Preparing for the unthinkable

Life can throw us a curveball when we least expect it. Is it even possible to be fully prepared? In this episode, Rick and Kyrk get personal, talking about life-changing moments in their own families and why it's so important to consider long-term options now, before it's too late.

Kyrk Davis is a Registered Representative offering Securities through The O.N. Equity Sales Company, Member FINRA/SIPC, One Financial Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 (513) 794-6794. Kyrk Davis is an Investment Advisor Representative offering Investment Advisory services through O.N. Investment Management Company. Estate planning services provided in conjunction with your licensed legal professional.

Transcript

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Welcome to the How to Win Podcast. I'm Kyrk Davis. And I'm Rick Gregory. Want to know how to win in life and in your finances? Then you're in the right place. On this podcast, we'll be talking about everyday topics and how they relate to your overall financial picture. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the How to Win podcast with Kyrk Davis and Rick Gregory. We're going to talk about a subject that I never thought that it would be something that would affect me today. It's going to be about money, financial stuff, but it's also going to be about something that could happen to everybody. What do you think about that, Kyrk? Well, I think that's that's exactly what this podcast is supposed to do. Oh, okay. It's got to talk about those topics. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. I retired from Toyota spent almost 26 years there, had a great career there, saved a lot of money. Kyrk helped me with my 401k, so I was able to retire when I was 57. And I've been retired now a couple years and a situation has popped up with my father in law. He had cancer. About six months ago he got diagnosed with cancer on his vocal cords and They took out his whole larynx, everything. So now he has to have someone take care of him all the time. Well he did not have any long term health care insurance nothing to cover all this. He has a small pension and social security. So he moved in with us after he got finished with the hospital and all his therapy and stuff. And now we're basically at home, his full time caregiver. And I think this could apply to a lot of people because we have people that have special needs children, all of their parents are getting older, and things like this can happen. And I don't think anybody realizes, not just the burden of us taking care of him, which is no big deal, we don't care, they took care of us when we had diapers, but the cost and time involved with doing that. I know that your brother was in an accident and he's kind of, you know, in a, in a situation where he's having to go through the same thing. So, you know, you start out and kind of tell us how your situation went with your brother and how much changes in his life and your life. And then I will further expound upon my situation. Yeah. So in November of 2022 my brother got in a pretty bad car accident. There was a while where we didn't know if he, if he would make it or not. Spent, oh, I guess, three months or so in just in, in ICU. Then transitioned into a couple other hospitals and now he's at kind of finishing up some, some rehab at, at Cardinal Hill. So it's been about a year and a half now. You know, his life, my family's life, his wife's life everything just kind of, kind of turned upside down big transitions and just, you know, how we, how we go throughout our daily lives there and you know, the different responsibilities we all have to take take on to, you know, make sure just the things that, that need to get done actually, actually get done. Now thankfully from a, from a financial point of view. My brother was actually working when he got in his accident. So insurance has, you know, paid for 100 percent of his medical bills. Even gone as far as paying to have his house remodeled to make it kind of ADA compliant. So, where he can, you know, live in it and function in it. And that's actually just now getting finished up this week as we, as we speak. So, hopefully he's transitioning out of Cardinal Hill and back home in, you know, the next, you know, next week or so. But, but regardless, I mean life looking forward is gonna be, you know, drastically different for, for everybody in the, in the family. Work situation and, you know, finances are gonna be different for, you know, for the foreseeable future. So, a lot of, a lot of changes there. So, kind of different than Rick's story, but in a lot of ways you know, similar as well. So, you never really know, I guess, when something like this is going to happen. And, We were wholly unprepared for everything. You know, you don't know what questions to ask and you don't know what things that are going to happen until they start happening. So the first thing was, and, and people asked us this and we did, and he did not have any, is long term healthcare. Now it is the most expensive thing on the planet, I think, you know, I think you could probably get a new Mercedes cheaper than you could get long term healthcare, but That may be something that everybody would, probably needs to look at, not, not would think about, probably needs to look at if you have, you know, parents that are aging, you know, or even for yourself down the road, because it'd be a lot easier to get it now. But he had none of that. Like I said, he had a small pension that he had where he, you know, from his work of 40 years. And then also now he's on social security. And, The problem with that is, is with his pension, he actually makes too much money to get a social security disability, which people don't realize that can happen. So we're in a situation now where that, you know, he's at home with us, we're his primary caregivers, myself, my wife, and my brother in law, and all of us work. Well, Kyrk says, I kind of work. I come to work and drink coffee, but I, I do, I do kind of work. So. You don't realize, and I didn't realize, how much this was going to cost of, you know, just in normal stuff that you don't even think about. So he's been at our house now almost three months and he's doing great. You know, he gets around good or whatever, but he needs lots and lots of care. You know, he has a trach tube because he doesn't have a obviously anything, a larynx anymore. And you don't realize all those things, that you have to take care of physically, but we have an extra person added to our household. Well, groceries now are pretty expensive. So now we have an extra mouth to feed. You know obviously my wife, my brother in law, and myself, you know, we don't care. We pitch in and do whatever. But those are things that in your financial picture and me being retired, You know, and kind of on a fixed income, not completely, but you know, you don't think about that until those situations pop up. And when they do, sometimes it's an eye opener. Now, I'm sure Kyrk has a whole lot more experience with, you know, You know, the retirees and the things that they do and the things that come up, you know, after they're retired and they're going like, Oh man, I didn't think that was going to happen. And that's some of the things that we do here. We, we actually ask our clients a bunch of questions and sometimes, you know, it may seem intrusive, but we're not being intrusive because these guys here, Kyrk Specialty and all of Family Financial, They realize that things like this can happen and do happen. So Kyrk, you know, tell us a little bit about a situations that you have maybe that where you ask those questions and try to help people with those things. Yeah unfortunately it's a, it's a topic that comes up all the time. I wish it was, I wish it was different, but, but it's not. And also, unfortunately, it's one of those things that You have to really plan for way ahead of time. So, in the case of, you know, long term care insurance That's something that you really it's you almost can't get when you need it and you have to and you have to purchase those Policies well in advance and when we have those conversations with clients that are kind of making that transition into Retirement a lot of times they they want to brush that kind of insurance off because hey, I'm still in my you know Early 60s 60s. I'm in good health I don't, I don't foresee needing that. Well, things can change very quickly. And they do. Yeah, and you know, just like my brother, he was in his early 40s. Now, not that we would have long term care insurance for somebody, you know, at that age. But the idea is things can drastically change on a dime like that. So. Making sure that you get those policies in place, or if you, you opt to not have those policies, making sure that we have the proper financial resources to be able to adapt to those different, different, different changes. Just in your own life. And also when, when you come in for a financial planning meeting, One of the questions we, we always ask is, you know, what kind of, what's your, your health history and what's your family's health history? Is there some trends that we can see in there that we can, you know, start identifying and maybe plan for? And then we'll typically ask a question about your, your parents and how they're doing financially what their financial resources look like. And a lot of times people, you know Kind of seem I don't understand that question of why we would be asking that but like like in Rick's situation here, this was not something that that, you know, he ever really thought about. No, never, never, it didn't even enter our minds. Yep. But the reason why we ask those questions are if, if we know that your, your parents are Maybe not in the strongest financial position, and if something were to happen, you're the only person that they can come to rely on. Well, that might change how we, how we plan for your retirement, and the, the investment strategies we use, the withdrawal strategies we use, just so we have, you know, those options available to us. You know, should they, should they ever come? Well, you know, it, it was a complete shock to us. Not, I mean, it was okay with, you know, obviously it's a shock when you find out, you know, one of your family members have cancer, but it was a complete shock to us that how much this would affect, you know, our day to day lives, you know, you know, so, you know, say you get a certain percentage withdrawal from your retirement account and you're like, oh heck, I didn't plan for this being in there and it's in there. And that's why we ask those extra questions, you know, just for things like that, because You know, obviously we have lots of clients and lots of clients over here and those things pop up. So we're pretty good at dealing with them. So, you know, if you guys have questions about that and you want to call us or email us or come talk to us, please do because obviously I'm getting a lot more experience, you know, with this now and the situation I'm in. And don't get me wrong, you know, it doesn't bother me. I'm not upset or angry or anything about that. You know, basically, we're doing what we're supposed to do. Our parents took care of us. You know, we take care of them. But it is, I mean, groceries, water bills, just things that you don't ever think of. You know, trips to the doctor's office, stuff like that that you never ever planned on. You know, that interrupt your daily life, you know, when something like this happens. So when we ask all those questions, you know, if you come in, it's not that we're trying to pry into your life. It's like now, obviously I've experienced it and all our people here have experienced it too. So we're doing all this for a reason. And I think this just brought it to the forefront for me with this happening and, You know, obviously we're pretty experienced at it. So if you guys need something, you know, please, please feel free to call because we'll, when we talk about your retirement, we'll just throw that in there and talk about that also. What do you got to add, Kyrk? Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that's kind of it. I mean, you hit the, hit the real highlights with it. But you know, like the old saying goes you know, an ounce of prevention is a, it's worth a pound of cure. So it is a little bit of planning on the, on the front end. And just kind of running some simulations of, you know, what could potentially happen and how would that affect your finances. That goes a long way not just to ensure that we have a good plan, but also to prepare you mentally should that happen. So, you know, I, I, I try to run those simulations with, with every one of our clients. I try to push them down the, down the, the right path there. Sometimes sometimes it comes across or sometimes it's taken as, you know Yeah, we're just trying to get some more out of it. That's not how it works. But no, there's a there's a reason to, for everything that we do and all the recommendations we make. And it's because, you know, we've seen it happen to other families and We want to make sure that you're prepared for all the twists and turns that life has for us. Well, thank you guys for listening to our podcast. You can always go back and listen to episodes that were before this. We've been getting some really good responses. And obviously we've been having a pretty good time making podcasts. So, hopefully you'll enjoy this one and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you. And if you have any suggestions for future episodes, give us a call or an email. And we'll add those to the list. Thanks for listening to the How to Win Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform so you'll never miss an episode. If you have questions about your finances, visit our website@familyfinancialpartners.com or give us a call at (859) 219-1006.