How Much Life Insurance Do Dentists Need? – Episode #661

This week on the Dentist Money Show, Matt and Ryan break down the complexities of life insurance for dentists. They explore how to determine the right amount of coverage, the risks of being under- or over-insured, and why spousal income and business value matter in the equation. They also touch on the history of life insurance and some common rules of thumb. Tune in for insights about the importance of planning for risks and having regular financial reviews to protect your family’s financial future.

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m Ryan Isaac, and I’m here, not so in studio, but I feel like I’m in person with Matt Mulcock. Hello, Matt. everybody. Welcome

Matt Mulcock: It, it feels, it feels good to be back to the, our, to our roots of the

Ryan Isaac: I like that opening statement. It is funny how, um, muscle memory that is,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: We were just talking about it and I was like, I don’t know if you’re gonna remember this, Ryan, but do you remember how to do the intro?

Ryan Isaac: Well, not only that, you know what actually at first almost did was the nicknames

Matt Mulcock: You almost called me the mountain,

Ryan Isaac: And the Matt, the mo, yeah. Mountain MoCo. But I can’t like nickname myself and I’m, sir, you can’t do that.

Matt Mulcock: I think you can though. I mean, you didn’t give you yourself the original

Ryan Isaac: I did it. Yeah. I didn’t start that way.

Matt Mulcock: You could be sir.

Ryan Isaac: Maybe sir. , Okay, today we’re talking life insurance and it’s been a topic, among our crew, the dentist advisors, advisor, crew, or advice team. What do we call ourselves?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Advice crew.

Matt Mulcock: Advice team. Advice crew. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: Way to say it. we’ve been having, uh, and we do this quite often, we always revisit the way we do things, think about things, teach things. Uh, we wanna make sure that we’re always just staying ahead and, you know, teaching the best way possible we can. So a topic that’s been on our minds a lot recently as a team is just how are we teaching people, how to. What, what amount of life insurance to carry and why, and what, what’s the math behind it? is there anything that you want, I mean, we’ll get into that, but if you wanna say anything, Matt, about like why this topic has come up again lately or why this has felt important to the team. Anything other, like behind the scenes from conversations I.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, this is just one of those things that we are constantly thinking about that it’s like, I think insurance and, and estate planning is kind of like if financial planning is the, your vegetables kind of subjects of life,

Ryan Isaac: Mm.

Matt Mulcock: I think insurance and estate planning kind of as a whole. Is like the worst vegetable you can think of. So I bring that up to say like, I think it’s one of those things, it’s like always in the back of our minds. It’s always in the back of clients’ minds. It’s something that we try to bring up with clients. But I think, uh, what’s what’s been happening lately and the reason it came up amongst our team is, I think so when I first got the DA over seven years ago, we had like a pretty distinct. Philosophy of like what we followed on life insurance and like a, a calculation that we followed and I think we, we took step number one of adjusting and adapting, which was like, we kind of realized what we were using at the time was maybe a bit outdated. I think where we didn’t close the loop on that evolution was step two, which was, which would be like come up with a new philosophy and so we’ve kind of been living in this kind of like weird limbo as a company and these conversations got reignited where we just were like, we need to kind of like put some more thought into this. So again, to your point, it’s been happening internally and then we thought, why don’t we just go and talk about this and kind of be open about it and, and see if, if we’re thinking about this and trying to come up with this philosophy and thinking about it internally, we know a lot of dentists are thinking about it. So we thought we would just share.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, that’s such a good point. when you hear this episode come out, go to the, uh, dentist advisors discussion group on Facebook, and if you have some thoughts about the calculations of this or how to think through it, um, we’d love to hear about it for sure. We have gone overboard on making it really technical in the past, you know, like 10 moving pieces in a calculation to determine. What you should carry. But I guess if anything, we’re thinking really thoroughly about this subject and it matters a lot. So a little history here, Matt, going back to the SER situation, uh, life insurance goes back to Rome’s burial clubs. I knew you knew that common household fact. and I’ll just say this, for a few hundred years since the inception of life insurance, that was the whole point. It was to cover burial expenses. And that’s what it was in 17th century, 18th century, 19th century. It was kind of just, they started as like flat fee or flat, um, flat benefit kind of things. pooled funds. They were, they, there would be, there was something in England, um, uh, the Presbyterian Minister’s Fund.

So funds would get together and they would just pool, uh, resources together just to pay for burial expenses. That’s how life insurance started, which is interesting to think how. Far it’s come and how it’s, because sometimes we’re giving the, I mean a lot of, I think a lot of what sparked this discussion too internally was we would come together as advisors and be like, does someone really need $7 million of life insurance? Because look, they’re spending 420 grand a year and they don’t have enough assets. So technically, yes, but that seems insane.

Matt Mulcock: Crazy.

Ryan Isaac: They have five kids under 10 years old. It, it mathematically seems appropriate. So it is interesting to see how it’s trended over these, uh, over all these years as we got into the 20th century where life insurance started to really explode, especially with the invention of whole life. don’t boo, audibly, Matt, when you don’t have to. It’s okay. But, um, it, it, uh, coverage started increasing a lot more. One of my favorite Christmas movies ever. Although I, every, I’ve said this recently, uh, to someone and they were like, I can’t believe you can sit through this whole movie and not fall asleep and hate your life watching. Uh, yeah. You know what movie, right? It’s a wonderful Life. You know, the movie.

Matt Mulcock: It’s incredible.

Ryan Isaac: I said this to someone recently, a good friend, and they were like, that’s the worst show ever to watch at Christmas. That’s so depressing.

Matt Mulcock: Whoa. It’s such a, it’s such a lovely message.

Ryan Isaac: Such a lovely, okay, so there’s a port, uh, point in there where George Bailey, and this would’ve been post World War ii, you know, mid 1940s, little later, 1940s, he’s sitting down with Potter and he’s, you know, like hat in hand, freaking potter. We hate this guy. And he sits down and he’s kind of pleading his case and he is like, I’m, I’m done. You beat me. You know, maybe I’ll come work for you. I’ve got nothing left. And he says, I’ve got a $500 life insurance policy. That’s all I’ve got. That’s all I’m worth. 500 bucks back then. Quick math, top of your head, Matt. What does that translate to? I’m just kidding. You don’t have to do that.

Matt Mulcock: No

Ryan Isaac: Average inflation, that translates to like nine grand into in 2025. So poor George in its wonderful life had

Matt Mulcock: Like his, that’s like a Chipotle annual bill

Ryan Isaac: Is it for you? Nine grand? That could be.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: It could be. So it was basically like enough to carry, to cover burial expenses, which was very common. And it was a whole life policy, permanent life insurance policies, you know, mid 19 hundreds. That’s, that’s really what it was. Fast forward to today, conventional wisdom. Do you wanna pipe in with what CFP or conventional financial planning, uh, wisdom is and then we can get into how we used to calculate it and, uh, how we’re thinking about it now, but, uh, what, what are your thoughts on like, what is conventional financial industry wisdom on how much life insurance you should have?

Matt Mulcock: Well wait, so did you finish the story though? So he’s talking to Potter and he says

Ryan Isaac: Hook. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: He says, I Are you, are you gonna finish that or are you

Ryan Isaac: Go. Yeah. What’s your, what’s your question? Yeah. I want to know what, what are you thinking now? What’s gnawing at you?

Matt Mulcock: He says, I have a 500 policy. I’m worth, did you say this? I’m worth more dead

Ryan Isaac: See if you’re gonna say, yeah, I’m worth more dead than alive.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. I mean, I’ve thought that.

Ryan Isaac: Sad. I think Potter comes back right after that and offers him like 20 grand a year or something. And he like almost chokes on the cigar that he was chomping on in the big chair. I think it was like 20 grand a year salary, which if you think about it, that salary was how many multiples more than his life insurance policy. And he was like, this is gonna, and he turned it down though. Another lesson we can learn from, you know, good old George Bailey. That’s some other, some other podcast. Yeah. Worth More Dead Than Alive, which still even that was burial costs. It wasn’t a legacy. It wasn’t. Today’s, you know, wisdom, conventional wisdom, or even the way that we might have calculated or still calculated of like, Hey, this is gonna carry your family into perpetuity, spending the exact same amount that they’re used to spending right now, if that’s what you really want. So, yeah, interesting to just see where the industry has come from. How you know, and this is another subject, another time, how life insurance has been sold over the years, you know. Not bought, but sold. Um, what the industry does, how it positions it. Be your own bank, sacred cows, dot, whatever. You know.

Matt Mulcock: You’re gonna get me going, uh, back, back to, to the question. Sorry. I, I wanted to keep talking about Wonderful life and tell your friend.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, just shut up. Yeah. Watch it

Matt Mulcock: Shut up. Just shut up. Um.

Ryan Isaac: spirit and calm down.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, with all due respect, I love, and by the way, we are, we’re actually really quick. We’re actually breaking one of my, I’m not exaggerating here, one of my like cardinal sins or rules. We’re breaking one of my rules here, uh, like top three rule of life, which is my kids hate this, but no Christmas books, no Christmas movies, no Christmas music, no Christmas, anything outside of Christmas time. So we’re in the dead of summer and we’re talking at a Christmas movie. So we’re breaking rules

Ryan Isaac: What’s Christmas time? When does that begin for you? Like when is the go period? I.

Matt Mulcock: I mean, I think December 1st, but I will, I will. Well, I will say this. I will say after than Thanksgiving night or next day, the day after Thanksgiving, it

Ryan Isaac: Okay, I’m going early November, but it’s okay. It’s okay. We can go early November. Um, okay, so. Here. Here’s the thing, I guess, uh, let me ask you this question actually before, ’cause I was asking you what is conventional, uh, wisdom on how to choose how much life insurance? What are the risks? Let’s just talk about that. What are the risks that dentists carry or could carry by not getting this right? What are the, what are the threats to their financial situation by not doing this correctly?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I mean probably, I mean, no threats. To them necessarily ’cause they’re dead. but I thi I think, uh, in this, in this situation, and I, well, I actually think that a, that right there speaks to, we, we just talked about this with our team. I think that speaks to the heart of why insurance is, uh, topic that not a lot of dentists wanna talk about. Be, especially, let’s say, life insurance. Because the only time it actually comes into use, uh, for you is. When you’re dead. So I think that inherently creates a lot of weird feelings and emotions and it just ends up being kind of feeling like this pure expense. But, uh, I think the main risks are all to the people you care about. if you were to not be a adequately covered, you’ve got young kids. you’re putting your family in a situation that will already be difficult emotionally if you were to die. or at least I would assume for most dentists out there, you know, not. And then you’re, you’re, you’re adding on top of a really, really difficult situation, a extra layer of stress and burden, which is the financial burden, which just compounds everything. So I think, I think that’s probably the, uh, the huge, the biggest risk.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Let me ask you this. Um, in your experience, Matt, how often do you think dentists, let’s say, are over-insured? How often do you actually see that life insurance?

Matt Mulcock: Uh, I would say later on in life, it’s actually decently common. So early, early on, it’s not, it

Ryan Isaac: And what’s later? What’s, what’s later? What would you say?

Matt Mulcock: I think later, as in like I. You know, mid to later career. So I’d say fifties is probably like a common decade of, of a dentist life that if we’re talking specific life insurance that I’ve seen, and the reason I say that is the, the kids are older, right? It’s like that age, kind of that, that age of your life or that season of your life where kids have graduated. So let’s say like mid to late fifties. Uh, kids are graduating or graduated high school, they’ve kind of moved on their own. You back in the day, maybe purchased some longer term policies. You still have those in place. The risk of something happening to you is now diminished ’cause your net worth is now grown as well. That’s the stage of life that I would see it like, and when I say over-insured, I’d say purely in like the spreadsheet

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, just, yeah. The math

Matt Mulcock: Just mathematically over-insured, but more times than not, I’d say if you’re going one way or the other, underinsured is more likely than over-insured.

Ryan Isaac: Underinsured. Let me ask you this, just following up on that, what, for the people that you talk to who might be over-insured, what’s the general feeling when you bring that up and you show them the math? Are people excited to drop coverage? Does it, is it a matter of what it actually costs? is there, is it kind of nice if they’re like, how life insurance is just cheap right now? Something happened and my family got an extra, like $5 million, I would prefer that compared to what the cost is or what do you find normally when you bring that up?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think in most cases, especially on the life insurance side, ’cause to your point, once it’s in place and they’ve gotten used to the payment, they don’t notice it. The payment’s pretty low for the most part. If they

Ryan Isaac: Usually?

Matt Mulcock: Term policies back in their thirties or forties. Um, so in most cases. They’re, I think in most cases they’re kind of like a surprise. They’re like, wait, you’re telling me that I can drop this? Uh, and then in a lot of cases, I think they, I think they, most cases they keep it in place. From what I’ve gathered, from what I’ve seen,

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Not disability though, right? But, and so that’s just a monthly cost. So if they don’t need disability anymore, they’re like, this thing’s like a thousand a month or something. So

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Ryan Isaac: It outta here. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yep.

Ryan Isaac: Underinsured. Let’s, oh yeah, go ahead. What were you gonna say?

Matt Mulcock: Back to what you were saying, uh, because we started down this road and then deviated and people are like, just gimme the answer. Uh, the conventional, just, I want to answer that and we can keep going, but the conventional wisdom, like CFP, typical advisor, guideline for life insurance would be, 10, 10 to 12 I’ve seen is up as high as 15. Like in between 10 and 15 times your income.

Ryan Isaac: Your income. Yeah. So. Okay. Yes, that is true. What if we just put that in some general terms here and we said the average, what’s our average dentist making? Four something

Matt Mulcock: Uh, it’s 500.

Ryan Isaac: 500. So the average dentist around making around 500, let’s say they have a, they have $5 million in life insurance coverage. Um, and the average dentist is spending

Matt Mulcock: I know where you’re going with this.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, they’re spending about 17 a month.

Right. So.

Matt Mulcock: Or 18

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. So if you did that, let’s see, what kind of to, I’m just like, what’s the total for our audience? Who knows? What’s the total term of, uh,

Matt Mulcock: Six point. It’s like 6.4 to 6.5 if you go off of 18 grand a month.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. 18 grand a month into a $5 million policy is like a six total term. Six or seven ish.

Matt Mulcock: No. So we’re saying if you’re spending 17 to 18 grand a month,

Ryan Isaac: Uh.

Matt Mulcock: About what? What you would need for net worth to be at a 30 total term would be about 6.5

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Oh, okay. Yep. Right. And then perfect and perfect. Yes. Because I was asking if they followed conventional wisdom, which

Matt Mulcock: Oh, you’re saying they’d be underinsured based on the total

Ryan Isaac: A little bit. It, they’d be like a 24 total term based on that. An average our, our average dental in dentist income times 10, conventional wisdom times 12 would get ’em closer divided by our AV average dentist. Personal spending, yeah. Put something like a 24 total term. If it’s a 12 x, it’s a little bit closer. I think we kind of, I like the way we think about this in dentist advisors and with our team because. Sometimes we come back to the general rules and go, yeah, the general rules kind of hold they, I can see where they make sense, but I like that we go 12 layers deep because we check for a lot of nuance, which we’ll get to. Um, we’re gonna talk about that. Because even if someone has said 10 to 12 times my income, I think they’re gonna land in a fairly decent spot. I think that’s gonna be generally true for some people. Now, here come the nuances. You, you just built a spreadsheet for us, or I’m giving you credit. Who actually did you build it? Someone else

Matt Mulcock: I, I actually did

Ryan Isaac: It was your, okay, that was your spreadsheet. So you just built a spreadsheet to help us calculate this. Um, is there, well, is there anything else you wanna say about the conventional wisdom, maybe where it’s helpful? Generally speaking, I think it helps us arrive, but is there anywhere or lax that you think about, um, why we have tried to think about it deeper than just the conventional 10 to 12 x of your income and call it good.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I’ll start with the positive side of it, which is I think a lot of times guidelines are helpful when it comes to just taking action. I. So I think so many people get lost in this paralysis by analysis and that’s, I think that’s the negative side of nuance or the negative side of us saying it depends, like, although that is true, if you gave me two dentists and one was gonna act on the simple guideline and then, the other one was couldn’t act because they were too lost in nuance and complication and detail complexity. Of course, I’m taking option A for a dentist to say. Just follow the simple guideline, and to your point, it 10 to 12 to 15 times your annual income, it’s gonna get you in the ballpark. It’s better than, again, being lost and being like, well, what about this? What about this? So, so I guess I would just highlight that the guidelines can be super helpful if it means keeping things simple and, and taking action. And one thing I, so to kind of sum that up, it’s like. I think a lot of times people think they lack motivation when really they lack clarity and guidelines can give clarity to

Ryan Isaac: Hmm. Yeah. Okay.

Matt Mulcock: Take, take action. So that’s the good thing I think. I think the, the negative side of it is what we’ve said is if you’re not taking into account, if you’re not going deeper and saying, well, what about my personal situation? Um. that’s gonna leave you possibly at risk of, let’s say, in this case, being super underinsured. I’ll just give like an ex maybe an extreme example. Like let’s say you’ve got a special needs child,

Ryan Isaac: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: You know, that’s gonna add a much deeper layer of complexity. Or you’ve got other, some other unique situation like that, that a guideline is just not gonna cover, and you’re gonna want to make sure that you’re. You are factoring in to be optimized and to have the full risk, like mitigation, you know, kind of thing. You wanna make sure you’re, you’re, uh, you’re going deeper into the, the nuances.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. yeah, I like that. And some of these are just ratios, like we measure the ratio of people spending to their income. I just got off the phone with a client who’s spending is closer to. upwards of 60% of gross income. So on, very much on the high side, where that conventional wisdom would not cover that family. 10 to 12 X would not give, enough runway if they had little smaller kids, or they wanted a longer timeframe, um, for their, their heirs and their family members if they had older kids. Or the spouse had income, that could be a different thing. All, all, again, all nuances. So, uh, do you wanna talk, unless there’s anything else you wanna say about the conventional side of things. Okay. Do you want to go, let’s take it back a little bit, to how we used to think about this, like where, where our calculations started and began. A long time ago we started thinking about this and very kind of. Complex too. There’s a lot of calculations involved in math in that. Um, you might be pulling some of that up right now, actually, but do you wanna reminisce a little bit of on where we began thinking about how to calculate it and some of the, um, pieces of the formula that were in there.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Um, I, I don’t have it in front of me. I actually don’t know where that is. Um, I could go find like an old,

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I was, I was wondering if you, like you had that

Matt Mulcock: Um, I should try to find it, but, yeah, so we, and we’ve kind of somewhat come full circle, we’ll, we’ll kind of talk about what we, where we’ve come back to. But where, where it used to be was we started with, Kind of our default was how much do you need to make work? Like if you were to die, how much would your, how much net worth would your, spouse need to make work? Optional. Which basically, basically saying a 30 total term, right?

Ryan Isaac: Uhhuh.

Matt Mulcock: So that was where we started. And then we did all sorts of add backs and changes, uh, things like your. Mortgage payoff. And the one thing that’s definitely different now, we’ll talk about this, but we used to immediately reduce your practice value by 50%.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Was the like immediate thing we we would do

Ryan Isaac: Some of, and I reme, oh, sorry to, sorry to cut you. I was just gonna say we were having that discussion yesterday. Some of that feedback I remember came from brokers. I. 10 years ago saying that, oh, when someone dies, suddenly, um, a practice can immediately be 50 cents on the dollar compared to what it would’ve been and happen over the matter of weeks. So yeah, very, we used to very dramatically discount some of that net worth for sure.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I’m actually gonna see, uh, if I can see it, find an old report.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Yeah. So while you’re doing that Yeah. Some of the components you’ve mentioned there, we want to, the, the layers that we’re going into. deeper than the conventional wisdom. Like you said, you know, what, what are you worth on paper? Out of that net worth, what’s even liquid, because we don’t want to assume that, uh, it’s gonna be easy for you to convert, you know, a commercial building or the house you live in. You know, we want, let’s remove the house you live in as part of your net worth in a life insurance calculation. We, we don’t wanna assume that you’re gonna use home equity to support your family or your family support itself. we don’t wanna assume that it’s gonna be easy to convert illiquid assets immediately. Uh, for your family to use. And then like you’re saying, we assumed that the practice would be sold, like fire sale, uh, prices, which I’m sure we’ll get to this discussion or maybe we’ll have it now. I’m sure that’s possible and it happens in some cases. We were just talking about this yesterday, I’m sure, in like, let’s say small rural towns where it’s hard to find a provider. Hard to get a buyer, hard to get someone out there to work a location. That could be true, like a, a practice could lose its value quickly, or, I don’t know, maybe even a big city where there’s a lot of competition and there’s not a buyer immediately to come in and, and keep a patient base where they can maybe even go in the same building

Matt Mulcock: There’s nuance there.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, there’s probably a lot there. So, yeah. Did you find some, did you

Matt Mulcock: I did, I found our old calculation.

Ryan Isaac: Is it in a report form, like an old calculator?

Matt Mulcock: It’s a report form.

Ryan Isaac: Are you having

Matt Mulcock: I mean, well, it’s a.

Ryan Isaac: Or how you feeling right

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, it’s given me some PTSD. Yeah. My body. Exactly. I’m having a visceral reaction. No. Um, so it was, uh, and, and again, I, I wanna highlight like the new calculator that, that, that we just kind of, I’ve not taken credit for building it. I started it and then the team came in and we kind of had made adjustments along the way. But the new calculator we built, there’s some similarities here. So I’ll just kind of read through what we, what we had before we would take your total personal spending.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Annual spending,

Matt Mulcock: Total annual spending. We would subtract your mortgage payments. ’cause we’re assuming

Ryan Isaac: Why.

Matt Mulcock: We would always default to and assume that you’re paying off your mortgage or that your spouse was

Ryan Isaac: Your spouse will pay off mortgage with life insurance proceeds and net worth if

Matt Mulcock: Yep. We just made that assumption.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Uh, and the why, why would you think, and do you agree with that and do you, why would you like or agree with that assumption

Matt Mulcock: Um.

Ryan Isaac: From a planning perspective

Matt Mulcock: I don’t agree with the assumption. Uh, I agree with

Ryan Isaac: I wouldn’t either, actually. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: I don’t agree with the assumption. I, I, and this is kind of where we’ve come to with this new calculator, is we want it to be more of a conversation. Um, I don’t like just assuming that that’s the case. I would say in most cases, that’s probably not the case. Uh, what if you’re just selling the house and you’re gonna go buy something else? Or so many different things that could happen. I think at the time I remember these conversations like with Reese and you know, we were doing it. The assumption was the non-working spouse or the non-dental spouse would be like, this would relieve a, again, a burden from their life in a, during a hard time. So we just assumed they would want to do it or we would maybe even encourage them if something happened to sell their

Ryan Isaac: It’s, it’s the most conservative scenario to have enough to pay off that and then keep living it. Definitely the most conservative scenario.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. So we would do that as a total personal spending. Subtract out mortgage payments with the assumption you pay off your mortgage, would come up with an adjusted spending number, and then we’d multiply that by 30,

Ryan Isaac: Also very

Matt Mulcock: Very conservative, and that would come with spending coverage. Then we would, on the other half of the equation, we would take your total net worth. We would subtract out your home equity.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Because you wouldn’t be using your home. Um, and then you, we would subtract out your 50% of the business value. assuming there was not a buy sell on the, on the hou, or sorry, on the

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. This is where, yeah, it gets more complex.

Matt Mulcock: Nuanced, uh, that would come up with an adjusted net worth, then we would take mortgage payoff plus spending coverage minus adjusted net worth would equal your life insurance need.

Ryan Isaac: Got it everyone. Are we done? Is that the episode? Is that the, that’s the

Matt Mulcock: Here. It’s speaking of guidelines, that’s a simple guideline to follow.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Okay. Let’s pause there. How does that strike you? Compared to what we’ve been discussing now, what’s different? What do you see as like updated wisdom or experience now that we’re revisiting this?

Matt Mulcock: Um, so I think, I think the biggest, As I look through this again and I reflect on the conversations we’ve had recently, I think the thing that comes to mind is I think we used to be a bit more dogmatic in our approach. Again, assumptions like you’re gonna want to pay off your mortgage or your business is gonna be cut in half. If you, if, if you were to

Ryan Isaac: Or you’ll want a 30 total term.

Matt Mulcock: Want a 30, 30 total

Ryan Isaac: Might be an empty nester and we’re still calculating that you Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. So I think when, and I think right now we’re kind of realizing in real time, like why we moved away from this. Because I think this tension, I know for me personally, I’ll say this tension was created. I kept carrying this tension, like with giving this advice to clients and being like, ah, there’s no, I mean there’s no room really if where there’s less room that I’d like to be able to just have a conversation. As opposed to this kind of like prescriptive, this is what you need, this is what the calculation is showing, like this is it. So I think that’s probably the biggest thing is it’s maybe more of a philosophical misalignment than it is of just like the actual process than it is like whether or not you should pay off your mortgage.

Ryan Isaac: Uhhuh.

Matt Mulcock: I think in some cases you would, but where we’ve come to now is leaving a little bit more, well, a lot, a lot more. Room to have a trade offs conversation with all these different areas of this calculation.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I’ll say like, my experience looking back on this, uh, and you know, we’ve, we would, we have, I mean we, uh, we still do go through this calculation with people. Um, it’s not something you have to calculate every single year. It is good to revisit, especially when you’ve had significant changes in your life, um, new purchases, payoffs, whatever.

I think most of the time when we would do these numbers, it, it’s a big number that it comes up with. It’s a really big, very, very conservative number. Probably overshoots a need and makes, um. I mean, it goes back to the, the George Bailey line. Like, I’m more, more dead than alive. Like, is that the point? Do you need to be? And that, that might be fair to say when you’re first starting out in life, but by mid-career and late career, that probably shouldn’t be the point anymore. But I, I remember a lot of these conversations. We’d do the calculations, arrive at the number and go, okay, this is what it says. However, you carry $3 million, you have $2 million in net worth that could be easily converted into living expenses. you could not pay off your house and still cover all of your li living expenses as we’re calculating them. your spouse earns some money over here. Your chi, your youngest is 13. Has five more years in the house. So, you know, how do you feel with what you’re carrying right now? Um, or, you know, how would another million dollars feel if it kicked off, let’s say another 40 grand a year in perpetuity? You know, so it, it is interesting. It was very dogmatic, it was very conservative. Overshot the number, I think. but it would always make the conversations happen and put. Scenario back in the client’s lap to go like, well, what does this feel like? Something happens to you today and you just hand your family X amount of dollars per month in perpetuity or for 20 years. How does that sit with you? Can you sleep tonight knowing that? Do you want to add more? And then sometimes there people are like, you know what?

I do want a little bit more. Life insurance is cheap. We might as well. Or quite often people are like, no, that seems reasonable. You know, this gives ’em a 20 year path. I think we’re good. You know? So how, what, what have you found, like when you go through that calculation of people, uh, over the many years, what was that like?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I think you make a good point that it’s, uh, that it’s at least starting the conversation, which is great. Uh, I think that

Ryan Isaac: I mean, more than this is happening, sorry. But that’s more than what’s happening in generally in the industry, especially from people who are selling life insurance for a living, probably. I would imagine that that’s not going this many levels deep, this much nuance. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Definitely not. I, I, I, I don’t think it happens very often where this conversation’s. Hey, it’s not, you know, if we’re going to like the most nefarious aspects of the business, it’s not really a conversation, it’s a sales pitch.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, a sales pitch. It’s not very lucrative to like, maybe not undersell someone.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, well, not to mention, it’s not very lucrative for us to, you know, have this conversation and not get paid even commissions

Ryan Isaac: Not even get paid on it. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: We don’t.

Ryan Isaac: Let’s spend more time than life insurance professionals and then not earn any

Matt Mulcock: Oh, yeah,

Ryan Isaac: Great business plan. Dude, did you come up with that? That was so

Matt Mulcock: Cool. But yeah, great business. I don’t even know how we’re still here. Um, but so yeah, that to me is the most valuable part of it was at least it started the conversation. Uh, and then again, coming back to what we were saying earlier, we had this tension. We felt as a business of like, oh, we gotta do something different. We need something less dogmatic. We need some more like room for interpretation from both client and advisor.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: We kind of had like the. The years wandering the life insurance desert for a bit, where we didn’t have like a cohesive

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Uhhuh.

Matt Mulcock: Like approach to where we are now. Which it’s funny as I’m, as we’re going through this and we’re talking about this, I’m having call it confirmation bias, but, uh, like being reaffirmed and like feeling really good about where we’ve come to now with this new calculator and tool where we’ve created and. Uh, yeah, I’m feeling good. I, I feel good with where we’re at and, and kind of finding this middle path.

Ryan Isaac: Cool. Do you wanna move on to what we’ve updated now and like what the recent discussions have been, or anything else you wanna say about the old way of doing things or what we’ve learned about that? Or do you want to talk about where we’ve kind of landed now and what the recent discussions are?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. No, I, I, I just, I’ll just emphasize I know, or I agree with you that our past calculations, this created another tension, which was I. Just far too conservative. And it was pretty hard. Sometimes those calculation would kick out and it’s like, oh, you need $8 million in life insurance. that was always like awkward conversations. So, I would say that was a another reason why we felt the need to kind of maybe revamp

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. And I was gonna say too, and we used to publish scores more frequently on like, you’re under, you’re a 30% insured of what you should have been. And it was like, no, I think you’re fine.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: I think it’s a little aggressive. Okay. So where, where are we at today? Um, what are some differences already from the past compared to the new calculation, new spreadsheet?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So what, so I think just philosophically where we’re at, different approach where. Uh, we still want a tool. We still have a tool now where to, to like start the conversation and that’s key. That is the old, that’s the thing again that we just highlighted. That was a huge positive from the old calculation we used but now we just pull this tool up in front of our client and do it in real time.

Ryan Isaac: Yep.

Matt Mulcock: And every single, so what we can talk about today or, you know, the rest of this is like, go through all the different kind of things, like the categories of things that you’d want to have a conversation about. Some things are just data points, so we can hit, but there’s, there’s things in here that would just be conversation starters to like have a, again, a nuanced conversation with a client. By the time you fill all the data, you’ve had conversations about all these little items, it’ll kick out a recommended insurance need or or a gap that you have in your insurance. But again, the entire time, it’s a far more collaborative discussion.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. let’s talk about some of these nuances. Um, one thing that wasn’t. included as much. Um, and I think maybe it’s just a product of our business growing a lot more. We have a much bigger sample size, you know, instead of a hundred clients, we’re at 700 clients or something, maybe, or more, you know now we have much more data and anecdotal experience to say, well, there’s a lot of, um, two household incomes that we work with, so. Do you wanna speak to how that affects, the calculation and is this a, a good time to deviate a little bit? side quest on, um, spousal life insurance coverage, working and non-working. You wanna side quest this.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Let’s side quest. ’cause

Ryan Isaac: Favorite phrases that kids say it’s side quest.

Matt Mulcock: I, I’m actually glad you brought that up. ’cause that’s the other thing. The old calculation didn’t provide a lot of help with, which was dual, dual income household. there was not a lot of room for that. And so it would kind of create again, kind of some awkwardness of like, well. We don’t have like a thought on that or we don’t have a way to adjust for that basically. Um, so yeah. Side quest, I mean, this is, this is huge. I mean, I think it’s pretty common nowadays that we, I say in most cases, or I don’t know if it’s mo, what, what percentage would you say

Ryan Isaac: Was just gonna ask.

Matt Mulcock: Of clients are

Ryan Isaac: Gonna go like 40%. I think

Matt Mulcock: That’s probably true.

Ryan Isaac: 30, a third. It’s a third of clients easily,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah.

Ryan Isaac: If not higher. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s 50, could it be 50? I mean, it could be 50 these

Matt Mulcock: It could be as high as 50. I’d say it’s somewhere between 30 to 50.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Let’s go 35 to 50. Tighten that thing up a

Matt Mulcock: Let’s go 37.4

Ryan Isaac: Tighten the net. Okay.

Matt Mulcock: To 49.6. Somewhere in that range.

Ryan Isaac: Now you sound like the government, like at age 49.6 you can

Matt Mulcock: False precision. Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Isaac: preci. Is that what it’s Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. False precision. Yeah. Okay. So it is a lot of people with dual dual incomes, which does change. I mean, it, it changes the basis of what’s, uh, the recommended emergency fund. So it should change the basis of a recommended life insurance policy.

Matt Mulcock: Totally. Yep. Yeah, so

Ryan Isaac: How, how does that affect the calculation? Yeah. Let’s say the, the sp the, uh, non-dentist spouse, I mean, it could be a, another dentist spouse too, but the spouse, earns 200 grand a year. How does that go into the calculation? How does that affect things?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So, so the first thing we start with same thing is the old calculation, which is annual spending. So that’s one nuance that we would make really quick right off the bat, uh, between the guidelines approach versus kind of the, what you’ll see online or the generalist kind of CFP approach, which is they start with income. We don’t factor that in. We’re looking at lifestyle. ’cause that’s really what it should be based off of,

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, Uhhuh, especially the higher a dentist income gets, that’s where our industry is a little bit off, different and more niche than the general guidelines. Because our industry’s such a higher, higher earner, multiplying their income isn’t always like not always the most accurate.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, I mean, we work with how many clients, Ryan, that are close to, if not well, into the seven figures, and you’re telling me, okay, so that means based on the guidelines, you’re gonna need 12 to 15 million just based on the fact that you make a million bucks a year.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. No.

Matt Mulcock: That’s not even close. So that’s the first place we start is still lifestyle. What’s the lifestyle we need to support as a baseline? the other factor that you’re highlighting right now that we immediately start talking about is do you have a sp a the non-dental spouse, are they working? So we’re, we’re starting this through the con in, through the lens of insurance for the highest income earner in the home.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Okay.

Matt Mulcock: So even if there’s a dual income, in most cases we’re gonna say nine outta 10 times 95, 9 0.5 outta 10 times. We’re talking about the dentist here.

Ryan Isaac: Mm-hmm.

Matt Mulcock: So starting with lifestyle, and then we’re factoring in your earning or your, sorry, your spousal earnings, how we’ve kind of looked at this as a default. And again, we’ve left this tool open for the, for the dentist and for our client and for the advisor to have a, a nuanced conversation. But how we’ve. How we factored this in basically is we’ve said, take this spouse earnings, multiply by 0.75%, and subtract that from the lifestyle need. We’re basically just, yeah, uh, we’re just saying factoring in

Ryan Isaac: A little bit.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we’re just saying factoring in taxes.

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Oh,

Matt Mulcock: So after taxes, we’re basically saying your, that spouse is 75% of their income can contribute if you were to die, can still contribute to. This, the spending need, the lifestyle need. So now we’re already highlighting here a again, this conversation that needs to be had. Let’s say you’ve got really young kids, right? And in this case you probably do if you’re looking at life insurance. So that conversation needs to be had of what kind of work does that non-dental spouse do Do you try to play a little bit of guessing game of like if you were to die. Are they still gonna work? Or is the goal Yeah. Is the goal that they don’t work? So like, are we even gonna factor this in? If not, we need to, to, we gotta turn up the, or just remove that from the

Ryan Isaac: Remove it, which is why this is, this becomes, a personal, what do you always say about financial planning? That’s what the

Matt Mulcock: It’s more personal than finance.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. God. That’s so good. Is that

Matt Mulcock: Not mine. It’s not mine.

Ryan Isaac: Whose is that? Do you know?

Matt Mulcock: Uh, there’s another advisor, I can’t remember his name. He was on Twitter I saw at one time.

Ryan Isaac: well this is where it is more personal because one person might say, yeah, my spouse will want to be done, will not be able to work. They will want to be 100% with the kids in the case of my death for sure. And another will say no. I think they’ll, you know, they’re very into their career. They’re very advanced in it. It’s very lucrative. After a period of time, I’m sure they’ll keep working. They’ll want to over the long term, they won’t bank on quitting so. Let’s keep it in the calculation. So yeah, this is where the discussions matter a lot.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. So, so that has to be factored in, spouse earnings for, to adjust spending if you’re gonna use it or not. Again, we say, say. Adjusted down by about 25% to account for taxes, and then, mortgage payment. So this is again, where our old calculation assumed you were doing this. In this scenario, we’re having this conversation with our client and saying, do you want to do that? Do you want to have this where you’re paying off your mortgage? For your non-working, or sorry, either non-working or non-dental spouse, if, if you were to die, what would you want to do? And let them tell, like, let that conversation be had. If they do, you adjust the spending according to where your mortgage payment is. If not, you leave it there. Totally up to you.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. What’s, what, what’s your thinking on that? Is it just a matter of like, my rate’s low or the payment’s so manageable? It’s just part of our living expenses. It’s not even worth, like taking a giant chunk of money to pay off a, a mortgage debt. That the payment is easy to cover and not a problem,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, that’s kind of,

Ryan Isaac: You.

Matt Mulcock: That’s kind of my thinking is I actually would default to not paying off the mortgage. especially if, like you said, we’ve come out of an era of extremely low rates. If you’ve got a mortgage, you’re sitting on it, two and a half, 3%. I would tell the non-dental spouse, like if, if that person died as your advisor, I’d actually recommend not doing

Ryan Isaac: I know, especially if the payment’s manageable as part of your just ongoing normal living expenses. I totally

Matt Mulcock: You’re used to it already. So, but again, leaving that up to interpretation. So what that comes up again, once you factor those in or you have an up to you, it comes up with this adjusted spending, still basing this off lifestyle, then you would have the ability. Again, advisor and or you know, client conversation to then add in a years of support multiplier. So how so up to you if again, looking at your situation, how long do you want this money to last? What multiplier do you want to use

Ryan Isaac: Hmm. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: the adjustments have been made?

Ryan Isaac: And the higher that multiplier goes, let’s say once it starts entering the twenties, the closer we start getting to. income, right? Mid twenties and above, near 30. Now we’re starting to talk about a, a chunk of money that will really, if, if spending doesn’t change, it’ll be there for a long time, which some people prefer. And then some people also are like, nah, you know, 20, 20 years of that is plenty kind of, it’s totally dependent on the situation. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Totally on the situation. I think totally dependent on having that conversation, like having this conversation with your spouse or partner. And just being open. Just being open and factoring in, you know, so just for example, maybe you have this conversation and you’re talking and you have an experience where you lost a, or sorry. Yeah. A friend of yours died or aunt or an uncle or a parent. And you saw what happened after. And let’s say you lost a parent, uh, where they were relatively young, right. And you saw that, that your other parent who, who lived. Um, ended up getting remarried within a year. And so that’s the lens you’re looking through. So you might, as you might, in that situation, be like, oh, no, no, no, we’re gonna take that down. Because I know in real life, like my approach would be to follow and mimic what happened. And, you know, this situation I saw, and my intention would be to go get remarried right away. Like I, I’m just adding an example of like how real life and the lens in which you look through is gonna factor into the spreadsheet part of this.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: We’ve, we’ve actually had funny stories. We were just talking about this. We’ve had funny stories where, I don’t know how funny it is, but we think it’s kind of funny because we’re all talking hypothetically, where we’ve actually had clients be like, nah, my wife’s

Ryan Isaac: Oh yeah.

Matt Mulcock: Remar. Like, she’s hot. It’s fine. It’s like, okay. Like, cool. Yeah, I could see that.

Ryan Isaac: We were like, no, co. We’re not, we

Matt Mulcock: No comment. Yeah, no comment.

Ryan Isaac: That’s, uh, qualitative information from you client and I not It’s

Matt Mulcock: But we literally have had that where a client just is like, yeah, no, she’s hot. She’ll be remarried in like a year.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. I, I mean, I’ve, we could get into life insurance story. I, we, I know we have Hmm We’ve had people decline life insurance because of.

Matt Mulcock: Whether you’re gonna say this or not.

Ryan Isaac: I’ll just say we, we’ve had multiple people, um, decline life insurance coverage completely based on, let’s say, religious beliefs that they won’t die.

Matt Mulcock: Ah,

Ryan Isaac: We, you know, I.

Matt Mulcock: Got it.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I, I’ve had that, yeah, I’ve had that multiple times, which whatever. Uh, it, it’s just this highlights the very nuanced nature of there’s the calculator, there’s the number, and then there’s how you view your life and your family’s life continuing on without you and what you think or don’t think that will happen to them or what you want for them. So it can be very, very, different. What about, non-working spouse life insurance?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah,

Ryan Isaac: Talk about for coverage? What’s recommended?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, great question on that because, uh, this is, this is critical. I think we kind of default this, this is kind of a guideline, right? Because. and then we can kind of adjust up and down. We always tell people you’re gonna want at least about, probably at least 500 grand for a, a non-working spouse up to, in my opinion, in our opinion, up to like a million.

Ryan Isaac: Million bucks I’ve seen up to $2 million calculating for Well, yeah. Were you gonna say what that calculates for?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. To me, 500 at a minimum is if you’re the, the dentist working, making, making, you know, you’re the breadwinner as they say, but you’ve got young kids, well, you’ve gotta account for childcare. So if your, if your spouse is home and, and that’s their main role in your family, then you gotta account for that. That role is

Ryan Isaac: Big expense. Huge.

Matt Mulcock: Speaking of this, this conversation always gets hard sometimes with clients ’cause we’re like, Hey, we’re just speaking about this like coldly plainly. Like we’re not talking about the value of life, like the actual value of life. We’re just talking about in practical terms, if something were to happen that that role needs to be replaced and most likely you’re now gonna have to pay for it.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, you have someone to wake up with your kids every day. If they’re little and they’re getting off to school and they’re making food, and then they’re doing homework and they’re running errands, they’re going to doctors and they’re setting up appointments and they’re there after school. It’s like that’s a full-time day of a competent person who won’t be remotely like the previous parent, but they need to be as qualified as possible, and that’s not cheap at all.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So if you’re looking at this like, again, in a really like just calculator type way, you might factor all that in and say, okay, what would it, like the extreme being if, if my. husband or wife died. They’re the, they’re the, the main ones at home taken care of and not all the things that they’re doing. Extreme is, I’m never gonna get remarried and I need a full live-in au pair. Okay. What does that cost and what, how much money am I gonna need to actually factor that in? We can go that far and we’ve had those conversations, or it’s just we need to have some level of. Expend or like some level of childcare factored in here. So 500 at a minimum, but probably closer to 1 million for a non-working spouse.

Ryan Isaac: If they’re young. The kids are young and it’s just gonna take more years of a full-time. Au pair. Au pair. Au pair. How do you even say that? Au pair. Is it just o That’s the sound you make. Au pair.

Matt Mulcock: I think spelled with an a, I think.

Ryan Isaac: I know. It’s like au or something. I like that. Thanks for drop. I was gonna say man or nanny,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, maybe a Manny nanny. Yeah. And it also depends on how many kids, right? So how many little kids, how many

Ryan Isaac: How, how young? Uh, let’s go to the business factor again. Before we used to say, based on, you know, I think some conventional industry wisdom. Hey, if someone dies in a practice pretty quickly, the value of that practice declines. Let’s plan for something a lot more conservative. We’ll, we’ll give you practice a 50% value. Again, this would change if there is a partner, an associate, a buy sell agreement. Already in place, but we, we’d go a 50% discount. Now we’re questioning that a little bit yesterday. We have Christine in office.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. Shout out Christine on the team

Ryan Isaac: Okay. Yeah. So we have Christine in office with a lot of, uh, industry dental experience, um, and then our team as well saying, you know, uh, and I’ve had clients pass or, or exit, uh, practice very unexpectedly due to health and, um, the, with a good broker, I think in a decent ish market. You’re still gonna sell the practice for a good amount. There’s factors, of course. Who’s dealing with it? Do you have a good competent broker? Not are emotions super high? Is urgency super high? Is the spouse left to themselves with no help at all? And they’re just trying to offload it to maybe someone who will take advantage of their emotional state? I don’t know. But we’ve increased that. We’re gonna say now on your balance sheet, your practice isn’t worth 50% anymore. Well, where did we land? And, uh, anything you wanna add on that?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So again, nuance here. you, you mentioned the example earlier of if you’re in a rural area that’s maybe hard to staff. Hard to sell. I’ve, I’ve actually had conversations with dentists in certain areas. One in particular was coming to mind where with his insurance structure grandfathered into some insurances in the area and just being in a tough place, he’s like, there’s no way I’m ever selling this thing. And so he wasn’t even factoring into his balance sheet period

Ryan Isaac: Period. I have clients like that too.

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, exactly. So, so in those cases, you gotta factor that in. But if we’re, to your point, if we’re saying good market, normal market, uh, 70% is where we

Ryan Isaac: I think that’s fine. And you’re saying 70% of some average collections, that’s what you’re sitting

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yeah. I’d say 70% of your, of your top line would be, and Christine gave us, she knows way more. She’s seen this way more than us. She was like, same thing. She’s like, if you’re in a good area, have a good broker, you’re still gonna sell that thing for about seven, you know,

Ryan Isaac: I agree.

Matt Mulcock: 70%.

Ryan Isaac: I agree. I think that’s totally the case. Okay. Uh, what else is different or, or does that kind of catch us up to how we’re thinking about things right now? Or anything you want to add or wrap up to kind of just tie that together? Put a bow on it, so to speak. A pin in it?

Matt Mulcock: Yeah. So a couple more things I want to add, uh, nuanced conversations to have. well again, whether you’re doing this with your advisor or you’re doing this on your own, but I think factoring in, so, after you’ve got that kind of lifestyle replacement, there’s other things you want to consider here. So, um, are you wanting to, well, do you have any other debts you want to have paid off to make sure that are paid off before? if you were to die, right? Maybe it’s a piece of real estate that you’re like, we have this cabin, we have this type thing, whatever. The second home, I wanna make sure that if I die, we’re paying that off. Might be that, college funding. You might have, want have separate life insurance adjustment made to say, here’s how much I want to have set aside.

For our kids for college, if I were to die. Um, any legacy goals or lump sum gifts that are separate from just money going to your, to your heirs, uh, those things have to be factored in to get up, you know, get to a life insurance need. So not just the lifestyle replacement. What are the things you might have to kind of turn it, you know, to increase the need based on those factors?

Ryan Isaac: Yeah. Again, just some more nuance and, okay. Matt, how often would you recommend having this discussion with your advisor, um, or, you know, someone trusted in your life to give you some advice on this or run through it with you? What’s helpful? I.

Matt Mulcock: I would say, I mean, initial engagement with an advisor, if you don’t already have insurance, or even if, even if you do,

Ryan Isaac: If you do. Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: If you do, I’d say right on the front end of like a. Uh, onboarding discussion, like when we onboard our clients. The first 90 days, you’re having a conversation around insurance, not just life insurance, but all your insurances for sure. And then after that, I’d say, I mean, it’s, it’s probably a good review once a year just to see where things are at. But no, no more. I wouldn’t go any longer than two years.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, I wouldn’t either.

Matt Mulcock: Kind of review it.

Ryan Isaac: Well, if you think about it, the, the factors in that calculation, the change, a spouse’s income debts that you’ve taken on, uh, increase or decrease in assets, changes in spending habits, um, changes in goals, kids milestones, moving on. New businesses, new business partners, um, new business values, a change in the liquidity of your balance sheet, less or more liquid. All of those things really ebb and flow every single year. It’s probably smart to, at least at a high level, take a look at it. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with once a year, not that you’d make changes even every few years, really. You’re not likely to change it all the time, but at least you’ll know and you’ll never wonder if you’re getting it wrong.

Matt Mulcock: Yep. Yep, exactly. Uh, so yeah, I’d, I’d say review on a regular basis. And then, uh, last couple things. I’d say just on the calculation, you know, you’re gonna want to make sure. You’re adding back any usable net worth. So we were just saying, you know, anything you’d use, cash or investments that your spouse could use if you were to die, you’d wanna make sure you’re factoring that in any existing life insurance, obviously, to come up with the actual need.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah.

Matt Mulcock: And then from there it’s just about structure. So how would you structure it? How long

Ryan Isaac: Gonna say part two, Matt. I mean, a part two of like how to buy it, where to look, how to

Matt Mulcock: Yeah,

Ryan Isaac: Types of insurance. That would be kind of a nice follow up probably to, to go, okay, what now? Where do I turn? How, how, where do I go so I won’t get sold stuff I don’t need, where I can get exactly what I’ve discussed with my advisor. How do I structure it? Because you don’t, you can split these up into multiple plans, multiple types of policies, multiple periods of time, pay structures. Yeah, we

Matt Mulcock: We do a part two? Are we just teasing part two?

Ryan Isaac: Well, you already said, ah, Paris, so we should do, do, right,

Matt Mulcock: We should do up

Ryan Isaac: This, is that the same

Matt Mulcock: Part de Yeah. It’s basically the same thing. One thing we’ve been sharing a lot lately is, uh, I think this is an appropriate time, is we’ve been kind of mapping out our schedule and, and, and speaking engagements for the second half of the year. Um, uh, if you can’t tell, as we just talked and yapped about insurance for almost an hour, we love this stuff. We love education. We love helping the dental community. Just the foundation of everything we do is, is, is helping add value, um, and helping dentists make smart financial decisions by being educated. So, uh, one thing we do is we speak all over the country. We love going to study clubs and, um, just events anywhere where, where you would need help or, or looking for speakers. So you can actually go to dentist advisors.com/learn and uh, if you have a study club or a group of dentists you get together with on a regular basis and you want speakers, we are here to help. So you can go to dentist advisors.com/learn. You can sign up, uh, or at least inquire about getting us out there to, to speak.

Ryan Isaac: Yeah, and there’s different ways. Sometimes we show up if it, if it makes sense for everybody. Sometimes we’ll do ’em, uh,

Matt Mulcock: Yeah, we’ll do webinars.

Ryan Isaac: Webinars, uh, private webinars, anytime. All right. And I guess if you have any questions, you can always talk to us. Set up a, a chat with one of our dental specific friendly advisors anytime, dentist advisors.com. Just get on the schedule. Let’s have a chat, you know, a little friendly life insurance check. Thanks, Matt. Thanks everybody. Okay. Bye-bye now.

Matt Mulcock: Bye.

Keywords: life insurance, financial planning, dentists, insurance calculations, underinsurance, overinsurance, spousal income, business value, insurance needs, financial decisions

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