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[smart_track_player url=\”https://soundcloud.com/livewiththrive/wpht-04212018\” title=\”Enter: Delaware Valley Insurance with Fran Salerno, Jim Muehlbronner and Steve Osterink\” ]

Enter: Delaware Valley Insurance with Fran Salerno, Jim Muehlbronner and Steve Osterink

We thank everyone for being here as we come to you with a follow-up show, Bret, where we got into the conversation about annuities. We spent the entire broadcast talking about all different elements, areas and parts of annuities, which leads us into this episode as we continue to stress the importance of advocacy and education. It\’s a great fitting into being prepared. That was your focus coming into the show. With Karen and David not here now, we\’re going to go in a little bit of a different direction and talk about being prepared or supportive direction I should say because that\’s what it\’s all about.

We’ve got a ton of calls and some emails. Just a great feedback with regards to the topics of the annuities that we went through. As you already started off, we’re talking about being prepared, being proactive and having a plan. We’ve got our guests from Del-Val back with us. We have another guest who\’s going to join us at the bottom of the hour, Steve Osterink, who will be a treat for us, talking a little bit about markets and so forth. Krause, it finally came to an end.

What came to an end?

Taxes. At least for some.

Unless the extension was filed.

I’ve got some stats that I got back. One day before taxes were due, there are over 40 million people that said that they were going to file on the last day of the year. There were 110 million tax returns already done. Over 80 million of those 110 million received a refund of which now you know why they get them done darn quickly. They received a refund where the average refund was $2,800, and a little bit more than $2,800. There are another fourteen million people that filed for that extension. What\’s funny about this year is October 15th of ‘18 falls on what day of the week?

Monday.

We\’ll have the biggest nation in the world, Krause. Procrastination.

I never get the answer to your question.

They’re always tricky. We’ve got some people that have not yet done some of the work needed for 2017. We\’re more than happy to help out with that. A little bit of stats as we\’re talking about it.

We talked about it leading up to it. We\’ll tell our audience about the upcoming workshop, which is going to be at the Easttown Library. Both workshops all zeroed in on taxes and getting ready for taxes. More importantly to understanding the deadline, understanding the date, and understanding the need to file is the preparation that goes into filing correctly and getting all of that part of it correct.

We\’re going to be doing a workshop at the Easttown Library in Berwyn. I’m doing the Taxes in Retirement Workshop. As Tax Day has come and gone, we\’ve gotten a lot of great questions. We had a lot of people come in with their taxes self-prepared saying, “Can you give a glance at this?” and we run it through that Tax Clarity software. To bless it, put the two thumbs up or saying, “You may want to tweak that, call your accountant and switch that.” There are a lot of those last-minute preparations in getting those together. Flipping the hat to now, talking about being prepared, being proactive, and having a plan. We\’re going to have our partners from Del-Val talking about the cheap versus having the appropriate coverage. My mother got diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy, stage one, all that good stuff. Ever since she started chemo which was before the Christmas holiday, it\’s been an absolute nightmare. We were prepared for it so we had some time to think about things. My family were down in Williamsburg, Virginia during the Easter holiday. I came back on Easter and talked to mom and dad real quickly.

[bctt tweet=\”We’ll have the biggest nation in the world: procrastination.\” username=\”\”]

All of a sudden at 8:30 on April Fool\’s Day, April 1st, I get the call from my mother who\’s not able to drive because she\’s in bad shape from chemo saying, “Your father is having a heart attack.” It was like, “Is this an April Fool\’s joke? Is this really happening?” You had 80,000 things going through my mind. I was half asleep from driving up from Williamsburg during the day. I looked at my wife said, “I’m going.” She\’s like, “What happened?” I told her what was going on. Fortunately for me, my brother-in-law and sister live close to my parents. They came over and grabbed my father. I met them at the airport. Before I could even get in the car, Krause, these are the questions that start going through my mind, “Do mom and dad have a will updated?”

We always talk about the shoemaker\’s kids have no shoes thing. I’m sitting here thinking, “Here\’s Bret involved in this business. When was the last time I’ve had this conversation with mom and dad? What\’s their wills look like? Do they have power of attorneys? Is it a financial power of attorney? Is at a healthcare power of attorney? What happens if dad passes away?” What we\’ve talked about it over the past couple months is women always outlive men. I’m thinking about in my mind, “Is this going to happen?” I called my brother-in-law and my dad in the car as we are both in transit to the hospital saying, “Dad, do you have a medical power of attorney set?” He\’s like, “What are you talking about?” I’m like, “Do you understand if you go in there and they see something, it\’s possible you\’re going to be having surgery in twenty or 30 minutes? God forbid something happens, is it mom making those decisions? Is it me? Is it Steven, my brother-in-law?” It\’s having that plan. It\’s about being prepared.

Whether it\’s talking about something serious to the health, which is part of the plan when we talk about that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. It always involves those five things: investments, taxes, income distribution, healthcare and legacy. When we talk about that, it\’s being prepared. It\’s being proactive. What was going through my mind? What happens if dad was going to pass away? We\’re going to go to our friends at Del-Val. What happens if I got an accident last night? What happens if I struck somebody and it wasn\’t my fault? What happens if I got one of those new Teslas? We\’ve been hearing about that. I got drunk at the bar so I let the car drive home and the car struck somebody. I’m not on the hook for that?

I’m sure these guys can answer that. That\’s not the case. We saw that happen out in California, but it\’s serious. We have Steve come on, they’re on the C-Block. I have people that have plans all the time. The market got crushed and now it’s going back and forth. We\’ve talked about so much volatility that\’s out there in the market over the past. It\’s having a plan. It\’s being prepared so that when life does happen, when it\’s not that rosy picture of going off to the Yellow Brick Road from The Wizard Of Oz, it’s being prepared. Dependent upon what your beliefs are, that’s why they call this life, not necessarily heaven.

Do you think we avoid being prepared because we don\’t know? We don\’t want to deal with it? We take things for granted and don\’t react until something occurs? What\’s your thought on it?

We call it conventional wisdom. Everything\’s going to be okay, then life happens. People rather plan for a two-week vacation and put a budget together. We\’ve introduced the word dental pain quite often and going through a lot of these exercises. We gather an inventory. We make our process when people come in and have that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. We\’re trying to make it as easy as possible, because no one likes to go through an exercise. There are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. We\’re going to give our audience a break now not necessarily talking about taxes but being prepared. When I talk about end of D-Block, I’m going to be ending this show talking about one of my clients whose spouse did pass away.

I can\’t tell you how many times I’m always talking about the surviving wife often. David, Karen and I, we always talk about the husband that\’s hanging around. That\’s why Karen, she does a great job of expressing concerns for women. It’s a woman talking to a woman at the end of the day. It\’s always the woman who\’s always hanging around. I want to say 5% to 10% of our single clients are men. Typically, women that always outlast men. It is unnatural. Now the weather\’s getting nice outside. Why do I want to spend any money trying to gather that information preparing for the unknown? That\’s part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. Whether you want to come visit us at our workshop we\’re doing in Easttown Library or whether you want to call here directly at the office and schedule your complimentary review, please give us a shout again whether you want to attend one of our workshops or come in and schedule one of those free consultations.

Bret, I’ve got to ask you quickly to update us on the story. You shared some personal information about your family. You left us on the edge there a little bit. I want to give our audience and give you a chance to bring some closure.

My parents are both in their early 70s. Mom was being laid up with cancer and dad was doing a little bit too much. He did not have a heart attack. He got all his nuclear stress test done. Mom ended up ending chemo a little bit early. She again had stage one, but the doctor said that chemo was going to kill her before cancer at this point in time. The one thing I promise you, because I’ve already had the conversation with mom and dad, is when they\’re both ready, able and back on their feet is we\’re going to make sure that we\’re prepared. When life does happen again, as they continue to get older, things happen.

Good news on that front. I appreciate you sharing the personal story there. Our continued wishes are with your mom and dad as they continue to move through life. Be prepared is the lesson before it\’s too late, when something occurs. In a lot of ways in life that\’s fitting, especially with our partner Del-Val Insurance. Being prepared is necessary. If it\’s too late, you\’re in trouble. In this case, you can\’t go back in time. Fran Salerno and Jim Muelbronner from Del-Val Insurance, one of our great partners and one of your great partners, are joining us. Fran, Jim, how are you?

We’re fine, how are you?

Is that an accurate statement, Fran? Being prepared because when you\’re in the insurance business and you\’re dealing with that, it\’s too late after the fact.

That’s very much the truth. You must be prepared. You must do everything you can to mitigate risk. You need to know. I’ll give you a couple of examples. If your sump pump doesn\’t work and your basement floods, are you covered? Do you have enough insurance to cover your assets and your liabilities? Do you have a personal umbrella policy? Do you know if your policy covers if a tree falls and hits your home or your car? One of the things that we do at Del-Val, like they do with Thrive, is we work to educate. We look at our clients. We talk to our clients. We take a big picture and point out whether they have the proper coverages, point out what might be missing, and then recommend a program based on their goals and objectives. Being prepared for the unseen is important.

As you review an individual\’s information and you see glaring areas that they\’re missing, that they need, is it because we just don\’t know?

I guess it has a little bit to do with they don\’t know what their coverages represent and what\’s their bodily injury cover. That\’s the cover in case they’re sued. Is that sufficient based on the assets that you have? It comes back to what Bret was saying. Some people think, “It’s fine. I’m covered,” but there are many gaps and many things that you must review.

Let\’s bring Jim into the conversation. It’s nice to have you with us. You add what to that opening statement?

I want to say, Bret, I’m glad everything worked out with your parents as well as that seems to be. I have to thank you for reminding me to update my will. Krause, you were asking about earlier about the will. A lot of it is procrastination. Here I am, an insurance guy for 30 some years and I’m sitting here with a woefully outdated will. In my own instance, I would put that under the category of procrastination.

[bctt tweet=\”You must do everything you can to mitigate risks.\” username=\”\”]

In the spirit of confession, everybody knows now I went in for my double knee replacement. One of the questions that I received in the pre-surgery is, “Do you have a will? Is your will up-to-date?” That flushed out for me not having a will.

We\’re getting on Thrive topics here, but I went through it with some relatives that passed recently without the proper will and it\’s a big mess. If you all are out there and you have problems that way, you need to address that before it\’s too late and before it creates a big mess. Let me get back to insurance, which is why Fran and I are here. I do have a couple of case studies as far as why people may not have the proper coverage and so forth. I’m going to throw one recent case out there. There’s a young couple, early 30s, recently married. They have their auto insurance policy, they have a homeowner\’s policy, but they also have three rental properties throughout the city, three nice rental properties in Port Richmond, upcoming parts of the city. This person had half decent coverage on your auto insurance and our homeowners, they didn\’t have an umbrella liability policy. That\’s a lot of exposure there.

You have your two cars you\’re driving around to home, three rental properties with tenants in there. It\’s a no brainer to have an umbrella liability policy. These are good, smart people, obviously the position he\’s put himself in life there in his early 30s. Here he neglected to get an umbrella liability policy. That was a real no brainer for him. It\’s not expensive. It provides invaluable protection for the exposures this particular guy has. A smart guy here, in my early 30s, I didn\’t own three rental properties, I can tell you that.

For the benefit of the audience, an umbrella policy allows what? Which exactly what it means, does it give you protection over everything?

Any personal. It\’s not going to cover you for professional exposures. If you\’re a photographer, you need a commercial umbrella policy. In this case here, he\’s got his auto, his home, a couple of rental properties which are not considered commercial. $1 million to $10 million you can get, but in this case, it was an additional $1 million of liability protection on top of the underlying limits on his policies, his auto, home and landlord policies. Somebody slips and falls in one of his properties and they realized this guy has the assets that he does. They may not be happy with the $300,000 liability limit on his landlord policy. If you neglect to address that before it\’s too late, it could be a problem.

Fran, that’s an interesting scenario or example that Jim used. I have to think that we don\’t know that we\’re supposed to have one.

I have a story too. I had a person from Bucks County, the Doylestown area. She came to us reluctantly like, “I’ve been with my agent for a long time. I don\’t know if I want to change. I heard good things about you guys. I thought I\’d give you a call.” I sat down and asked a lot of questions. She had a swimming pool. When you have a swimming pool, you should have an umbrella policy. They go hand-in-hand. There\’s an injury, drowning, accidentally somebody gets hurt, you need an umbrella. The great thing about the story was I was able to increase my client\’s coverage. We saved them over $4,300 over what they were paying. When she was done with us, she had her two daughters call us. We saved each of them $700 and also increased their coverage. I would say to anyone out there that if you\’ve been with a company for a long period of time, if you have not reviewed your coverages, you owe us a call. Give us a call at (215) 354-0122. Fifteen, twenty minutes on the phone can be important to you for having the right coverage at the right price.

It\’s all about getting educated. Fran and Jim, we thank you so much for being here. We thank you so much for being a partner and being a part of this process that we\’re trying to deliver to all of our audience around the Delaware Valley. A special guest will join us, Steve Osterink will be along. We\’ll introduce him to the Delaware Valley. Back to the conversation about being prepared before it\’s too late, even Fran and Jim provided a couple of good examples about preparation and getting ahead of a scenario before that scenario jumps up and bites you.

Whether it\’s what Fran and Jim shared or when I talked about my real life experience with mom and dad. The last segment was dedicated towards talking about annuities. Annuities being on one end of the spectrum that people have a ton of questions on. Steve wraps up when I go into D-Block, I talk about some stories about having a plan related to investments. I’m going to give him as much time as possible to introduce a great friend, a great partner of ours Steve Osterink, who is the Chief Investment Officer at Advisory Alpha, our partner for investment research and trading. As David, Karen and I are sitting in four to five appointments every single day, we have to leave it to our great partners, the people are going to watch that market every single moment.

We work collectively with Steve and his team to help build and manage our portfolios based on our clients’ goals and needs. Steve\’s one of these guys that we talked about has a lot of alphabet soup after his name. Steve is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a Certified Financial Planner and accredited investment fiduciary. He loves to talk about investments. We hear all those names and talk about investments.

Steve, let\’s hear it. Let\’s hear that personality. How are you? Welcome into the show.

I’m doing great. I\’ll try to be as boring and dull as I possibly can to keep everybody on their toes.

We appreciate it, Steve. Steve\’s been a great partner for ours. Let\’s talk about some of the current things that are going out there in the market here. If you\’re watching anything out there related to the market, we\’ve seen an incredible amount of market volatility out there. Steve, can you put some sense into what the heck\’s going on out there?

The challenge is everybody is willing to trade wars and there are a lot of different things happening. At the end of the day when you take a step back, I like to talk to investors about the year 2017 where everybody was in the stock market trend and it was incredibly stable. For a lot of folks, it\’s easy to get used to that and to think that that\’s normal. At the end of the day, equity-related investments, market-related investments, they\’re volatile investments. That\’s why we have other types of investments in our portfolios, but inherently the stock markets are volatile. That\’s not necessarily a bad thing.

In a sense, that\’s what gives them the higher expected returns that we need in our investment plans. I’ve been talking to a lot of investors about the fact that this is okay. It\’s normal. 2017 wasn\’t normal. Coming into 2018, we\’re seeing a little bit of volatility again, which at times can be a little bit scary. We have to be confident in the plan that we have. We have to be okay with taking a little bit of that risk for a portion of our money, knowing that we\’re getting long-term growth from that portion of our portfolio. A lot of it comes back and making in sure we have that confidence in our plan, which is key.

You know it\’s a great follow-up to that because we\’ve seen a decade run out here on the market. Imagine you\’re seeing quite a few people that are “self-managed” where they simply throw their money into X, Y, Z indexes, where we talk about a passive strategy versus that tactical strategy, is that shift starting to occur? What do you guys see out there when we talk about passive versus tactical?

That’s one question, the passive versus tactical. You also brought up the do-it-yourself portfolio versus using a professional advisor. I tackle the advisor question first. A lot of the challenge for investors out there is, “Who do we trust? Who\’s good at what they do? Who\’s a mutual fund salesman or a product salesman?” We see a lot of everything across the industry in terms of different advisors. I would encourage investors to find an advisor that specializes in the situation that you\’re in. If you\’re in retirement or approaching retirement, find an advisor that specializes in that process and they can add a tremendous amount of value. We find a lot of investors when they do it themselves, we find they chase returns.

[bctt tweet=\”We have to be okay with taking a little bit of risks.\” username=\”\”]

I remember back in 2008, by the time the market hit the bottom, everybody was scared to death of equities and they didn\’t want anything to do with them. That was the best time ultimately to get into equities. It\’s easy to chase returns. We saw the same thing here recently where the markets have been strong. Investors had this tendency to say, “I want more equity exposure,” when in reality maybe they should, maybe they shouldn\’t. Coming back to having an advisor that focuses in on that planning process based on the stage of life that you\’re in, it\’s critical to try and navigate around some of those behavioral biases. We can talk about the tactical thing here, but I want to come back to it. That\’s such an important thing to realize, is getting a partner on your side that understands how all these different factors come together, it\’s important. We see it time and time again.

Steve, this may sound like a simplistic question. For the benefit of the audience, isn\’t it easier to have a partner, to have somebody that you trust that you have confidence in to help look out for the right decision?

It is, but it has challenges from the investor\’s viewpoint. There are many advisors. I see it here locally. I see it across the country. It\’s hard to know who to trust. Getting references from your financial advisors, they\’re looking at designations. There are a number of different things that can help sort through that. It\’s worth that effort because the risk of getting an advisor that doesn\’t meet what you\’re looking for or not using an advisor entirely, the risks there are huge. Finding the right advisor, somebody you can rely on day in and day out and have that confidence in your plan, it is easier and avoids a lot of these risks that ultimately could devastate your entire retirement income plan.

To our audience, whether you\’re do-it-yourself, whether you\’re looking for a second opinion or whether you\’re looking for an advisor, that\’s part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. Digging into what makes the most sense in this market volatility, call us. Steve, in previous shows we\’ve been talking about interest rates and the environment that we\’re in. We just ended the first quarter. I know it hasn\’t happened too often but we\’ve been talking about it\’s been one of the few quarters in recent history that we saw both the stock market indexes and the bond market index both go down in the same quarter. What do you guys see out there with related to what the Fed\’s doing in terms of moving forward and the overall increasing interest rate environment and what we can do out there?

When we look at building portfolios, we find there’s a massive difference. When you say diversification, I find it humorous. No investor is going to say, “No, I don\’t need that. No, I’m good. I don\’t believe in diversification.” Everybody looks at diversification as, “Yes, we need that.” It doesn\’t make sense to put all my eggs in one basket. We look then at actual investor portfolios. We do a lot of this analysis where if people want a free investment analysis, we do that all the time. It\’s a huge resource. We see a lot of investor portfolios. What we find is people aren\’t diversified in a lot of different ways. Maybe they\’re using some stock market investments, maybe they\’re using some treasury bonds or corporate bonds. They have this traditional diversification.

One of the things that we believe from a philosophical perspective is we have to make sure that we\’re using all the tools in our toolkit when it comes to diversification. If you look at how these major financial institutions, these endowments, these multibillion dollar organizations diversify their portfolios, they\’re using things like hard assets, real estate, commodities, foreign investments, a huge range of different types of bond-related investments.

That\’s the key where we have to make sure that we are diversified. The bond thing is another one entirely. Where the interest rate environment has been, we\’ve moved into a rising interest rate environment instead of having talked about that for the last five years. We\’re there. That\’s another thing on the fixed income or on the bond side. There are a lot of different types of bonds and we have to make sure we have the right ones. We find that is a huge oversight on a lot of portfolios. That\’s one of the first things that we look at.

Steve Osterink, our special guest here. We appreciate you jumping in to the big show. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.

Good stuff from Steve Osterink.

We\’ve been seeing people that have coming out to multiple workshops where they didn\’t see it the first time. The second time they come out, it\’s sinking in. We have one workshop and then we\’ll be back at it. It looks like we have two workshops the following. I’m excited to get that to get back at it here.

A special thanks to Steve Osterink who joined us in our last segment. I know it was a short twelve-minute segment. It was great to get some of his perspective and certainly supporting the need to get with an advisor where there\’s a comfort level. That\’s one of the reasons why Del-Val Insurance is sitting with us in the studio. That\’s one of the reasons why Thrive Financial Services produces this radio program all about education, all about advocating on behalf of the audience. I sit here with a microphone on behalf of the audience. I represent the audience in the Delaware Valley, or at least I feel that\’s my role in this program.

I appreciate having our partners here at Del-Val and Steve joining us in the last segment. Talking about being prepared, being proactive and having that plan, we’ve got a ton of clients that come into us that are self-managed. A lot of times what we see is over the past decade they don\’t necessarily have a plan. With all the increased volatility that we have going on out there, make a plan. When the market does drop below a certain spot, you get out. When it comes back up, you get out. One of the seven sins that we see people that typically ruin financial plans is something called greed. Trying to get rid of that out of the vocabulary where people can ride off into that sunset, having a plan. People never plan to fail, rather they fail to plan.

Something else that adds into that, Bret. The example Fran you used where you were able to save a client $4,300, they were going along with the plan or the program that they bought however long ago it was and never bothered to make the connection. What a significant phone call that was. It’s a lot of money.

It was a lot of money. We also added an umbrella. She didn\’t even have an umbrella. Not only did she save money, but we provided better coverage. That\’s part of what we do. We are all about helping people plan to cover those unforeseen risks to be prepared. That\’s the theme of the show now, be prepared. Give us a shout out, fifteen minutes on the phone with us. You\’ll see what we could do here at Del-Val for you to plan and to provide the right product at the right price. It\’s (215) 354-0122. We\’d love to talk to you.

Don\’t jump over the dime to pick up the nickel is what I always tell my boys. A simple statement like that has real meaning.

Having the appropriate coverage versus being able to have HPO at the end of the day. We’re trying to prioritize where things are. Krause, we\’ve been starting to dig into some real stories that we have here between David, Karen and I. We haven\’t jumped into a story yet here on this show. I wanted to chat about a client that we had met at a workshop out in Chester County. Right in the middle of the workshop, she was coming in to sit with us for her second appointment. Her husband passed away that morning and that was real. You want to talk about having a plan and being prepared. One of her concerns, all of a sudden, her husband had been sick for over 30 years and had peacefully passed away. She said, “Finally, in his sleep,” to end the pain.

[bctt tweet=\”People never plan to fail; rather they fail to plan.\” username=\”\”]

I fast forward to where we are now, six months in between. It was hard for me to reach out to her because she had some tax issues that needed to be addressed. It was probably in December we finally sat down and there were some strategic things that saved her. It was $26,000 by doing them in seventeen versus eighteen. One of the things that we always talk about when the first spouse passes away is that we no longer file a joint tax return. We file a single tax return. It’s getting out in front of it and having a plan. She happened to be turning age 70 this calendar year, talking about required minimum distributions.

That changed things quite a bit. She came in and visited me this past week of some things that we had done earlier in the year to sit down and go through them. Just because life has happened, obviously. It had been almost six months since her spouse had passed away. She was one of those believers of annuity. She already had annuities before we had met her. That\’s one of the great alternatives that Steve Osterink talks about. He talked about bond alternatives, supporting inevitably what we\’re doing out there. I said to Peggy, “Peggy, how did you know these annuities?” She said, “My advisor is more aggressive than what I am. I wanted to take some of that risk off the table.\”

David always makes the comment, “What\’s always right isn\’t popular. What\’s popular is not always right.” We had sat down and I said, “Peggy, when\’s the last time you spoke to your advisor?” She said, “September.” I said, “You\’re telling me you\’re conservative. I’ve learned this over the past six months. Your advisor is definitely more aggressive. With the volatility that\’s been going on over the past ten to twelve weeks, you haven\’t had a conversation with your advisor?” She says, “You have that right.” I go, “Have you made changes getting those IRAs out of your husband\’s name into your name?” She goes, “Yes.” I go, “You didn\’t talk about the market?” She said, “No.” I said, “Do you understand that the market’s down about 15% from where it was previously?” She said, “No.” I go, “Do you think it would be worthwhile having that conversation?” She says, “Yes. That\’s why I’m paying my advisor money every single year.”

It was a continuation, Krause, part of the story that I had mentioned previously. Peggy was conservative. She was probably as conservative as anyone that I had seen. Her advisor was managing almost $2.2 million. It wasn\’t $100,000. Things have changed since her husband had passed away needing home health care. We talked about she wants to fix the roof and get a generator. When people got sick of the storms knocking out the power lines, she’s like, “I’m done with that. I’m ready to put in a generator.” The things that we were navigating last year are different than the things we\’re navigating this year.

Going from a joint tax return to a single tax return, not talking about long-term capital gains anymore. We\’re talking about how we can manage required minimum distributions. She’s hitting 70 and a half. In addition to that, she had never paid a Medicare surcharge in any point in time in their life. We chat about this. We\’ll spend a dedicated show to it one day or maybe a segment talking about Medicare surcharges. Those were new things that we\’re now starting to manage. I said, “The good thing is we\’re in the first quarter of the year. Starting the second, where we got plenty of time to talk about these things,” but nevertheless, that\’s all part of all these things that I’ve spoken about. Whether you\’re Peggy, whether you\’re Betty or any of the other people we\’ve talked with, let\’s get a plan. Let\’s get prepared.

It\’s all part of that Thrive Retirement Roadmap Review. You can never get a second opinion from the person who gave you the first one. Please calls us, 1 (800) 516-5861. Whether you want to join us at our workshop down at the Easttown Library. Krause, we’ve meeting a lot of people we\’ve been talking to who’s registering for our workshops who don\’t come outside in the evening. What\’s great about that? You can come into our office during the daytime hour where you can bypass that workshop. We\’re going to talk about the workshop, the topics, during that Roadmap Review process.

Thank you very much, Bret. I would encourage our audience to call Del-Val Insurance group at (215) 354-0122. Use your theater of the mind and know that Jim and Fran are as real as they sound. They\’ve got your best interest on the forefront and certainly a good partner of ours is a good partner of yours. Thank you. A special thanks for Steve Osterink for joining us as well. David and Karen will be along next episode, along with Bret as we return. For Bret, for Karen, for David, for Jim, for Fran and for all of our audience, I’m Joe Krause. See you next time.

Important Links:

• Del-Val Insurance
• Steve Osterink
• Taxes in Retirement Workshop
• Advisory Alpha