides more stable growth. However, because it's relatively safe, your returns will reflect that earnings at a lower rate of return. One or two, possibly 3% may be the highest you can get on those on that rate of return. Next slide. So fixed universal life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance. Again, it builds a cash value. It builds a cash value with the excess of the premium payments above the current income. So the fixed universal life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance. The current cost of insurance is credited to the cash value of the policy and is then credited with interest each month. That fixed interest that I told you about. The policy is designed to offer more flexibility than the whole life policy. The cash value grows at a variable interest rate, which has a possibility of yielding higher returns. However, the premium is not guaranteed to be level. You can choose when and how much premiums you want to pay as long as you are paying for life insurance. And the policy is not established as an investment. IRS has guidelines on the structure of these products. For instance, you take out a $100 death benefit policy. You have a rate of return tied to bonds, which is a conservative investment through the insurance company. As long as you have a cash value in there that's going to cover the cost of your pure life insurance, that $100,000 life insurance, you can skip a premium. You can skip one or two. But keep in mind that when you're doing that, then you may, because you're not aware of how those bonds are paying out, because they do fluctuate in their payouts or interest as well, then you may cause the policy to lapse. And you don't want to have put this money into a policy and the need for the life insurance policy and that policy lapse. So be aware of when you take loans or take cash out of a policy. Next slide, please. So universal life policies, again, have a lot of flexibility. But you can pay higher premiums more frequently than required. You can pay one or two a month. You can pay a whole premium and add additional premiums on that. Pay less premiums less often, or even skip payments, like I've mentioned before, as long as you have the cash value in there to cover the cost of your life insurance. And you pay premiums out of pocket or use the cash value to pay premiums. So that gives you the flexibility. But again, this flexibility requires you to do your due diligence and keep up with the policy values to prevent the following pitfalls. You can cause a policy not to build cash value. This can happen if you're paying only the minimum premium. Next slide. You can slow down or lower the policy's cash value. Since the insurance company sets a target premium, that it estimates is enough to cover the cost of the coverage while also building cash value. Remember that word, estimate. Paying less the target amount means less money will be contributing to the cash value portion of the policy. When you skip a payment, the cash value is used to cover the cost of providing you with the insurance. If you do this a number of times, this will lower your cash value. And then you can cause that policy to lapse. If you use the cash value to pay the insurance and you run out of cash value, your policy could lapse and your coverage would end. So keep this in mind. Next slide. So Univeral Life Insurance, you can take loans out of those. So when you take out a loan on your policy, you don't have to be concerned about your credit history because it's not affecting your credit. You're actually taking money out of something you paid into. Additionally, you also don't have to pay back the loan and you don't have to pay taxes on the loan. If you want to take cash value out of the policy via withdrawal, you can do so without surrendering the policy. So you just take out the cash value and the death benefit will remain the same. Partial withdrawals are also usually tax free. Withdrawals usually cannot be done in the first few years of the policy because you have to build up the cash value. Some policies will allow withdrawals up to 90% of the cash value, but your death benefit will be reduced permanently. Because when you're taking it out, you're reducing the cash, the death benefit as well. You can only borrow via a loan up to the amount of the cash value. The money doesn't actually come from their policy. It comes from the insurance company and your cash value is used as collateral. Even though you don't have to repay the loan, it's not free just like any other loan that you take out. You're charged interest on that. And so if you start paying it back, you don't just have what you paid back that you borrowed out of that loan. You have interest tied to it as well. So if the loan is a pay prior to your death, the loan amount plus the interest and the interest that you took out will be subtracted from the death benefit, which means your beneficiary is going to get a lesser death benefit as a result of your loans or withdrawals from that policy. Next slide. So another benefit of the flexibility of universal life is you can either decrease or increase the death benefit amount depending on your circumstances. You can lower the death benefit usually at any time to suit your needs. This can lead to paying more premiums because you're paying less than your actual pure death benefit. When you reduce the death benefit, your beneficiary will also receive less money. Careful consideration should also always be taken into account. If you're taking out your policy, you need to understand what your policy was actually taken out for, if that need still exists, or if your need has been reduced by whatever circumstances. Next slide. You can also increase universal life policies. You can increase the death benefit, meaning your beneficiaries will receive more money at your death and survive financially for a longer period of time. However, increasing the death benefit usually means you'll have to make another medical exam and go through the insurance company's underwriting process. If you already have a diagnosis such as myeloma or AML, that may not be possible to do. But you can reduce the amount of your death benefit, reducing your premiums, and go forward that way. An increase in death benefit will also mean an increase in your premium. And that's going to be significant when you start looking at how much you're increasing a permanent policy. Again, permanent policies are more cost-fore than your term policies or your whole life policies. Next slide. Now, the fixed index universal life insurance. I can tell you this one can be very complicated. This policy builds cash value based on the stock market index that is attached to, like the NASDAQ, the S&P 500, or a variety of others. The policy owner has the option to choose from a variety of indexes such as the NASDAQ 100 or S&P 500 at origination. You can have a multitude of indexes. You can have a portion of your premium go into the NASDAQ 500 or part of the NASDAQ 100 or the S&P 500. You can have three to four indexes that you can invest in within this life insurance policy. Just like other permanent cash value policies, you can use a tax-deferred cash value in your life insurance for retirement planning or to help cover medical expenses. A lot of people take out life insurance policies for that death benefit need, but they also use it to anticipate tax ramifications when they start taking out of IRAs or retirement plans so they can manage their tax liabilities. You have some control of the amount you want to put in the investment account. If the index performs well, then you will receive a higher interest on the cash value than you would have received from your normal universal life policy or even the whole life insurance policy. Next slide. So some of the benefits of a fixed index universal policy is flexibility. You can choose how much the cash value goes into the indexed account. You'll receive higher interest if the index performs well. A lot, you can lock in any high rate of return that the policy accumulates even if the index suffers a loss at a later time. For instance, if the index went up to 10%, and that doesn't mean you're going to get the 10% of that return. You're going to be capped. Index policies cap your amount of your return. Let's say you got 6% of that 9% that the index did. If the index then falls to, let's say, 2% or a negative, you're not going to lose that return. You're going to keep that. It's not going to affect it because you have to lock in a look date where you're locked in at that higher rate of return. So the premium is lower than a variable universal life policy because the cash value account does not incur a management fee. Index investing is considered passive investing, which means you're based on how the index is moving, not on the stock market, like you're actually individual stocks. The policy is less risky than a variable universal life policy because the cash value is not invested in the stock market. It's invested in an index. What the index is doing. Option to choose more than one index is also an option or flexibility within there. You can also have more money going to your fixed account. There's a fixed account attached to that. It may be just earning a small rate of return just like your whole life policy, 1% or 2%. Next slide. So continuing on the fixed index universal life policy. Unfortunately, it isn't all good news for this type of policy. Of course, whenever something's given to you, there's always more complications on that policy. The disadvantages include the complexity of this type of policy. This is an advanced type of insurance policy. If you have one and you don't understand it, go to your insurance agent so they can explain it to you. And if it's not the policy you thought it was, there may be some options to change that. If the index goes down, you will not lose any gains, but you may not earn any interest as well. So if the policy goes down to zero, if the index goes to zero, zero returns, you're not going to get anything on that policy for that period of time. This policy is more risky than a fixed universal life policy, which does not depend on the indexes of the stock market. Insurance companies had a cap on, sorry about that misspelling, max limit and max limit on the percentage of the cash value of the growth. So for instance, as I mentioned earlier, if your chosen index has a return of 15% on the crediting date and your policy has a cap of a max cap credit of 6%, then you don't realize the additional 9% of the full index return. This is a fixed part of the policy. So you're going to be fixed at a certain max rate of return, even if the index does a lot better. Next slide. So variable universal life policy. I'm very familiar with these. A lot of my clients on my other world, my investment side have used these quite well. This policy gives you a lot of flexibility. It also is the most risky of universal life policies because although you have the flexibility to invest in bonds, stocks and money market mutual accounts, you also take on the risk of greater losses in the stock market without the preservation of gains. On the other hand, you have the potential to earn a higher rate of return on your interest should the market have higher returns without caps or max earnings. For instance, you took out a variable universal life policy and you get to choose very much like mutual funds, but they're called, can't remember, they're actually called something different, but they're mutual funds in this policy. And you can choose within that policy which kind of mutual funds you want to use. Just like anything else, those policies can earn a lot or they can earn nothing at all. You can get negative returns. You are going to realize whatever that policy is, whatever that market is doing. Your premiums will also be higher because you're paying for an option to have a higher rate of return. So you could potentially be paying a higher premium and not get the expected higher return on your cash value. Again, because you're floating with the market. You're basically riding with the market. Whatever goes up can go down. Whatever goes down can come up and you're going to be riding with whatever that does. The opportunity to access the cash value is always available through loans or withdrawals. And if your policy is set up correctly, you can actually possibly use this as a supplement to your retirement income. And there's a way you can do these without incurring additional tax liabilities on your withdrawals as well. Next slide. You still have all the benefits of the other universal life insurance policies in regards to skipping premiums as long as you have the cash value to cover the cost of life insurance. And the death benefit would include the earned cash value leaving a beneficiary with a higher payoff. For instance, my husband had one of these policies and you can, again, you want to make sure you're not paying the minimum on these policies. You want to try to pay as much as you can. If you're concerned about the cash value growing and you want that to be a valuable option to use the cash value later, not necessarily for beneficiaries, then you have the flexibility to pay more into this policy, skip premiums, pay a smaller premium amount. But there's a lot that you can do with this policy and still continue to have that death benefit. Next slide. So the big thing that you probably, you all are probably concerned with is how insurance can help you pay for care. You have conversion options as a benefit, loans from policies and the associated costs, withdrawals and their associated costs and their effect on taxes you need to be aware of, accelerated tax liabilities, and the death benefit. And then you have the option to pay and their associated costs and their effect on taxes you need to be aware of, accelerated death benefits. Almost every insurance policy now comes with an accelerated death benefit option. Riders, waivers of premiums, that's another option you can have with your policies, eliminated unneeded insurance, or converting unneeded insurance into something that can benefit you better. You can sell a policy and you can still have money for beneficiaries. Next slide. You have a term policy. That is the one that you're paying for pure insurance, 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Do you need that full amount? Why did you take it out? I really think you should sit down and review that. If you don't have that need or the amount of that policy that you need anymore, consider converting a portion of it to a permanent policy. That can build cash value. No underwriting needed if it's less than the amount that you have in your policy. If you have permanent life insurance policy, can you take withdrawals and no tax liability to you? Or can you take a loan from your life policy? Remember, a withdrawal and a loan will reduce your death benefits, but you may not need that death benefit again as much. If you're short on assets to pay for care, consider a loan for your policy. If you don't pay that loan back, if you don't pay that loan back, you'll come out with death benefit. You may not need that death benefit as high as it is now. Next slide, please. Most life insurance policies have a free writer attached called the Accelerated Death Benefit Writer. What this writer is, it allows you to take the death benefit prior to the death. Depending on your insurer and the type of policy you have, they will tell you when you're able to get that. You may have to wait a year from the origination of that policy. They may have a cap on the amount you can take out. Some could take 90%, 50%, 60%, 70% of that death benefit as cash to use for medical needs or things that you have. You're going to have paperwork to fill out, and there's going to be information for your doctor you're going to need if you're taking it out for a specific reason. This writer will allow you to access the death benefit if you're considered terminal by your doctor to use for your care. Now, here's the really big thing that a lot of people understand about terminal. A lot of times, they consider a terminal six months or less to live, 12 months or less to live, but very much like hospice, a lot of times we don't know that. Doctors can't give you a specific date. So some people consider it terminal because of the type of illness they have. And again, that is going to be something that your doctor will put in writing, and that will help you to get the cash value out of that policy. There's going to be reviews on that as well. There are also companies that can help you structure a withdrawal or loan from your policy. Again, be aware of tax ramifications of taking withdrawals or loans for your policy. Loans or withdrawal amounts will vary with insurer or loan companies. Next slide. Waiver of premiums. This is something a lot of people forget that they have attached to their policy. Again, I encourage everybody to look at their policy to see what kind of writers they have on there. A lot of these writers you don't pay for. They're actually attached to your policy without you having to pay anything on them. Review your life insurance policy to see if it has a writer for waiver of premium. If not, do you still have the option to add it to your policy? Sometimes insurers will allow you a lot to add that to a policy within a period of time from origination of your policy. You may be able to modify newer or existing policies to add this writer. The waiver of premium writer will allow you to stop paying your life insurance premium while you're experiencing a qualifying disability. It will ensure you do not have a lapse in coverage if you're no longer able to work and pay your premium because of your disability. You will not experience reduction of your death benefit. This waiver will last until your condition resolves or if your disability is permanent indefinitely. If your condition resolves and you have another qualifying disability later, you can use this waiver of premium again. Next slide. So there's associate, went too far, back. No, I actually went too far the first time, so I went back. Sorry. So generally these waivers of premiums terminate at retirement age depending on your policy. If yours terminates and while you're still experiencing a qualifying disability, the waiver of premium will continue. However, you won't be able to file for any additional claims for this waiver. Be aware of the waiting periods for the premium waiver. It may vary between insurers. The waiting periods can vary from six months to a year and there may also be a waiting period between the start of your disability and when the premium waiver rider can take effect. It is possible that your insurer may refund premiums paid during this waiting period once the rider takes effect, once you've got all the paperwork in and they approve this waiver of premium. Next slide. So the associated costs of the waiver of premium riders can vary anywhere from 10% to 25% of the original premium. So this can make your premium significantly higher and this will depend on your health, age, policy type, and insurer. Because 25% of American adults experience a disability, consideration of this rider is critical. A very important factor is the prevention of a lapse in coverage. Again, anytime you take money out of a policy, you need to make sure you're covering your death benefit insured amount. Understand that a qualifying disability depends on the insurer to some extent. A lot of that will also depend on what your doctor is going to say in their statement. Understand the steps you need to take to take advantage of this rider if you need it. Doctor's statements, social security administration notices, and completion of your insurer's application. Do those in a timely manner. Don't wait until it's too late and you have a lot of things, bills and health needs mounting next time. So then there's guaranteed issue life insurance. For those of you who are already ill, have an illness that prevents you from getting insurance, you can't regular insurance, you can get guaranteed insurance life, issued life insurance. It is generally considerably higher in cost because you know you have a qualifying event and the insurance company does not want to bear the burden of the entire risk. If you don't qualify for traditional insurance, this could be an alternative thing to look at. You should consider guaranteed life insurance policy. There's no underwriting required because they already know you have a preexisting condition. Very few people take this out unless they know that because of the cost. There is a lower death benefit amount, more costs because of your current health issues, and the insurer is requiring you, the insurer, to assume more of the risk. Next slide. So there's creative ways to find insurance you can apply through the normal channels as a result of illness. And some of these may be familiar to you and others may not. So if you have any credit cards, some credit cards offer insurance benefits without underwriting. They just add maybe three, four thousand dollars to it and you have to sign up for it. See if you belong to any organizations that offer group life insurance. For instance, sororities and fraternities, unions, professional organizations or associations such as CPAs, legal, other organizations, medical associations, or you could add, maybe you can join some of those organizations that you'll qualify for. A lot of times they have group policies associated with those organizations. And they can offer other benefits as well like accidental death and dismemberment or even long-term care insurance. There are a lot of organizations that offer these long-term care insurance as a group policy and you pay a lot less as a group. If you qualify to join as a member, find out the benefits you may participate in. This is huge. A lot of people are aware that credit cards or other things you may have, you can call the insurance company, the credit card company, say do you have any life insurance I can attach to this. And a lot of times they don't advertise it but it may be an option for you to look at. The next slide. So in summary, life insurance is part of your financial portfolio. A lot of people don't consider it as part of your financial portfolio but it is a huge part of your financial portfolio. If you have a life insurance problem, let's say it's a hundred, again we'll use that number, a hundred thousand dollars. How many people have a hundred thousand dollars in your actual assets or investments? Not a lot. And if you can look at your life insurance policy and maybe convert that to your present needs, why not do that? It requires review and maintenance annually. You really should look at your insurance portfolio annually, especially if you can use the cash value in it or you can increase that cash value in it based on your premiums. Consider your personal life insurance needs now and determine if you can modify your existing policies to match your current or anticipated needs. Don't forget the needs of your spouse or family. Work with your financial advisor or insurance professional to help you navigate your options. There are a lot of options out there and the more you know about what you currently have, the better off you're going to be taking care of your health and paying for that care that you need. So I know this is very complicated, especially that index life insurance, but life insurance is a very crucial part of your financial portfolio. It's very important to to look at that to figure out if you can pay for some expenses you have now and convert your other your other assets toward your care or vice versa. But I encourage you to look at your insurance if you had a policy from years years ago and it's a cash whole life or permanent policy, you may have significant cash value built up in there. Really review those things. If you're not aware if you have a policy you might call your department of insurance in your state. They may have a way for you to go out and find those policies you thought you had but you don't remember if you have them or not. So I think now we can go into the question and answers. Perfect. That was awesome, Diana. As always, you do so much research with these and put in so much information. I was taking notes and was like, I'm so glad we record these so I can watch it again. There's so much great information and I really loved this time, you know, I think last time we talked about creative ways to get life insurance when somebody's sick and I love that this time we kind of talked about the plethora of life insurance or policies really that are out there and accessible to people. So thank you. Just thank you especially for those comments. Questions are coming in which is exciting. One question that I had to start off just to give people more time to submit their questions. Now I know a couple patients who get life insurance through their work. Would that be considered term insurance and the term is just however long they're employed or how does that usually work? That's interesting. Usually it's considered term but it's under group and so you don't have to do underwriting, right? But if you ask for supplemental insurance you want to increase that more than what the company's offering you. Let's just say they offer you one or two times your salary. Right. They offer you to take additional out supplemental insurance. Then a lot of times that policy, that supplemental insurance because you're paying for that premium, you can convert when you leave that company. That goes into a permanent policy but keep in mind when you convert it, when you convert that to your own policy your premiums will go up because you're paying for the entire thing. You don't have to do the underwriting because it continues to go with you. You didn't have to do the underwriting as under group but your death benefit can decrease over a period of time. Because it was written under a group policy versus an individual policy. You do have a lot of times the option to convert those policies into a permanent policy of your own. Again, the premiums will go up. Interesting. Thank you. Okay. Great questions. One attendee wrote that they applied for those accelerated benefits that you mentioned on term life insurance. The application was denied because the physician does not support a 12-month or less life expectancy. That's interesting and very frustrating. Is there any way to get a second opinion on this and have it resubmitted? Or have you had clients that have been in the same situation? I have. Here is the difficult part. If you have myeloma, which you can go on permanent disability with this thing, right? With this illness. If you are in a maintenance phase or you're considered in remission, usually when you're in remission, because nobody has remission can last for years and years. That's when it becomes very difficult to get the accelerated death benefit because you have a considered terminal. If you're in remission, at that point you're really not considered terminal. That's the difficult part. I would always encourage people to make sure that if you are on disability, if you've had to stop working because of this disability, and especially if you have a high-risk myeloma, how you word things and the relationship you have with your doctor to have things and notes as to what you cannot or you're unable to do goes a long way in filing these types of appeals, filing these types of requests for accelerated death benefits or waiver of premium. It really begins with you being very open and honest with what you can do and what you can't do and letting the doctor know what you can and you can't do, especially if you're on disability or on social security disability, those things. If you're in remission, that becomes more difficult to question. Because when you're in remission, that means you're doing a lot better than people who are not in remission. It's hard to say that's a terminal at that point. That's a good thing because you want to be in remission. You want it to be gone completely. Hopefully, that's where we're going with myeloma. It becomes one of those sticky points as to how you can get that accelerated death benefit. You might want to look at your policy and see if it's too expensive or if you want to get money out of that policy, look at outside companies that can give you loans or withdrawals from that policy. Oh, interesting. Okay. I'm glad you mentioned disability because I think we get asked about social security disability every event. There are some questions, multiple questions here about it. How difficult is it for myeloma patients to go on full social security disability? We know too that this question is pertinent to the topic because it relates to financial planning. Tell me a little bit of your thoughts. This is a whole other session that we have and will continue to speak on. But briefly, what's the success rate of that? Again, if you let your doctor know how your ability to do your work your job is minimized. You have the fatigue, you have brain fog, you have nausea, you have neurotherapy, all these things that affect your ability to do your job. No matter what your job is, if you're on the computer, sometimes just looking at your screen or being alert to whatever your task is can be not to the best interest of a company if you're working with numbers and those numbers are off. If you're a CPA, that could be devastating to a company. A company would probably agree. They don't want that. I would encourage you to make sure your doctor documents everything and if you're considering going on disability, not just your oncologist, but your specialist as well and your primary care doctor. When they all put together their statements, because you can get doctor's statements to solidify some of your putting in your application for social security disability, it really does help because they're going to ask for those doctor's statements and you can have more than one doctor's statement verifying what you're actually going through. Again, sometimes it's a good idea to, if you have EAP or a loan program or a program with your job to help, like a legal program to help you with legal problems, a lot of times they can help you feel like you're social security disability themselves and they are very, very good at it. They have attorneys to help you and those things can be gone through really quickly and a lot of times you don't get pushed back and have to do an appeal. That being said, Diana, I just want to be clear. Lots of people don't get approved. That's why it's so vital that you're being honest with yourself because you're not going to, you know, if you're, you have, it's not an automatic thing that you get diagnosed with multiple myeloma and therefore you get disability. Short-term disability is sometimes used for those who have had a stem cell transplant, but I mean, you have to be really careful. You have to be honest and you have to be kind to your doctor so you can create a good relationship with them and they can give, you know, that kind of information to, in those letters of referral. I just, I don't want to get anybody's hopes up and I don't want anybody thinking that, well, this sounds horrible so I shouldn't say it, but just like it's an automatic pass, right? Right. And one of the big things, the majority of reasons why policies are, are those requests are denied, social security is denied, is because there's an error on the application. True. And I have, I've done a seminar before, a webinar before, when it talks about what questions, how to answer questions, and you have to be very specific. If you were denied, you need to go through that and before you even go through the denial process, you need to make sure you're putting in all of the facts. Everything needs to be laid out based on what you are going through, the medications and the side effects and the symptoms, and you can even pull up a lot of the trials if you're going through a trial, what some of the symptoms are based on the medications you're doing. Yeah. That also helps. I mean, that gives them a scientific look at what's going on. And I guess that's what I was kind of saying is they're looking for every reason to tell you no, so you have to be really clear, you know, like Revlimid gives me chronic diarrhea and I cannot do my job. Do you know what I mean? It's uncomfortable, but that's why you need written documentation from your doctor. That's why you need to be open and honest and just be like, but you're just because you write, I have multiple myeloma, they're not going to say, oh, great, that's wonderful. You know, right. Because a lot of those people who are denying those don't even know what multiple myeloma is. You need to be specific. Look, I have chronic fatigue. I have kidney disease. You know what I mean? And so I just, I want my patients to not have to work if they are experiencing these chronic issues and still be able to have a great life. But I just get frustrated at the system and don't want our patients to think that it's some. Anytime you're dealing with government programs, it's never easy. And even when, and I'll tell you, even when you can be in the worst of shape, I've helped people where they cannot, they're on a bed and they're still, and they're sleeping and they're on medication and, and they're still expected to say to somebody else, like you can still work. You can still and literally they cannot, they cannot work. They cannot sit up. They cannot, they can't do anything. So it's, it's, it's, I can't say that where my mom taught you said, I'll talk. It's very important for you to, if you have access to an attorney, have access to someone who works with this, to get them in on it from the first paperwork that you put in. So you're going to be possibly have the higher chance to be approved the first time. Yeah, definitely. And we'll continue, as I said, to have events on this topic, because we could talk for hours on this. But it's an excellent question. I'm glad you asked it. I wish the answer was more simple. But yeah, thank you. Thank you for asking and good luck. There's people working outside. Okay, another question. This person has a fixing and mature universal policy from 1991 with a high cash value, and the only benefiting is now deceased. So what is, what are, what are the options? So it sounds to me like you're saying the beneficiary, the original beneficiary that policy is deceased. It says that the beneficiary is now deceased. From what I can read here, it says the only benefitter of this policy is dead. Okay, so it's a benefitter that would be probably the beneficiary, person who benefits from policy. If the owner of that policy is still alive, they can take cash value out of that. They can terminate that policy if that need is no longer necessary. And especially if it's an older policy, 1991, it depends on what kind of universal policy they have as well. But it's really something they can talk to their insurance, insurer, insurance agent. If that person's around since 1991, I'd be surprised because they changed things a lot. Reach out to me, I can take a second look and give you some information regarding that policy. I'm also a life insurance agent, so I can possibly guide you to where you need to do based on what your needs are. I'd be glad to talk to you. Okay, I'm writing that down. Reach out to Diana through the Myoma Financial Coach Program. I know it changed from myomacoach.org, but that's the only one I can remember. And it auto directs. So go to myomacoach.org. Okay. And again, I would encourage everybody to look and see if they have insurance policies. If you are with an employer and they pay for insurance policy or a policy continued, if you were in a union, there may be policies out there you've forgotten about. Just go to that state where that job was and see if they can direct you as to where you can find those policies. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So here's another question that I actually shared. I have this question as well. What do you recommend for people who are retired in terms of life insurance? Is there one of those policies that you mentioned, you know, myoma patient retired or myoma caregiver retired? Is there one that is like top recommended or does it really just depend on personal circumstances? It does depend on personal circumstances. But again, if you already have myoma, the chances of you getting a traditional policy is probably slim. And you probably end up having to get a guaranteed issue, which means you have a lower benefit amount, very rarely do that as a go over 50,000. And the cost of the premium is going to be high because you already have a preexisting really serious condition. Now for the other person, for the caregiver or the spouse, depending on what their health is, they may have options. Again, the older you are, even if you're in good health, the more expensive policies are, whether term, universal, whole life policies, because you have a greater chance of becoming ill, right? And your risk for the insurance company goes up. So there are a lot of options. Global life, everybody heard on television is an option to look at. It's almost like a guaranteed issue policy. Again, look at your credit cards. There are a lot of options available and it's going to depend on your age and your health and your needs, what your needs are. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So there's not like a most. Yes, this is it. Dang. Okay. Another confusing and frustrating part is having to pick out the drug plan for the following year because they're not sure what drugs will be taken the following year. And that's something that you kind of, is that, is that something you have to submit? I'm assuming so from this comment. Well, if we're talking, I think this is a little bit different. If we're talking about drugs and life insurance, I think there's a two. That might be for disability, right? Social security disability. Maybe not sure. Not sure. Yeah. We don't know about drugs and insurance. I think it would talk about health insurance and then we'll talk about life insurance. I think these are separate things. So Steve, if you could clarify your question for us, we can, we can possibly answer it. Those were kind of all the questions that I had. Can children take out life insurance and have a beneficiary be their parents? Depends on what age you are. Usually as a contract, contracts usually start at age 18. At age 18, yes, a person can take out life insurance and have their parents be the beneficiary as long as they're of age. And the beneficiary would still have to go through the background process. Beneficiary doesn't have anything to go through. It's the person who's being insured. Like if it's an 18 year old, they would have to go through, depending what kind of because it was parents and they're older, do they have to go through anything? No, no, no, no. They're because they're beneficiaries. Right. You have more than one beneficiary. You can change beneficiaries at any time. And for that person who's taken out insurance and leaving their parents. And I've heard that being done because a lot of parents have gone into debt for kids in college and, or the, or the child, they're maybe looking at maybe the history of their family. If somebody ends up with maybe there's a Brockett, a Brockett gene or things like that. They want to make sure that their parents are paid back for everything they've done for them. A lot of people take, children will take out policies and leave their parents as beneficiaries on those policies as long as you're age 18. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, I, well, just, sorry, just one more thing to follow up with that point. So a child, and I'm not saying this is what anybody at the health three foundation recommends, and this is, but this is an Audrey question, not an Audrey health tree question, but a child could get life insurance and then take out from their policy and help pay for medical costs of their parents or no. Okay. Unless it's a cash value policy, they can take loans or value against, and then it has to be, there has to be enough cash value in there for them to take loans or withdrawals out of. And that means they had to have that policy for a while and paying a significant premium to build up the cash value. They can take withdrawals or loans off of and do whatever they want with that, with that money. They can assist their parents as well for some of their policy. Okay. Okay. Three, about that. And Steve clarified it's true. It's health insurance, not, not life insurance. And, and we're going to be talking about that in other sessions. So stay tuned and you can always connect with the myeloma financial coach with these kinds of questions in between our sessions. I will send you a list of all the myeloma financial coaches and our resource email, along with the recording and Diana's slides. We want to make sure that you guys get that information that you need. All right. Thank you so much, Diana, for your preparation and sharing with us today. Our next financial coach meeting will be on September 6th. We'll be talking about how you can take advantage of pharma support programs. Now I am genuinely shocked sometimes that the amount of patients and caregivers that aren't aware of the pharmaceutical support programs that can help financially and can help with other emotional and other educational resources on the drugs that are provided. So that's something that we want to go through. And this one will be unbranded. We're not trying to push any of these on other people. It's just, if you are, if you or your loved one is taking these medications, we want you to be aware of the programs that exist to help you pay for them and mitigate your side effects on those drugs. Maybe you're just interested in other myeloma community events that are coming up. Tonight at 6.30 p.m. Pacific is our Southern California community chapter. We're going to be talking about practical considerations for living well with myeloma from experts at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The 10th at 7 p.m. Eastern is our Health Tree Foundation for Multiple Myeloma Chapter. That's a chapter that helps you get to know the different programs that we have. And we're going to be talking about the Myeloma Coach Program. And then Thursday, August 11th, we're going to be hearing from the Northeast Myeloma Community Chapter about how fitness is affecting them as patients and caregivers. The link to sign up for any of those events and even more events I did not mention is found at the bottom of the slide and will be included in that follow-up email that I was mentioning a little bit earlier. Another thank you to our sponsors, Mr. Meyer Squibb, GSK, Genentech, Janssen Oncology, and Avvy. And a big thank you to each of you for spending this time with us. Hope you have a great rest of your day and take care everybody. Bye-bye.