April 30, 2025

Seed or Harvest L.E.O. Law Enforcement Officer Independent Financial Education Podcast. Episode 07 30th APRIL Officer Ty Podcast Guest LEO PODCAST LEO Life Options at Work Law Enforcement Life Insurance: What You Need to Know Law enforcement officers often have access to unique life insurance benefits through their city employment — benefits many don’t fully understand. In this episode of Seed or Harvest: Law Enforcement Edition, Ariel Raaga and Officer Ty break down the group life insurance offered by the City of Phoenix through Securian/Minnesota Life. The discussion covers guaranteed issue policies, which provide up to $150,000 in basic coverage and the option to increase up to $500,000, all without medical exams — a rare and valuable feature, especially for officers with pre-existing health conditions. Spouses and children are also eligible for coverage, with flat-rate premiums and no health questions asked.The episode also tackles important questions around portability — what happens to your life insurance when you retire, and how much more it may cost. It explores key differences between term and permanent insurance, the role of accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D), and the critical importance of reviewing benefits annually. Designed to fill knowledge gaps, this conversation emphasizes why officers need to engage with HR, understand their options, and consider how life insurance fits into long-term financial and legacy planning. wistia-player[media-id='dt4l9rwzyr']:not(:defined) { background: center / contain no-repeat url('https://fast.wistia.com/embed/medias/dt4l9rwzyr/swatch'); display: block; filter: blur(5px); padding-top:56.25%; } 1. IntroductionWelcome to this guide, created for our brothers and sisters in law enforcement. Whether you’re a rookie or a seasoned officer thinking about retirement, understanding your life insurance benefits is essential—not just for you, but for your family, legacy, and peace of mind.This ebook is a companion piece to our podcast, Seed or Harvest: Law Enforcement Edition, where we unpack real-life financial topics for officers. In this issue, we’re focusing on life insurance benefits available through the City of Phoenix and the PSPRS.2. Life Insurance Benefits While Actively EmployedAs a government employee in law enforcement, you automatically have access to life insurance benefits through your city. These benefits include term life insurance with no medical underwriting. This means no health questions, no labs—just age and gender-based pricing.You may qualify for:$150,000 coverage for yourself$50,000 coverage for your spouseCoverage for children at one flat rate—whether you have one or ten kids3. Guaranteed Issue: What It Means and Why It Matters“Guaranteed issue” means you can qualify without answering any health questions. This is a huge benefit, especially compared to private policies that may deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions like:DiabetesCancerLupusMSHeart diseaseGuaranteed issue plans allow you to protect your family without worrying about your health history.4. Coverage for Your Spouse and ChildrenYou can add optional coverage for your spouse in $10,000 increments up to $300,000, and for your children up to $25,000. These prices are group-rated, meaning they’re generally more affordable—and again, no health questions are asked.5. Optional Coverage and What It CostsOptional life insurance is available through payroll deduction:AgeCost per $1,000 CoverageMonthly Cost for $100,00044$0.095~$9.5060$0.52~$52You can stack up to $500,000 in coverage total, depending on how you elect and whether you choose the $10K or $50K increment track.6. Portability: Taking Your Policy With YouOne of the biggest questions we had was about portability—can you take your policy with you when you retire?✅ Yes, the policy is portable.📈 But the price goes up—possibly significantly.⏳ We’re still confirming how long you can keep it after you leave.This is something to consider seriously if you’re close to retirement, especially if your health has changed.7. AD&D – Accidental Death & DismembermentThis coverage kicks in if you:Die in an accident (potentially doubling the payout)Lose sight, hearing, or limbs due to an accidentWe’re still digging into whether this must occur on duty to qualify—but most policies apply 24/7.8. Key Questions We’re Still Digging IntoWe’ll be covering these in upcoming episodes:What basic life insurance is automatically included for employees?Does AD&D need to happen on duty to qualify?Is coverage portable for your spouse and children too?What are the portability time limits?What benefits apply if you’re killed in the line of duty?9. Final ThoughtsThis guide is just the beginning. There’s a lot of information packed into your benefits packet, and we want to help break it down in plain English. Life insurance isn’t just a checkbox during open enrollment—it’s protection for your family and your future.10. Resources & LinksCity of Phoenix Life Insurance PDFSeed or Harvest: Law Enforcement Edition – Podcast EpisodesContact Ariel Raaga or Officer Ty with questions or if you’d like to be a guest on the show. Key Bullet Points: 1. Overview of Life Insurance Benefits for City Employees (especially Law Enforcement)Discussion focuses on group life insurance benefits provided by the City of Phoenix through Securian/Minnesota Life. Employees can get up to $150,000 in basic term life insurance with no health questions (guaranteed issue). Optional additional coverage allows employees to increase up to $500,000 in $10,000–$50,000 increments. 2. Guaranteed Issue PoliciesA major highlight is that these plans are guaranteed issue — meaning no medical underwriting is needed. This is rare in the individual market, especially beneficial for those with chronic conditions or pre-existing health concerns. 3. Spouse & Child CoverageSpouses can be covered up to $300,000, and children up to $25,000, all without medical questions. Cost is the same regardless of the number of children (a flat rate benefit). 4. PortabilityPolicies can be taken with you upon retirement (portability), but: Premiums increase significantly. The duration of the coverage after retirement is limited (specifics unknown — flagged for future clarification). Need to verify if spouse/child coverage is also portable. 5. Affordability & Cost ComparisonPremiums are low while employed due to the group rate. Example: $500,000 in coverage for a 44-year-old is around $50/month. Individual policies could be cheaper if you’re healthy but require medical exams. 6. Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D)Many plans include AD&D, which can double the death benefit in cases of accidental death or provide payouts for injuries like paralysis, loss of limbs, or senses. It’s unclear if AD&D benefits are only for on-duty incidents — needs follow-up. 7. Term Insurance vs. Permanent InsuranceTerm insurance (what the city offers) is “renting” coverage — most policies don’t pay out. Only 1.5% of term policies pay a death benefit industry-wide. Permanent insurance (like the host’s personal plan) is more expensive but guarantees a payout and builds value. 8. Common Knowledge GapsMany officers don’t know what benefits they have or how they work — this podcast aims to fill that gap. There’s a clear need to speak with benefits coordinators or HR for full clarity on plan details. Additional Key Insights to Include in a Blog Post 🔍 Additional Talking Points to Supplement (if needed for a blog):The importance of reviewing benefits annually, especially during open enrollment.Why law enforcement professionals need tailored financial planning due to early retirement ages, high-stress roles, and health risks.The emotional and financial toll of not being prepared or insured — planning before a crisis hits is key.Legacy planning and the role of life insurance in supporting family, college funds, debt relief, and more.How group life insurance complements individual policies — and why both matter. SEED OR HARVEST FOR LEO Conclusion Understanding your life insurance benefits as a law enforcement officer isn’t just about policy details — it’s about protecting your family, planning for retirement, and making informed financial decisions. Whether you’re early in your career or approaching retirement, taking the time to review your group coverage, explore portability options, and consider supplemental or permanent policies can make a significant difference. Don’t wait for a crisis to discover what you didn’t know — use resources like this podcast, talk to your benefits coordinator, and take control of your financial future today. Podcast Latest Episodes Why Are Financial Advisors Against Life Insurance Byadmin May 12, 2025 Blog Many financial advisors discourage life insurance—not because it’s ineffective, but because it doesn’t align with how they earn. Learn how permanent life insurance offers tax advantages, market... Read More Living Benefits Byadmin May 12, 2025 Blog Life insurance isn’t just for death benefits anymore. Discover how modern policies offer living benefits—like chronic illness coverage and access to funds for experimental treatments—not covered by... Read More LEO Life Options at Work Byadmin April 30, 2025 LEO,Podcast Discover essential life insurance insights for law enforcement officers. Learn about guaranteed issue policies, spouse and child coverage, portability after retirement, and how group life insurance... Read More Blog Transcript This week’s episode, we talked about life insurance products that are offered to us through the city, at least to me, and the optional ones that come up during open enrollment. Not everybody signs up for ’em. I decided to sign up for ’em this year. I don’t know a lot about ’em. So we kind of went through the general list of what is, what you are entitled to with these. So there’s still, it opened up more questions for us, so hopefully we’re gonna do some more research to get these answers and then have those answers for you in future podcast. But as of right now, we got a good general overview of what is offered to us. The other options that we can add on later, if you wanna add ’em on and um, yeah, hopefully it helps out.Welcome to the Seed or Harvest Show, where we focus on financial education for a variety of things that affect not only your life, but also your spouse, children, charities, and your legacy. We discuss everything from health insurance to pensions, wills and trusts. The best way for everyday tax planning, our intention is to bring financial and legal professionals together with everyday people. In this case everyday. Leos, law enforcement officers who need their help. We have real conversations with real people who have real questions and scenarios. I’m your host, Mario Lizarraga, and today’s show is part of our law enforcement series. So I’m happy to have our co-host, officer Ty. Bye buddy. All right. Back again. Who’s an 18 year law enforcement officer currently employed here in Arizona. Alright, so today we’re gonna talk about some of the, uh, benefits that you have access to as a government employee specifically, um, through law enforcement and public safety, right?I mean, you guys have your own special, uh, group pertaining to fire law enforcement and who else is part of that demographic? Is that it part of that? Oh yeah. Okay. So we’re gonna back a little bit about some of the things offered through the P-S-P-R-S and, uh, and just today we’re gonna specifically talk a little bit about your life insurance benefits that are offered to you while you’re working. Okay? Next podcast, episode two, um, of the life insurance series for what you’re offered. We’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about what happens when you leave department and the options that you have to have at that point. Okay? But for this podcast specifically, we’re gonna discuss what you have access to right now. Okay. Um, which is term insurance. Okay. Okay. Well that’s good ’cause I, like I said, I think I told you off camera, the, a lot of these I signed up for this past open enrollment, so I didn’t have these before, so now I don’t, and I don’t know a lot about ’em, so, okay.Well I’m happy to kind of talk about it. We do have the website pulled up. Um, I should probably record it, but I’m not gonna worry about it. We can bring those benefits in, but, so basically we’re at the, uh, pages.securian.com/enrollment/employers/city of Phoenix html. And, uh, as I get into this, I get into life insurance benefits and I’m gonna click on the view now and it’s actually gonna pull up a PDF, um, which we will include this PDF in the back of the podcast so people can go back to it and reference what we’re seeing ourselves. Okay. And, uh, and so really there’s some really cool things that you’re offered as a, uh, a city employee, which is great, right? Well deserved. And, um, and what’s kind of cool, what I’ve as reading through this brochure, um, not only is it kind of good for you as an employee, um, but it’s also good for your spouse and children.Okay? So it was really interesting to go through and read about this and understand how affordable it can be, um, for your family, which is great. Just a little added protection never hurts. Yeah. Pretty, pretty, uh, uh, affordable from what I can see. Um, these prices could be high, could be low compared to the individual market because the one thing about these plans, which is so cool, is it’s what’s called guaranteed issue. Okay? They’re not gonna ask any health questions. Yeah. They didn’t ask anything, right? Hey, if you wanna sign up and what’s your age? Yeah. And are you male or female? It’s pretty much just a that’s it. Button I clicked. Yeah, that’s it. And the price is the price. Okay. And after reading through this a little bit, it’s kind of really cool. So it doesn’t matter if you have one child or 10 children, you’re gonna pay the same amount for all the children, including one lump sum price, which is very intriguing.Okay? Right. It’s not a perfect, you don’t have to pay each one. You do not. That’s what the brochure says. And, uh, and we’ll get to that portion of it. So, you know, let’s just kinda start from the top here. We’ll just kind of read right through this brochure a little bit and, and we’ll discuss it. So, you know, there’s a couple things here outta the gates. Um, the first title, life insurance coverage Available with No Health Questions. Guys, you have no idea the value of that in the individual market. There are people out there that I’ve talked, I talk to all the time, they want help with life insurance, but they don’t want to get it until they realize they’re mortal. Right? Meaning they’ve had a life of it. Okay? Right. They’ve had that stroke, they’ve had that heart attack, that cancer diagnosis, um, they’ve had that bad wreck.They’ve had something that makes it makes them their life flash before their eyes. And they’re like, oh man, maybe I am die someday. Maybe I need to get something. Maybe I should. And most people typically wait till it’s too late. Okay? So the great thing about you guys here is long as you’re an employee, you have access to get these plans, okay? Okay. But the bad thing about these plans, and, and this is what real important that people understand, how long this plan is gonna stick with you after you leave, like once you retire is, is different, right? There is portability from what we’ve seen. You can take the plan with you. What we’re gonna find out in more detail for next episode is exactly for how long. And try to get some ballpark pricing and guaranteed it won’t be near as affordable as this.And there will be a limit to the duration. So it’s not like you’re gonna be able to keep these coverages in place for life. And when you’re saying portable, what is, what exactly? Meaning you, when you leave the department, you can, it’s portable. You can take that policy with you. Okay? So these, these life insurance contracts that people get through work are either portable or not portable. Right? Portability is important because what if all of a sudden, uh, you know, you’re on your last year and heaven, heaven forbid you got diagnosed with cancer, okay? Right? And then you go to leave the department ’cause you’re ready to retire and you wanna focus on healing, well, you’re gonna want to keep that plan in place, right? Especially if you had some, some sort of life scare. Yeah. And, and so you’re gonna, you’re gonna want to take it and you’re probably likely willing to pay a premium to keep that policy in place because now all of a sudden you have a life event happening.Okay? So that portability is critical. So if it wasn’t portable, what would that mean then? Like once you retire, once you’re done, you’re done. Done. Correct. And, and, and that’s what we need to what we’re gonna, what I want to have detailed conversations with whoever can answer those questions within the department so we can find out definitively. Yeah. And tell everybody on here is listening, um, what they have access to. Okay. So, but while you’re an employee, looks pretty fantastic from what I can see. You know, it looks like initially outta the gates, within 31 days of your initial eligibility, you can, uh, enroll up to $150,000. Uh, it looks like you can enroll your spouse up to $50,000. Um, and then it from that point after your initial eligibility, which I don’t know if you guys have a 90 day waiting period, 30 day waiting period, usually waiting periods for every, uh, group plan.Okay. And they told you that it during your benefits briefing and they told you what that when we got hired? Yeah, yeah, likely. Yeah. They told you about what, what that waiting period was. Gotcha. So that’s why they, that’s why I hear on what I’m looking at from SEC Securian, uh, which is Minnesota Life, which is a great company. I, I am appointed with them myself. Uh, um, my children have permanent policy with SEC Securian, your child does. Um, I really like Minnesota Life, it’s a good company. So I’m happy to see that they have your benefits with a good company like that. Okay. So initially, again, you have some lower limits of what you can buy into and it looks like, uh, each annual open enrollment after that or within 31 days of a family status change. So if you were to have a baby or you get divorced, married, um, there’s a variety of triggering family status events Okay.That will trigger some enrollment benefit options for you. Okay? Okay. And people under health insurance, yada, yada, yada, um, it looks like that you have, as the employee, you have the ability to enroll for up to 20,000, um, or up to $20,000 or increase existing coverage by up to 20,000, but not to exceed a new total of 150,000. So that’s interesting. I want some clarification on that Clarifi, that seems kind of counterintuitive there, but uh, I could probably read through it a little bit more and get a more definitive, but either way, $150,000 looks like the limit initially looks like your spouse can increase existing coverage by up to $20,000 not to exceed a new total of 50,000. So it looks like that if you don’t elect into coverage for your spouse during the initial eligibility period Yeah. The next eligibility period that comes about, you can just go back, you can revert back to what you could have gotten to begin with, which was $50,000.Gotcha. Oh, well it says $20,000 increments. So probably $40,000, right? Because it was in 20,000 increments. Okay. Can’t hit 50. Um, but it says not to exceed a new total of 50,000. So I guess if you started with 20 but you wanna add on another 20, you’re gonna have that eligibility. Um, upon open enrollment it looks like okay, health questions never required, which is beautiful. That’s a guaranteed issue is a great thing. Typically you’re gonna pay a little bit more for death benefit when it is guaranteed issue. And typically when you talk about group health and coverage, you’re gonna pay a little bit less because they’re spreading the risk over the whole massive groups. So when you have a massive employer, like the large municipality we’re talking about, yeah. Um, that’s gonna be spreading that risk level pretty, I mean across a lot of people.Okay. Which drops the overall benefit. ’cause everybody’s kind of buying some, everybody’s getting something, right? Okay. Because I imagine as a sleep now, but like with something like this, not everybody elects to have it. So does it Well the pfo, so what I’m, what I’m not seeing here, what I’d like to go back in, into someplace in here, I’m sure as you as an employee, that you automatically get some sort of basic benefit. Yeah. And then, and I don’t know. And I would like to find and we will find, um, exactly what that base benefit is regardless of what you choose to add on. Okay. Right. So, but that doesn’t, but typically some group plans say automatically for your spouse as well. Some, some group plans automatically say a minimum benefit for your children. Okay. So we, I just don’t know, but I’d be very curious to find out and that’s why I’d really like to talk to uh, um, a benefit specialist who works at this day in day out to answer those, those what are typically kind of trivial questions.But I, yeah, I don’t work within the government side. Couldn’t tell you. Okay. Um, being on the individual side, I can tell you I’ve seen a lot of heartbreaking situations where people are desperate to get some life insurance in place and they can’t or their health ’cause their health. Yeah. Yep. Nobody wants life insurance until they have a problem typically. Yeah. And, and so even with permanent contracts, which I highly recommend for everybody, uh, I always try to get, get yourself some coverage in place while you’re healthy. Yeah. Right. Don’t wait until it’s too late to recognize you want death benefit for your family later on. Um, ’cause this situation here is not the case in the individual market. Okay. So let’s kind of keep going here. Let’s tell you what your optional coverage is. Okay? So this is kind of cool. It looks like here, in addition to the basic term life insurance and a DD insurance provided to you by the city, you may also elect into the following coverage options and pay for them via payroll deduction.Okay. So now we’re getting into some optional benefits. Yeah. So it looks like those were exactly what I was talking about. Like you’re automatically gonna, it looks like employee enroll for up to 150,000 going back or up to why would they be discretional there? It doesn’t say what you get automatically saying you’re able to enroll up to $150,000 and it doesn’t sound like they’re taking anything outta your paycheck for that up to hundred $50,000. Surely they are. But as we scroll down here to page is that page three, page two, it is showing that you get this optional life and ad D benefit. So you, the employee can combine $10,000 increments up to $250,000. Interesting. So is that every, like when it says increments like that, you choose it right away? Or is that like every year you do it? How would that work? I would imagine it, I’m not seeing, again, this is where we need to find out at what point, uh, because it says $10,000 increments.If you win 10,000 increments up to two 50, um, maximum of 500,000 and then you could do in $50,000 increments up to 500,000. Again, maximum of $5,500,000 includes matching ad and D benefit. I was saying if you purchase it, is it something like every open enrollment it just goes up if you stick with it? Or is it something you have to buy it? So like when he’s talking about increments, like what are the increments like well, well that’s that. Well the increment here is in 10, if you buy in 10,000 increments, you can go up to 10 th up to two 50. And I’m sure you can do that out of the gates, right? It doesn’t, I’m not seeing any exclusions in here. But you said what? You said two 50 was the max 500. When it says $10,000 increments, so just say, we’ll just say 10,000 then.So that’s the increment would say, I I purchased a hundred thousand. Can you almost 10, which is 10 increments. Yeah. So is it saying like, it it, is it giving you a limit or is that something we need to find out? Uh, it looks like, like at end of D buy is 200, I don’t think in a time component I think you could elect to and right outta the gates when you’re eligible . So if I, I wanna do 250, 2 50, boom, you can do it. And down below here we’re gonna get into the prices. I see the price chart down below. We’ll talk about that two 50. So it’s kind of interesting and I would like, again, a little clarification what’s, well, I mean why if you buy it 50,000 increment, can you go to 500,000? I’m not understanding the logic there, but I’m sure they have some kind of rationale of why they’re, why they’re doing that.Either way you can get up to, you can buy additional up to 2 57 saying if you had one 50. So from what I’m reading this correctly, it looks like you have, they’re gonna, you can get up to one 50. It seems like the city’s paying for ’cause it’s not giving any prices or maybe they just have a flat fee they charge you that. I’m not seeing that maybe you’re aware of. But in addition to the one 50 you can add on your optional life up to two 50. Um, and then it says up to 500. So what’s the difference is, I don’t know. And then it says here, your optional spouse life, you can do in $10,000 increments it says up to maximum of 300,000. So up to $300,000. So, which is still pretty good when it’s guaranteed issue. You know, if you had a spouse that was a type one diabetic, right.That’s a problem. Right. There’s a lot of people who have lupus, they have chronic illnesses in their life and maybe they’re managing it. They have ms Right. There’s a lot of, you know, very manageable diseases that are out there that absolutely disqualify them from buying life insurance. Really? Okay. So this is where, this is really good for those people that unfortunately have Hmm. If you have those or if you have that in your family history, does that matter or have them? You have to have it, yeah. No, if you’re diagnosed with it. Okay. Um, certain things, if you have it in your family history, it can be problematic for you. But not typically they’re gonna ask a few things that’s more, more common in long-term disability policies. Oh, okay. And, and, uh, versus in long-term care policies, but not so much in the life insurance.They just wanna know a lot of times the application, they’re gonna have a question on there, did your parents die before a certain age? Gotcha. Okay. Right. And if so, then they’re gonna want clarification on what, okay. Right. Did your, did your parents today hit some sort of, uh, mental, uh, you know, Alzheimer dementia prior to a certain age? Gotcha. But that’s, again, that’s more on the long-term care policies. Um, the long-term disability policies and is the death benefit policies, the term term is much different. Okay. Okay. So then it looks like optional child life policies, you can also add on 10, 10, 15 or 20,000 or 25 and then children are eligible to be on, on here until 26. It’s kind of cool. Alright, so what happens at 26 then? The, the bill goes away, but so does the benefit. Gotcha. You wanna convert those to like that’s what we wanna know, you know, are, are these, are these, uh, policies portable?And I wonder is it portable? That’s a really good question. So on the portability question, uh, you know, if you’d write this down please that’d be great. On the portability is that, is it portable just for the employee? Is it portable for the employee or the spouse? And is employee, is it also portable for the child? Yeah. Right. And again, with the portability side, how long is it that policy gonna be good for? Right? What kind of, ’cause these are term products, but I’m not seeing the term, you know, if you recall when you’re buying a term product, that means that you’re buying specified death benefit for a certain amount of time. Yeah. 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. And so if you pass away within that timeframe, it pays out. But people don’t realize that only 1.5% of term policies pay out. Oh really?Yeah, that’s it. And it’s industry standard. So all 1.5%. That’s it. That’s why these insurance companies are so flush, they take your money and, and that’s 98.5% of the time they do not pay out. I guess that makes sense. One of the, one of the health guys I follow, he used to do that and he was saying how accurate the whoever worked with the actuaries Yeah. How, how accurate they are with knowing when people are gonna, you know, when they’re, when they’re doing their analysis, they know pretty, pretty like within months, uh, it’s pretty spooky. Yeah, it is kind of, it’s pretty spooky. And so unfortunately for you guys, for law enforcement, as we saw the other day, the average male lifespan is 66. Yeah. Well I mean that was something they told us in the academy. Was that the, I think, I mean sure it’s changed.They told us then it was like five years, like most officers after they retire it’s like five years, it’s later they pass away. So, you know, some of the older school cops worked for a long time ’cause they didn’t have anything else that they could do. Which I think that’s another trend that’s kind of changed a little bit. Like a lot of the, a lot of guys now have other things they wanna do. They’re retiring. You know, me, I can, I’m I’ll be 46, 45, 46 when I can retire. Like could have a whole other career career if I wanted. And that’s what, but I think back then guys were staying like 30, you know, 35 years and really couldn’t do anything else after that. So that was their, that was their life and they, you know, five years after they retire, they’re passing away from the laundry list of things that cops have like, you know, heart disease and you know, some of the things that were a lot higher on the spectrum than the average person.So. Right. So it’s, I dunno, the whole pension process for you guys really doest pay off as well as it does for some other countries, right? It doesn’t. No. So let’s, let’s, uh, let’s talk about some of the prices, right? And this really looks pretty good and it’s um, honestly, so let’s just talk about you. I believe what you 44? Yeah. So it looks like in the optional employee and spouse rates, this is a thousand dollars per month. It looks like it costs you nine and a half cents. So let’s just say 10 cents per thousand dollars. So that means every $10,000 is a dollar. So every a hundred thousand dollars is 10 bucks. Yeah. Outta your paycheck. That’s not bad. No. You can do up to $500,000. So basically $50 a month you can get yourself a $500,000 guaranteed issue benefit contract. I do believe you can find that cheaper on the individual market.Yeah. Going through an underwritten plan where they allow, where they’re cutting out to take blood urine. I was gonna say, but they’re gonna ask you the health stuff, right. Fully underwritten plan. Yeah. And so I imagine you’re gonna get that 500,000 much cheaper, right? I’m I’m one to bet you could probably, uh, I I would be surprised if you could find something out there for 25 bucks. Yeah, but is it, is it that price because they don’t ask all the health questions. That’s that’s right. Yeah. Yep. Um, and then, you know, and then it just kind of goes up per thousand from there. Um, as you get older, clear through, if you know, if you’re a 60-year-old, it’s gonna be 52 cents per thousand. Okay. Big difference. Yeah. Right. $5 and 20 cents per 10,000, you know, times 10. So that’s 55,000. Or wait, that’s more than that.So 55 and per thousand for 10,000, we get that by 10, 5 50. Well, not terrible. So if I’m doing my math, I still, again, if you have a chronic illness or something, this is great. But how I again, I wanna see the price once you leave. Once you leave Yeah. What does that go to? Because I know we read, I heard you say something that you can take it with you. You saw or you read something. Yeah, I read it on it said you can, but it didn’t really go deeper into that. Like what the, it just said the price goes up. Yeah, it did. It said the price won go will go up and it goes up big time. Yeah. Guaranteed. And and then will they make you do a health thing then likely No because it’s hard. That’s the whole deal of portability, right?If you’re gonna do a health thing again, you’re just doing, might as well do a whole new application. Right. Individual application. So you’re saying if it is portable and like I retire and it’s able to do that, they’re not going to like, once you retire, they’re go, okay, now you gotta do a health ’cause we’re changing this. So it it wouldn’t be like that. Well, they’re gonna if once you sense how I’m asking that? Yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m, if I’m understanding you correctly, basically if, if you retire again, you’re gonna be outside of the group. Your now plan that started in the group is now portable. You’re taking it with you. Yeah. I’m saying is are they gonna ask you now then, okay, now you gotta do the health screening. No, that’s the, that’s the value of it. It being portable. But they just will charge you more.They’re gonna charge you more For sure. Yeah. And there’s, and what’s the limited duration? So again, you know, this just tells me right here that if I were a police officer and I was considering retirement and I had, was diagnosed with something kind of kind of bad, you know, and I was 55, I might stick around and decide to work a little bit longer to keep this kind of benefit in place. Especially knowing if the average lifespan is 60 all x. Gotcha. You know what I mean? It might be, it’s worth, it’s worth factoring in that if you do have a job that has this benefit in there, I don’t, I don’t know if that’s Well also you didn’t put yourself in drop ’cause then you gotta leave when you hit your end of your drop period. So didn’t everybody, what’s that? Do you know anybody who didn’t do drop?I do know people that haven’t done it. Yeah. Okay. But most, most guys do it. But along with that, I think a lot of the guys that do it don’t, a lot of ’em, not all of them don’t have, like, their plan is when I retire, I’m retired, I’m done. You know, I’m not, I don’t plan on working anymore. Like you know, I’m done. So I think guys who are a little bit younger that are retiring and aren’t choosing to do drop, I think they have plans to do things outside of police work. Like they have, they already have plans to do things. So one of the things I wanna kind of talk about before we end this particular podcast is, uh, the term a d and d. Do you know what a DD means? Is it accidental death? And just ask them just my dismemberment.Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. So let’s just talk about that because some of you it’s pretty straightforward, obviously accidental death typically with most insurance plans outside of this group plan. And I would assume this is no different. And typically if there’s an accidental death, it typically doubles the death benefit. Okay. Right. But then the dismember side also brings in benefits uh, to the table if you have a loss of hearing site paralysis and a variety of other things as well. Okay. Alright. But these are things stemming from an accident. Does it have to be on duty or at work? Uh, does that, no, doesn’t say that. But again, that’s a good question. Does it, in order for that a d and d benefit to kick in, does it have to be on duty? I, I would imagine the answer to that is no. Okay. Um, because I would think that you probably have additional benefits, but this is another question we should find out.Like when you’re on duty, if you were to lose an eye or get shot and can’t work anymore, what’s the difference? Yeah. What kind of other benefits kick in for you there? Okay. Right. Versus this PO contract here. Because really this is kind of a standalone policy Yeah. That you have access to as an added benefits as a thank you for working for us. We’ve worked out this deal with this company’s secur and life. Yeah. So this secur and life is offering you this benefit because you work for this company, right? In this case the city. Yeah. So, um, at d it doesn’t really kick in that often, but you know, when it does, it does. And it typically again doubles the death benefit. I’m not seeing that here, but I would think that that’s probably likely what the scenario’s gonna be. Uh, let’s see what else we have in here.Can I take my coverage with me? Oh, here we go. That’s what you read it where you read it. You can continue to be insured with Secur and beyond active employment without answering health questions. Okay. There it is in black and white, but I think it did say it goes up. Premiums are generally higher than those paid by active employees. And that word generally is 100% generally means yes they’re gonna be Yeah. Yes. That’s a very kind way of saying suck it up. Butter cv, you’re gonna be paying more. And how, again, the question I wanna have answered just for how long can you keep it? Um, so it’s great. So it means it’s portable. This is summary plan provisions and that is the end of this big three page document. So there’s, they’ve left a lot to the imagination. Yeah. For me in, in the insurance business.Um, which doesn’t surprise me ’cause they don’t wanna overwhelm me with information. Yeah. So I mean, if I didn’t have you here, I wouldn’t know I portability, I didn’t heard that before so I wouldn’t know. Yeah. Most people wouldn’t. So, um, it’s understandable. But again, I think that’s not even something I would’ve thought about. You know what I mean? Yeah. And and, and again, this is, so this is where with you, part of what we did with you is we put a seven in addition to what you have through work. Yeah. If you recall we did the $750,000 plan. Yeah. Right? And we did that as a term policy. So it was still affordable. What was that? Do you recall the price? Was that like 40? Like 40? I wanna say it’s like 42. Well there you go. You can see the price. A 44-year-old here getting 500,000.It was, it’s 55. Yeah. Or 50 bucks for you and Yeah. You know, and mine was seven 50 and it’s like, I think it’s like 42 bucks. Yeah. For, for seven 50. Yeah. But the great thing about your plan is your, your plan is convertible. Right? So that’s seven 50. You have 10 years to convert that into a permanent product and when you convert it into a permanent product, as long as you keep the plan 100% of those payout. Okay. Right. Versus the term we’re 1.5% payout. So not to go too deep into that. So with terms even with like a 30, like what’s, what are the typical, what do people typically get with the terms? Like how long? 10 and 20. Oh, okay. I don’t know any because the price, the longer you want in place, the height more expensive It is, it’s kinda like locking in your lease Yeah.For your apartment. You know, you rent a house, you know, typically think about how it’s cheaper if you lock it in for shorter, shorter periods of time. Yeah. Right. Or it could be, or sometimes it could be more expensive I guess the house. But if you’re gonna try to lock it up for 10 years, they’re gonna charge you a lot more. Right. And so this rental insurance is what I call term insurance is this, it is renting your home. Um, it’s gonna go away. Eventually it will fall off. And whether you wanna buy it or not, it doesn’t matter. But your policy that we put you in outside of the department, you it is a lease too. Own. Gotcha. Right. You have the flexibility. You could choose to say buzz off at the end of 10 years, I don’t wanna pay this anymore and I do not wanna convert it to permanent policy.So Yeah. So basically you just, uh, basically pissed away $600 a a year for 10 years, so $6,000 to the insurance company. Right. Or you can choose to convert that into a permanent contract and at some and then in the future when you do meet your maker Yeah. You know those, that money’s coming back to you. Yeah. Price is gonna go up obviously considerably, but at least you’re putting into something that’s gonna be self completing. Yeah. And so I’m definitely an advocate of, of permanent insurance. I mean mean of course there’s a lot of people out there like, well you can make better money elsewhere. Well yes, but you can also lose money. So that’s one thing about the life insurance, it’s a guaranteed way to make money, unfortunately. Yeah. Right. Um, so the permanent one, the per Yeah. Yeah. The term is this, is Securian’s gonna win on this deal.Yeah. These are good. They love the term contracts. So, but either way, um, you know, that’s kind of a quick overview about what I’m seeing here. And now we have some portability questions. We know we wanna get follow up answers on a, on a next episode. Yeah. And, um, and, and then we can dig a little bit more into also, again, I want some clarification about what you’re given without the optional Yeah. That is not clear in here. Yeah. I’m sure somewhere in here it’s clear that oh, Tyler, we’re giving you 50 k outta the gates. Gotcha. Right. Yeah. You know, and if you, and, and that’s if you get killed off duty Right. You probably have some basic benefits and heaven forbid you get shot in the line of duty. Yeah. I’m sure there’s a whole nother slew of benefits. And that’s really what this, what our show’s all about here is to kind of break it down and so we can have a clear understanding of two more good questions to kind of look up. Right. Yeah. Right. What happens you get killed in the line of duty or off duty happen off duty with while you’re still working. Like if you, why are Yeah. Wire deployed, you have to be wired deployed. Yeah. Right, right. But I’m sure there’s gotta be a different set of benefits that kick in. Yeah. I would think. But again, I don’t know. And it’s kind of, and and you tell me you don’t know.See that’s kind of odd to me. Seems like that’s something that would be a point of concern, but I guess you just don’t think about it ’cause you can’t walk around thinking about that. Yeah. Right. So maybe it’s just out, you know, a lot of people don’t like the thought of life insurance for that reason. I mean, I’m sure some people working know this stuff, but, uh, no I don’t. I’ve never, you know, never looked into it. You guys don’t sit around talking about it. No. Sounds pretty exciting. No. Yeah. Right. I’m sure it is. Here’s that crackhead, what about that life insurance policy? Yeah. Gotta hold up. Do you see that new benefit that they’re in? Well if we contact this guy and something goes wrong Yeah. Just shout what’s gonna happen with our life insurance. That’s funny. Well, all right. Well I mean, you know, we can um, rap about life insurance forever, but I think this is probably a good jump off point until we get a little more clarification.Yeah. And um, and so another one in the books here and um, and we’re gonna peel back and, and just put another little plug out there that we are looking for any questions that people might have. Yeah. Or our job where we’re gonna try to locate the professionals within, um, the specific departments that have the answers. Yeah. Right. So that we can just kind of break it down and get a better general understanding. So don’t, uh, hesitate to reach out to either myself, um, or Officer Ty. Um, comment through the channel if you’d like to be a guest on here. ’cause you are knowledgeable about this subject matter very well. And you wanna show everybody how smart you are. We love smart people. Yeah. And we’d love to have you on as a guest. So please raise your hand and then we’d love to have you, but one done buddy.

April 30, 2025

LEO Life Options at Work

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