The Insurance You MUST HAVE and What You Don’t Need

Transcript:

On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, the insurance you must have and what you don't need.

Whoa. What's up everybody? And welcome to the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of Master money.co. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're gonna dive into the insurance. You must have. And the insurance you don't need. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join that Master Money newsletter by going to master money.co/newsletter.

And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, apple Podcast, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. And if you wanna help out the show, consider leaving a. Five star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify or your favorite podcast player. And you can also again, watch us on YouTube if you wanna follow along and see some of the outlines of what we are talking about here in this episode.

Then you can follow us on YouTube. You just search my name, Andrew Cola. So thank you so much for being here today. We are gonna be diving into insurance today, and we have not talked about insurance much. On this podcast. So first, my big, big goal with this episode is I'm gonna give you an all-encompassing guide to insurance, and I'm gonna give you a guide to the insurance you need and how much to get.

I'm gonna also give you a guide to insurance you might need or some insurance that you wanna consider based on your specific situation. And then lastly, I'm gonna give you a list of. Insurances that I think you don't need for most people, and most people are just not gonna need those insurances. And this is gonna be one where overall I'm gonna help you try to figure out exactly what coverage you need so that you can protect your wealth over time, because that is the entire goal with insurance.

We wanna make sure that we have enough coverage to protect ourselves so that we do not go backwards in our financial situation. The last thing you wanna be doing is working so hard to build wealth. And it all just goes away because you were not set up properly with insurance. This is a million dollar decision is to make sure that you have the correct insurance.

If you do not, if you do not have a plan in place, today's the day that you need to make sure that you change that because this is another way that we need to make sure that we have a protection plan set up for our finances. Protecting your wealth, in addition to growing your wealth are the two things you always need to be focusing on.

It's preserving and growing and preservation a lot of times is paying for some of these things like insurance that we really do not. Wanna pay for. And so this is something I think for a lot of folks they need to think through. So without further ado, let's get into it. Alright. So first we're gonna cover all the insurances that you need.

And when it comes to insurances that you need, I typically have five core insurances that I think a lot of people should consider when it comes to setting up and protecting their wealth. Number one is health insurance. Now there are still a group of people out there who do not have health insurance, and this is a big, big mistake if you don't have health insurance.

Now, I know how costly health insurance can be. I know this is a big cost for a lot of people. The health system in the US is obviously a big issue. The health system in other countries is also a huge issue, but we must have health insurance because over time healthcare costs are rising. As. 7% every single year.

In fact, medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the us, the number one cause. Our medical bills, and you need protection from unexpected hospital stays. You need protection from unexpected surgeries, from chronic care. All of these things can happen to you at any point in time, and you must have health insurance in place to protect yourself.

You absolutely need it no matter what. You need to raise your income if you can't afford it. This is a. End all, be all. There is no questions if ands or buts about it, you must have health insurance. This is a very huge key to your wealth building. Long term. It is not. If you're going to have a health problem in your life, it is when will you have a health problem in your life?

Newsflash, we all don't live on this earth forever. In fact, none of us do. And so you must make sure that you have health insurance in place because something is going to come up, something is going to happen, you are not going to expect it, and you need to make sure that you're protected. So first, let's talk about how much health insurance that you need.

So I want you to aim for a plan for an out-of-pocket max that you can afford in cash. Okay? So if you are someone out there who's like, I can't afford to have a really high deductible or out-of-pocket max, I need to make sure that I have enough insurance coverage. In case something happens. So it does not bankrupt me, uh, with that out-of-pocket max.

Now, if you're young and healthy, I would consider a high deductible health plan. There's two benefits to this. One is with a high deductible health plan, a lot of times if you don't use your insurance, you're paying less every single month if you're young and healthy. Okay? And so every single month you may be paying, you know, $200 a month or $300 through your employer instead of paying $600 through your employer.

These are just round numbers that I'm throwing out there. Each employer is going to have different plans set up depending on how much you can save. Or if you are a business owner, you may be paying a lot more than that. Uh, but these are just numbers I'm throwing out as an example. And so if that is the case, if you are saving a lot of money there and you are young, I.

You are healthy, you go to the doctor maybe once a year and that's about it. You don't really have anything wrong going on right now or anything chronic or anything you have to really worry about. Then you would could consider a high deductible health plan and you would pair that with the HSA. Now, you guys have heard me talk about the HSAA ton of different times, but the only way you can have an HSA.

Is if you have a high deductible health plan. Now, it is not worth opening a high deductible health plan if you have health problems just to have an HSA. Let me say that again because I want the people on the back to hear it. The sacrifice is not worth it to open a high deductible health plan if you have health problems.

Just so you can open an HSA, you need to make sure that you are kind of thinking through and running the numbers on that. But if you need more frequent care. Then I would choose a PPO or an HMO with lower deductibles and copays because you're gonna be going to the doctor more frequently. You're gonna be making visitations more frequently.

Maybe you're going to see specialists more frequently. Maybe you have more hospital visits. And because of all those things you need to try to focus on saving money as much as possible and letting insurance pay more over time. Now, how do you shop for healthcare? The big thing I think a lot of people need to consider, and when you wanna compare plans, you can go to healthcare.gov is one place that you could start to shop for healthcare if you are someone who is self-employed or if your employer does not offer it.

But secondly, I would go to your employer portal. So for most of you, if your employer offers health insurance. This is gonna be something, uh, that is a huge benefit for you, and you need to make sure that you go through their portal and you start to read through some of this stuff to find terms. Now, you can also go to an independent broker for myself, employed people.

You can go to an independent broker. They can help you find health insurance out there and help you really grow. So these are just a couple of different places that you can start to shop. Now, what do I focus on? I would focus on premium versus deductible versus out of pocket max. Don't just chase the lowest cost.

Don't just look at which one has the lowest monthly cost. You need to make sure that you align it with your exact life situation, and then double check that your doctors that you like to go to and your prescriptions are in network. That is a huge, huge factor. A lot of people miss that step, but making sure that you check that is gonna be really, really important overall if you get prescriptions delivered to you very regularly.

Even if you have kids out there, and a lot of you know, kids get sick all the time. If they're in daycare or if they're in elementary school or if they're in middle school, they get sick all the time because they are. In contact with a bunch of other kids. And so kids put things in their mouth if they're young or they do things where, you know, they just get sick all the time.

Um, and that you are gonna have a lot more to handle If you have kids or you have people who depend on you, you gotta make sure that you have the right plan in place. Here's a great example, okay, so a lot of times I have a high deductible health plan. And I have it so that I start to build wealth through an HSA.

Uh, I have a high deductible health plan because we don't take a ton of doctor visits currently, my wife and I are, are in our thirties, and it is something where we have a high deductible health plan most years because we can afford the out-of-pocket costs. But in years that we have babies, for example.

I'll shift our healthcare plan to A PPO or HMO with lower deductibles, because I know we're gonna be paying a lot more out of pocket in years that my wife is pregnant. We're gonna be delivering a baby. We gotta go to a ton of different doctor visits. She goes monthly to go see the doctor during that timeframe.

And so I know there's gonna be a lot more appointments and there's gonna be a lot more visits. And so that is an example based on what is happening in your life where you can make that shift for that year. Then you can go back to the high deductible health plan and kind of move on from there. And so you gotta really look at what's going on in your life and how you want to handle that.

So that's health insurance. Now, again, in the future, we'll probably do some really deep dives on some of these to help you save on some of these, to help you make some of the right choices for each of these insurances. But I wanna do a full encompassing episode first, just talking about each one that you need, what you don't need, and what you might need.

So that's the big thing there. So health insurance is the first one. Secondly is auto insurance. Now, auto insurance is obviously if you drive a car, it is required by law and protects you from a massive financial liability, specifically if you cause an accident. Now, if you are driving a car and you've driven a car for over 10 years, most likely you may have been an offender bender or you may have had somebody run into you, or you may be texting and you run in the back of somebody else.

You may have been in a car accident before in your life, and that is the number one time where you can feel the worst feeling in the pit of your stomach every time that happens. 'cause you're like, oh shoot, what is gonna happen next? What kind of headaches am I going to have and what do I need to do in order to make sure I can handle and assess?

This situation. And so health insurance is a huge, huge factor here. One is you need to make sure that you have an agent that is in your corner when it comes to car insurance. Having somebody up to bat for you is very, very important. In fact, I pay more monthly for my car insurance because I have a very close family friend who is my agent who will go up to bat for me on any different situation.

Here's an example. I was in a car accident, somebody ran into me, they had a rental car and they were changing lanes. Didn't see that I was right next to 'em, and they just ran right into the side of me. They sideswiped me. Okay. And when that happened, they ended up having a ton of damage to their car. There was a ton of damage to my car.

They ended up preparing it. And this was about, you know, seven or eight years ago. I. And when that happened, their insurance, which rhymes with sch Smart's insurance, shout out to Schwarber's Insurance, tried to not pay for something that was their fault. They were even saying it was their fault, and Schwarber's Insurance was trying to say it was not their fault.

I. They just ran, boom, right into me. Okay? So we had a battle going on back and forth, and my agent went up to bat for me and for months was just fighting it and fighting it and fighting it so that I could get my money to be able to pay for the repairs. It was a miserable experience, but if I didn't have that agent in my corner, I am not very confident that I would've got my money back.

And so it's very important to have an agent in your corner who you have a rapport with, or someone that you know is going to battle for you and go up to bat for you. It's very, very important to have that. Now, how much do you need? How much do you need when it comes to your car insurance? The minimum recommended liability for a lot of folks out there is a hundred thousand bodily injury per person.

300,000 per accident and a hundred thousand in property damage. Now, if your net worth is over 500,000, I would consider adding umbrella insurance too. Folks with high net worth, I'm gonna tell you this right now. People are gonna come after you once your net worth starts to go up if somebody falls on your property.

I just had a neighbor, for example, had a birthday party for their kids. One of the kids fell on their property and they got hurt. It wasn't even that they got hurt really, really bad, but they fell at a pool party and got hurt. And when that happened, a couple weeks later, they opened up their mail and there was a lawsuit in the mail from the parents of the kid that fell and got hurt.

I. When your net worth rises, people are going to come after you and they're gonna come after your money. And so making sure that you have insurance coverage that covers this is very, very important. So you gotta make sure that you have the right coverage in place if you are questioning, I don't know if this is enough coverage.

Ask your agent, have the conversation, make sure they are trustworthy, and give you both options of what would happen if you did not have that coverage. And start to talk through this a little bit. You really need to understand this stuff a little bit and say to your agent, Hey, listen, I understand this a little bit, but just explain this to me.

Like I have no idea what's going on. I love doing that. The reason why I love doing that is because I will pick up on little nuggets that they probably would not have stated, uh, if I did not have them open up a little bit more. And so I say, Hey. Act like I'm brand new to this. I have no idea what insurance coverage I need.

Here's how much you know I make, here's my net worth, those types of things. Let me know how much coverage I need, and they will open up and kinda let you know some of that information. Now you can get comprehensive in collision If your car is less than eight to 10 years old or is worth more than $5,000, that is another thing I would absolutely get for most people there.

So high net worth, consider umbrella insurance also, but comprehensive and collision is very important for most of, and most people have cars that are less than 10 years old. So if you do, uh, make sure you get comprehensive and collision. Also now how to shop and I will have somebody, I have a very specific person that can come on this show.

Uh, we'll talk through. All the things you need when it comes to auto insurance, uh, coming up. But I will have somebody kind of come on here and talk through that. Uh, who is an expert on that? It's gonna be a, actually a pretty cool episode. So comparing rates, you can go to places like The Zebra or you can go to two direct carriers to start to compare rates and how to shop.

But you need to shop aggressively when it comes to car insurance 'cause there are massive discrepancies. If the agent is not someone who is in your corner and you can't find someone, or you're not closely associated with someone who will be in your corner. Then you need to shop aggressively when it comes to this stuff.

Now you also need to raise your deductible or lower your premium if you can't afford it in an emergency and bundle with renters or homeowners. And a lot of times you can save 10 to 20%. So sometimes bundling this up is gonna help you save on car in homeowners or renter's insurance and that will help you in the long run be able to save.

You know, insurance costs when it comes to inflation have risen the most over the course of the last couple of years. And so we need to make sure that we are shopping this and getting the lowest premium because you could be paying hundreds of dollars more. Uh, and so I would aggressively shop this every year if you can.

In, uh, this is not something I would wait every couple of years. I would shop it every year. Now let's jump into number three. Number three is coverage for your homeowners or your renter's insurance. So this is the place that you live coverage from your home and possessions, which are major assets to most people out there.

Most people, their home is actually their greatest asset, and you could be liable if someone gets injured on your property. I just gave you the story of someone getting injured on someone else's property. They got a lawsuit right in the mail, and they gotta make sure that they have enough coverage there.

So. There's a lot of things that you want to consider here. If you own a home, even if it's free and clear and you are not carrying insurance, I don't love that plan. I actually know multiple people who will go out and do that, and every single time I tell them, you are playing with fire. If you are a landlord and you own rental properties and you do not carry home insurance, you are playing with it even greater fire.

And I can never, ever understand that if you can't cashflow your home and have home insurance, then you reign the numbers wrong. Let's just get real about that. You do not have enough cashflow to be able to pay for homeowner's insurance, then you have the wrong property at hand, and you did not buy yourself an asset.

You bought yourself a liability. I. This is not something that you play with. This is a business and you need to make sure that you have enough cash on hand, enough cash flow on hand to be able to cover proper insurances. I mean, it's a joke. How many landlords are out there right now that currently do not have insurance?

You need to make sure you have insurance if you're a landlord. That is my soapbox for the day Anyways, so how much do you need for homeowners? Get the replacement cost of your home, not the market value. So the replacement cost of your home is really what you need. If you go to market value, that's just too high.

Just really look at the replacement cost for your home. Also, make sure you include personal property like furniture, clothes, and electronics, and 300,000 of liability coverage is a good baseline. The bigger your house, the wealthier you are, I would start to raise that a little bit on that liability baseline.

Now, let's talk about something for a second. When it comes to homeowners. If you are in an area that is prone to natural disasters, you also want to consider other insurances to pair with that. Here's an example. So last September we had a hurricane come through Here I'm in, I live in Tampa, Florida. We had a hurricane come through here and my in-laws have a house that has been in their family for, uh, a few generations is a little house on the water, okay?

And they are literally eight feet from the ocean. It's really cool. My. Wife's great-grandfather bought this house. He bought the land really cheap, way back when the land wasn't worth that much and built a little house on there. And they still have the house there and my in-laws live there. Okay. And when the hurricanes came last year, the entire house started to flood and my father-in-law and brother-in-law were in the house.

And they've had close to floods, you know, happen all the time. But this hurricane really had some major storm surges coming and they look out the front door. And they look out the back door and there's four feet of water at their front door. They have a front door that is all glass, and they look out and the water level is four feet at the front door, and it is boom, banging against the door, boom, banging against the door, boom, banging against the door.

They try to barricade the door, the door is barricaded, and then all of a sudden, you know, they're like, we gotta get outta here. So they get outta the house and go to a neighbor's house, which is at, you know, a much higher, higher level. And all of a sudden they hear a crash. The water comes rushing into their house, and they got like eight feet of water in their house.

And the entire neighborhood was flooded. There was people swimming down the streets and there was all kinds of things happening there. They had flood insurance and they had enough insurance to be able to at least cover the renovations to the house and some of the items in the house as well. And so you need to make sure that you are thinking through some of those items, how much they would cost, and making sure you have the proper coverage when it comes to that.

Secondarily is. If you are renting, I would very seriously consider renter's insurance, and for most renters, I would say that's a requirement in my book. And just getting, you know, 25 to 50,000 in personal property, depending on what you have in coverage, should be enough. And a hundred thousand to 300,000 in liability coverage is the two things that I would look at.

Now, how to shop, I would, one. Consider bundling with auto, if you can for some of these. If you can't, that's fine, but if you can bundle with auto, that's great. Make sure it includes the replacement cost coverage, not just the actual cash value. And then three, add a rider for valuables like jewelry or art if needed.

So if you have some valuable things, you can add a rider on some of those that will help you make sure you have coverage on all that. So that is number three. Number four is term life insurance. Notice I didn't say cash value. Notice I didn't say whole life, I said. Term life insurance. Okay, so why do you need term life insurance?

This is the only insurance episode we've ever done, but we've done entire episodes on this because I am so sick of the IUL and the cash value life insurance and the infinite banking people trying to come at us. I mean, people will stitch my tiktoks, for example, all the time. I. And I'll be talking about a Roth IRA and they'll say, no, you don't need a Roth IRA.

You need an IUL. Life insurance is a great investment. Life insurance, I'm gonna say this right now one more time. Life insurance is not an investment. If the word insurance is attached to it, it is not an investment. We need to make sure we understand this really easy. We have an entire episode on this where I go through it.

Uh, but just making sure you understand that is really, really important. If someone depends on your income, this could be a business partner, this could be a spouse, this could be your children. This could be, you know, a sister or a brother. It could be anybody in your family. Maybe it's an aging parent, but if somebody depends on your income, you need life insurance.

Now you don't need whole life. You don't need all these other ones. Just term life insurance is gonna be good enough. Now, how does term life insurance work? The way that it works is that you buy life insurance at a much, much, much, much, much cheaper rate than all the other, uh, competitors. And you buy life insurance for a certain term.

That's why it's called term life insurance. So let's say for example, you are 30 years old and you want to buy life insurance all the way up until you're age 60. Between the ages of 30 and 60, you have this term life insurance policy that you pay X amount of dollars per month and usually it's pretty cheap.

I have a lot of coverage and I pay about $29 a month. Okay? That's how cheap it is. So for the next 30 years, you're gonna pay $29 a month so that if anything ever happened to you, your family would be able to get enough money based on your coverage, based on how much value you have. Uh, currently, they would have enough money to be able to get by if something ever happened to you.

Okay, so that is the key number one. Now, the thought process here is by the age of 60, you're also gonna be doing the work to build wealth, whereas by the age of 60, you're not gonna need this policy anymore because instead you built up enough wealth to leave them if anything ever happened to you. So that's the goal, is it gives you a timeline of, Hey, while I'm building wealth, I wanna make sure that I have life insurance in place so that if I got in a car accident, or God forbid anything ever happened to me.

I would be able to then go ahead and take care of my family. That is the key. Okay. And so that's how term life insurance works. But it's much, much, much cheaper. I'm talking 10 times cheaper than some of the other alternatives that are out there that get pushed to you. Now the reason why those other ones are so much more expensive is 'cause somebody's pockets is going to get filled if you go and take that policy.

Okay? So just make sure you understand that as we go through this. So how much do you generally need? Usually we talk about like around 10 times the amount that you earn is a good rule of thumb. Some people say 10 to 15. If you wanna look at it in a way where you're like, I just wanna make sure I have enough, even if I get raises and things like that, then 10 to 15 times your income is a good thought process there.

So example, I. If you make $80,000 per year, that means you wanna look at, you know, 800,000 to 1.2 million in coverage. Okay? Now you can use the dime formula to be more specific. I like the dime formula, which is the D stands for debt. So you can look at all your current debts, including your mortgage. The I stands for income, and you gotta think through what are the years of income replacement needed.

So let's say for example, you think you'd need 10 years of income replacement needed, and you make a hundred thousand dollars per year, that's a million dollars in coverage. Okay? And then look at the mortgage. How much is the remaining balance on your mortgage? Because maybe you want to have enough in place also to be able to pay off that mortgage so that liability or that burden is not on your family.

And then lastly is education. So future cost for children is the other one that you can look at to figure out how much you need. So those are some of the ways that I would think about it. But 10 to 15 times your income is a really, really good range. I think 10 is more. So where I land, 15 is gonna be high, but if you are really conservative, it is a place that you can look.

Now how to shop. I like PolicyGenius. PolicyGenius is where I got mine. PolicyGenius has been a long time sponsor of this podcast. They've been a sponsor of this show for three years plus now, and I really believe in them. I use them. Uh, they're a great place to shop. I called them up. It literally took me 30 minutes at PolicyGenius to be able to get a policy cooked up and ready to go and.

Honestly, it was great, just seamless. That's why I have them as a sponsor of the show, we only have people we believe in on the show, and they have been absolutely fantastic for me. Again, I would only buy term life insurance currently, and 20 to 30 year terms are the most common. I have a 30 year term on mine, is what I bought, and I would try to, you know, again, I would avoid whole life or universal life.

Unless it's for estate planning. Now estate planning is a whole different story. If you want some of the pros and cons of those, we can talk about that. But for right now, for most people, if you're in the wealth building stages, that's probably not the route I would go. Alright, number five. This is going to be the one that I think a lot of people overlook and we wanna just talk through this a little bit because I think a lot of people actually need it.

So this is disability insurance, and this is long-term disability insurance. Because if you can't work due to injury or illness, disability insurance is gonna replace part of your income. Now, sometimes your workplace will offer disability insurance for free. Sometimes it will offer it at a discount, but this is one I think you definitely want to consider.

And how much do you need? You wanna look for disability insurance that could replace about 60 to 70% of your income and make sure the benefit period runs to age 65 or longer. This is the big key. Okay. Because if something happens to you, let's say for example, you are someone who works with their hands, and maybe you are a blue collar worker, maybe you are someone who's, let's say you're an electrician, okay?

And you're an electrician and you're doing a big job and something happens where you get hurt and you cannot, you know, go on a lift, or you can't go up ladders, or you just can't work on some of the big things that you used to work on. Based on that. Well you need to make sure that you have some replacement of some of that income, uh, and make sure the benefit runs long enough.

Because if a longer term injury, you need to have some of that income coming in to be able to help you through that. Now, another thing you could do is you can choose an own occupation definition, which pays out if you can't do your specific job. And so that is something too that you can definitely look into.

So how to shop for disability. 'cause there's a lot of different ways to shop for disability. I think there's a lot more nuance to disability because it. Is more complicated to some people, but you can check if your employer offers it first. That's gonna be the number one place to look. Uh, if they offer it, I would probably just consider going that route because it's usually the cheapest option.

It's almost always the cheapest option to go that route. If not, you can get quotes from places like Guardian or MassMutual or Breeze. There's a bunch of different places that you can kind of get some quotes on, and then make sure it has residual benefits, meaning it covers partial disability. And non cancelable terms, meaning they can't cancel those terms if you are going through that.

So disability is one I think most people should consider. Um, check the rates, check if your employer offers it. If they do, it is definitely worth it just to have that extra protection. The last thing you want to do is need disability and you did not get it. So, uh, really, really important stuff. Next, let's get into the insurance you might need.

Now I spent a little more time covering the ones that you need. Um, the ones that you might need, we'll try to go through these a little quicker. Um, just because I think for some people there are gonna be set scenarios where you need it, and some people you don't need it. So you need to think through this as you go and start your journey here.

So insurance you might need for some people. One is umbrella insurance. So we talked about umbrella insurance a little bit early on in the episode. If you have a high net worth or a big income, you're gonna need umbrella insurance because it's additional insurance that's gonna help protect you and covers liability beyond home and auto.

So your home and auto has coverage, but there's other liabilities that are gonna come up. And umbrella insurance is gonna help you protect yourself against some of those additional things. Now, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, but you just have to have it in place if you have a big income. So if your net worth is above a million dollars and or if you have a really high income above 250,000, I would probably just consider having umbrella insurance.

Two, long-term care insurance is something you might need. Whereas if you are in your fifties or your sixties and you want to hedge against future care costs, I would consider long-term care insurance. Now, this is one of the most complicated insurance policies that are out there, long-term care, and they make it complicated.

I don't know why they make it so complicated, but it is a frustrating process. So when you are looking at long-term care insurance. A, I would do a lot of research. I would make sure I understand exactly what this policy is telling me to do. This is one, you really need to spend a lot of time because they are very expensive policies.

They're not cheap policies whatsoever because long-term care is very expensive. Later on in life, if you feel like, for example, your children would not be able to help take care of you, and you're gonna need to be in like a nursing home or a long-term care facility, most of us want to think that we're never gonna have to do that.

But let's get real here. If you think you may have to do that, then we need to make sure that we're looking at this for the long term. You can also look at hybrid policies with life insurance. That can be better than some of the traditional ones. Um, so there's some hybrid policies that may be long-term care plus life that can just help you through some of that stuff.

Also, number three is pet insurance. If you have a pet, pet insurance is actually worth it. I had two dogs and both of them actually just recently passed away about a year ago. Uh, 'cause they were both old, uh, 13 and 14. And pet insurance, especially towards the end of their life, came in really, really handy At the beginning of their life, it feels like you spent, so I had 'em both as puppies when we first got 'em, a Boston Terrier and a boxer, two opposite sizes.

Uh, and when we got 'em early on in life, I feel like we were spending a lot of money when they were puppies. You know, getting 'em spayed or neutered. You just have a lot of extra costs. The setup cost for each dog. Um. And I remember when we first got them, I wrote a blog post on my old blog, uh, that was, uh, way back in the day, the cost of getting a puppy, the cost of getting a dog.

It was one of the first blog posts I ever wrote because it was like my biggest expense back then. I was thinking through all that stuff, but I remember pet insurance came in handy early on and we had pet insurance early on with our dogs, but then later on in life it really came in handy. So you can actually save on pretty much every single vet visit and it's actually becomes, I did the math.

Very early on, we were saving like 35% on each vet visit just because of our pet insurance. Uh, secondarily it can help you save on medications and prescriptions. Third, it can help you save a lot, and I mean a lot on some of the big ticket items. So if your pets, for example, get injured or if they have to have surgery, or if a lot of dogs and cats and pets and animals, they are going to have to, as they get older, there's surgeries that they may have to have and you have to make a big decision.

Are you going to go forward with that surgery? And most people don't want the stress of cost being something, especially if you really love your pet. They don't want the stress of cost being the biggest factor in determining that decision. And so you gotta make sure that you have pet insurance in place.

If you have, uh, folks, or if you think you would struggle to pay a $5,000 vet bill, you need to have pet insurance in place, uh, because just to, as your health could. Go at any point in time. So could your pets, and then you have to make a choice. Number four is identity theft insurance. I think this is pretty important for a lot of people.

Not everybody is going to have it, but I would definitely consider it for a lot of folks. So if you've been hacked before or you just want peace of mind, get identity theft insurance. I have it currently. I had my identity stolen, and so I have identity theft insurance because of that. And it offers credit monitoring services and homeowners policies are some things that you can get with identity theft insurance.

We've done tons of episodes on how to protect your finances online. We just did one recently, so if you wanna hear that episode, definitely check that out. Life insurance for stay at home parents is another one I would consider. Uh, if the surviving partner would need help covering childcare or household labor, then that is another consideration for sure, uh, is to have life insurance for stay at home parents, not just the working spouse.

Like, say for example, something happens to the stay at home parent and you're working and you're like, I don't know how I would even cover childcare. Well, then you would definitely need life insurance for that, uh, to make sure that you have that coverage. So even if the stay at home parent is only gonna stay at home for the next five to 10 years, maybe then you can do a shorter term coverage insurance.

Uh, that just covers that timeframe. And so that is another consideration that I think you should think about. So those are five that you might need. Uh, if I'm missing one of those lists, shoot me an email, uh, and let me know, because next I'm gonna tell you about the insurances you don't need. Alright.

Lastly, we are gonna cover the insurances that you don't need, and this is usually because they're overpriced or they just cover really small things, really tiny risks that you can probably just kind of take on that risk without having to worry about it. Okay? Number one. Is whole life insurance because it has really high fees and it has really poor investment returns.

A lot of people like to talk about whole life insurance as an investment and they're saying, Ooh, this got great investment returns. I'd rather get term insurance and invest the difference. That's what I'd rather do. Now, we've dove into this a couple of different times. Uh, if you want me to do a whole episode on this, I will.

Term insurance versus whole life. We can have a conversation about that, but that is something that you don't need. Secondly, credit card insurance. So your card already offers protection in most situations. Credit card insurance is not something you need, and typically it's a ripoff. So I would not consider credit card insurance for most people because you do not need it.

Okay. Three extended warranties. So most things don't break within the extended warranty window. That's why they offer it. They just have an additional revenue source basically for them, uh, so that they have that coverage. And a lot of times if you buy the item with a specific credit card, like there's a bunch of amount there, like the Chase Sapphire, the Capital One venture.

Um, if you go to the personal finance podcast.com, by the way, up top we have a little menu button that says. Best credit cards. Those are all my favorite credit cards on there. We, I don't know, I don't talk about that enough, but a lot of people ask me about what my favorite credit cards are. You can go up there and check that one out, but a lot of times when you pay for certain things with your credit card, it already gives you that extended warranty that you don't need to go pay additionally for an extended warranty.

Flight insurance can be redundant in a lot of situations and depending on what credit card you use, it can also be redundant. Uh, cancer illness or specific insurance. It's better to just have solid health insurance. That is one that I probably would not get, uh, unless you really, really think you're gonna be prone to that.

Mortgage Life insurance term life does the same thing way cheaper. So don't need that either. And so I ls infinite banking, all those different types of insurances are not something that I would typically consider for most people because they're usually overpriced and they cover tiny risks if there are insurances.

That you also have had coverage for or you think you don't need, leave 'em in the comments down below on YouTube or on Spotify and let me know. 'cause I would love to hear some of the ones that you think you need and what do you think? If there are some that you think I left off the list that you absolutely do need and you just completely disagree with me, let me know on those too.

'cause I would love to hear, uh, some of your takes. On this exact subject. Well, listen, thank you guys so much for being here on this episode. If you guys are finding value in this episode, share it with a coworker or a family member or a friend, and our entire goal is to bring you as much value as possible on this podcast.

So cannot thank you guys enough for being here, and we will see you on the next episode.