Hi, I'm Billy Gwaltney and this is the CYA podcast. This show is for the physician who understands the importance of protecting everything you've worked so hard to achieve. Each week I'll bring you tips and advice to help you cut through the clutter and misinformation and show you exactly what you need to preserve your income and way of life. If you're ready to achieve the peace of mind that only financial security can bring let's get started.
(00:28): Welcome well to today's episode of the cover, your assets podcast. This is your host, Billy Gwaltney, and I'm very excited to be with you today. We're going to talk about the question of, should I combine my life insurance with the same insurance company that handles my specialty disability coverage? And that's a really good question that, that I do get asked quite frequently, and it is worth considering combining these with one huge caveat. And that is that there, as I've mentioned in a number of other podcasts, there are only a handful of top tier specialty disability contracts and the universe of top tier companies that offer the disability coverage that you would want to have if you became disabled is really small. And so there aren't many companies that offer it. All of those, the majority are, are really good from a life insurance standpoint. There is one company in particular that we do not utilize for life insurance.
(01:24): That is a disability contract, and there are a number of reasons why, but I would have that conversation with you directly because I'm not sure of the timing of when you're listening to this podcast and disability carriers can change in the future. So in order to try to keep this podcast kind of timeless from its relevant standpoint, I don't want to talk about specific companies, but generally speaking, if you have your coverage with a top tier disability carrier and they do offer solid life insurance contracts, that would be worth having over the long-term, then yes, it's worth considering combining them. There are a couple of reasons why first is financial. They often will offer a multiple policy discount or what they call a same payer discount for your term contract. Usually in the 5% range, if you are working with us, and let's say you're an a, you're a trainee and you get your specialty disability coverage, you're going to have a trainee discount on that disability contract.
(02:24): You can't add another discount to that disability contract. They typically don't allow you to stack discounts. And so the trainee discount is by far the largest that these companies offer. But what they will allow you to do is if you buy a second policy in life policy, they will allow a multiple policy discount on a smaller discount in the 5% range. As I mentioned for that policy, which can add up over 20 or 30 year term period. And so it is worth considering if you have access to that, not all of the companies offer a multiple policy discount. It's a by case. You would want to make sure that you can get that discount. That's the first thing, the second reason to consider it is more qualitative. And that is if you ever needed an exception bottom line, the more business you have with a particular company, the more important to them, you might be not always, but possibly the more likely they are to consider giving you an exception.
(03:25): If you needed an exception. For example, if you miss a premium payment, because you're on an extended vacation or mission trip, and you're, you're off the grid for a month or longer, and you come back and something happened in the premium, wasn't paid in the grace period as a lapsed, or it was close to lapsing and you need some, you need some grace and extended grace, then having more coverage with a company is going to potentially move the needle. A little bit is the benefit of the doubt. Again, the more coverage you have with somebody, the more benefit of the doubt they might extend if you ever needed that. And that over a again, a 20 or 30 or 40 year time period is not something to totally disregard it's worth considering if you do it correctly, then your coverage would be with a company that thinks that way anyway, but that's okay.
(04:19): Not always the case, especially with term policies where you can do a quote online and get what you think is a really good deal with basically a kind of a chop shop company approach, where they're not going to do anything outside the book for you. They're not gonna offer any kind of extended grace period. You're rarely going to talk to a person even. And so again, that's, that's something to consider combining it with one company, give you access to exceptions that you might need down the road. Of course your broker is, can matter in that context as well. And so make sure that from a disability standpoint, you're working with a specialist and we, we help most of our clients with life insurance. At the same time, we try to combine it as often as we can. That's not always doable, but we certainly try to.
(05:12): And if someone there is the argument that that can be made, Hey, I want to diversify the insurance companies. That's usually the case when you're talking about a significant amount of coverage. And by that, I mean 5 million, 10 million or more. If you're below that range, then the argument can be made that combining them with one is going to give you more benefit than diversifying is going to give you. Now, obviously a smart people might disagree with that, but in our experience, having the ability to keep it simple, keep it under one premium payment, keep it under one umbrella, one set of literature that you receive or notifications that you receive can be wise in addition to the financial impact of, of a multiple policy discount. And as I mentioned, the ability to get an exception if needed. I hope this helps. I would love to discuss your situation in more detail. Happy to answer any questions. Anytime, my number is 7 0 4 2 7 0 2 3 7 6. Again, that's 7 0 4 2 7 0 2 3 7 6. Be happy to discuss your situation until next time. This is Billy. Gwaltney grateful as always for your ponds.
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