YOUR INSURANCE CONNECTION

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The following is a paid program sponsored by your insurance connection. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Good morning. This is your insurance connection. I'm your host, Donnell Marquez, on your insurance connection. We talk about saving money on auto insurance, homeowners insurance. Yes. And we talk about life insurance. Welcome to the show.

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Good morning. My name is Don Marquez. Welcome to another edition of your insurance connection broadcast. And right here at K you envy 91.5 Jazz and more Sunday morning from 8am to 830. And Illinois show I love to talk My favorite subject is insurance all about insurance. Well, we can squeeze in, in a short period of time. I had a gentleman call me just last week. And he thanked me for my services for coming on the air and educating my listeners about insurance. He did ask some questions. He currently has a life insurance policy that he can't afford right now. A policy that I did not sell to him. However, he was curious, what can he do he don't he doesn't want to cancel the policy. On his life insurance policy, what was his option? I contacted him and said you can reduce the face amount of your policy. What you can do, I had to do a little research. However, he could reduce the face amount of his policy. If you're in a bind, where you know, you're trying to save money here and there. And you have a life insurance policy to children that are gone and grown. But you don't want to pay that monthly premium. What you can do is reduce the face amount, keep your insurance do not cancel your insurance policy, or surrender your life insurance policy. You want to keep your life insurance policy in place by reducing the face amount. You know, people always ask me can I add? can I increase my life insurance policy? No, you can add now you can increase it within the first year or maybe the first 30 days once you receive the policy. But if you've had your policy for quite some time, your life insurance policy for quite some time, no, you cannot increase it, you know the prudent thing to do as an insurance professional, I would write another policy. First of all, I want to look at the current policy that your life insurance policy that you have, and to see if it's in your benefit to get another policy council that one and get a start a new policy. I rather not do that in most cases, because the rates are going to be based on your health and your age. Now your health could have changed when you age definitely would have changed. Now the rates are based on your age and your health. You know, and every circumstance is different. However, in this particular scenario we're talking about, he wanted to reduce the face amount of the policy to adjust his finances to bring his premium downs a little lower because he had other obligations, you could do it too as well. Only thing you need to do is contact your insurance company and ask for a reduced face amount form, they'll send it to you, you fill out the form, and you send it in and also when you have them on the phone. They can tell you by reducing Let's pay for an example, if you have a $300,000 life insurance policy, the children are gone. You and your spouse don't need as much life insurance. The house is almost paid off, bills are paid down. And you went looking for other ways to save money because you're getting ready to retire. This is a perfect example you're getting ready to retire. Now you contact your life insurance companies okay, what would instead of having $300,000 with the life insurance, what would 100 150 to $200,000 with a life insurance would look at and they can give you the numbers, they'll send you an illustration you make that decision. You make that decision based on your budget without canceling your life insurance policy do not cancel your policy don't just you know the first thing comes up if you need you know, an additional expense came up in your household maybe the car broke down or you know maybe you need air conditioning repair. Things of this. Things happen. Things happen all the time. I'm a part of it too when things happen and you're trying to figure out what can I reduce down but you know what you have all the Showtime and HBOs and all these different premium channels you know the the football channels but you don't reduce that you always increase that. You know when I look at my my television bill today, Mike Cable. Actually, I have satellite. When I look at it today, it's just it's just mind boggling what people what they charge people, for satellite for cable TV. I mean is this, I remember, television was free, we only had a few channels in Las Vegas when I grew up, we had channel three, Channel Five, channel eight, channel 13, at Channel 10. And that was it. And most of those channels went off at like midnight, right after the Johnny Carson Show, or maybe a couple hours after that it was like off and then it will come on early in the morning, we will get a break, but we didn't pay for television. And to me, we're paying for cable or satellite television. Wow, you know, what are they commercials are some of these channels, I have to, I have to actually record the program. Because I refuse to watch the commercials. Even when I watch my sporting events. I delay it for about two hours. If I want to, if I want to watch a football game, I don't watch it live, I didn't watch it delayed almost two hours, I'll record it. Because I don't want to see all the commercials. And I don't want to hear the announcers running their mouth. Just constantly just be quiet. But you know, I won't I'm not getting off the subject too far. But, you know, it just it just reminds me, you know what was free now we have to pay for it. And people find ways to save money. And I do the same thing. But my life insurance is not an option. Okay, my life insurance is not an option. I've been the recipient of a life insurance benefit. I know what it's like to receive a life insurance benefit. And if you've never received a life insurance benefit, you know, you loss of a loved one loss of a spouse, you know, could to close out their affairs to close out their estate. It does cost money. It does cost money to put them to bury them. And I was recruited a gentleman contacted me over the phone. And he left a long message. And he and I couldn't quite understand he was saying because you're breaking up a lot. But he said I was calling me the casket to put that they put the casket now in a container. But he corrected me it's a vault. So I was saying container.

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It's about I'm not in the funeral business. I just said Life Insurance auto insurance home, you know, but he said I just want to correct you. I worked for he said he worked for the cemetery. So it's a vault, they put the casket in a vault, I just want to clear that up. But it's good that you know, it's good to get the feedback. Sometimes because you know, container vault, same thing. But you know, when you say vault that I get what he where he's coming from, that's more it's fine, like it's more solid and sealed in the container. Either way, Vault container costs money to bury loved one closing out one estate. So taking care of the funeral as the first thing you have to do. That's the first, you know, shock you're going to receive. When you lose that love after you know the loss of the loved one. Now I've said now you have to go to the funeral home and talk to the people at the funeral home about how you're going to bury your loved one and how much it cost. And if you've never done this before, if you've never done it before, it is a eye opener is the you know, the reality is you don't have time to grieve. You just you have to go oh my god, are you serious? Yes, in order to bury your loved one, we have to ease out the plans we have for you, they have a right really nice tone. Because nobody goes to the funeral home unless you absolutely have to that's that's not a place you just want to stop being and check things out. You know, it's not like going to the stores, okay, I need to pick up this this net. Or you're going there just to keep up. You know, who's you know, you go there when you when people pass away to visit them and how they're memorials or you know, their ceremonies there. But you know, if you don't go to these funeral homes, and on a regular so when you do have to go to bury your loved one, or you know, just to take care of that funeral arrangements. It is extremely expensive today. Well, it's always been expensive, but even more so today. Now, not only you have to put the pick out a plan, you have to also go to the cemetery. And you know, by that plot, that headstone, the vault opening the closing is just adds up and adds up fortunately for our veterans and I'm also a veteran. You can be buried in a Boulder City Cemetery veterans, you know, veterans, Boulder City Cemetery for veterans and they'll pay for your opening closing headstone and apply the VA will pay for that. Now if you have no va life insurance, don't don't get it twisted because a lot of veterans they come to me as Oh, you know, I'm a veteran. I owe the VA gonna bury me. Well, do you have your veterans life insurance? No, but they're not going to bury you. Okay. They will give you a plot at the Boulder City Cemetery only at the boulder Sydney only at the Boulder. City Cemetery. They're all for your plot. Now these other cemeteries do have veterans sections, but the VA is not going to pay for that they will pay for the Boulder City Cemetery. And, you know, that's about a seven plate, maybe even a $9,000 savings, that's a lot of money to be saved by utilizing the Boulder City Cemetery. And to my understanding is not for now, I haven't been out there. But I know some of the cemeteries here in Las Vegas, are starting to fill up. One of our oldest cemeteries is woodland cemetery, it's full capacity. To my understanding, there's no more plots left. Now, if you want to think about getting a premium, that's when you pre pay for your services. Think about this, it may be taxes after your services are performed, you know, or is a funeral home still open, you know, you get a service paid for pray for it. And then years later you pass away and whatever reason the funeral home was closed, or they sold it to someone else, or your family members can't find all the paperwork. But when it comes to life insurance policy, you know who the beneficiary is, right? You know who the beneficiary is, and you just say, as a beneficiary, you just go to a funeral home, it presents your documents and say my loved one just pass away. And you know, and they perform the services, they will, at his funeral home, use the life insurance policy as collateral to take care of those final services, those final expenses. Now what I recently found out, now, you can't get a cash in advance some some policies that are offer life insurance policies that are offered will give you a an advance up to 80% at time money without the death certificate. In other words, when you bring your life insurance policy into a funeral home, they will use a third party to get the money to pay for the funeral because they don't want to wait for the death certificate. Now if the death certificate were instant, then they would need that third party is to the third party advantage. And they charge up to 10% for that third party service to get to immediately fund the funeral home to pay for the funeral. Now the third party service will wait on the life insurance policy to pay. And that's why they're there reimburse. But they do charge an additional fee. On top of the fees you're already paying. You know, this is News You Can Use. My name is Don Marquez, my contact phone number is 702-236-2624 702-236-2624 located on the corner of Sahara Rancho in the US Bank Center, located on the eighth floor. Now, here's another one to try to transfer ownership. These are things you can do within your life insurance policy, if you have a loved one, and here's a good example, if you have a loved one with Alzheimer's dementia, or your you know, maybe you just need to transfer ownership because now you're paying for the policy, and you can't access the life insurance company, you can't call them up. Now you're the beneficiary. And you're the payer. And the person who is insured is the insured individual and also the owner of the policy, although you're the beneficiary on the payer, you cannot call the insurance company and say, You know what, I just switched banks, and I want to switch from a bank A to bank B. Because, you know, I closed my account at Bank A, now I need to, you know, have all the information, here's my routing number, my account number, and I'll ask you, do you have permission from the owner? To be effing oh, we need to talk to the owner, they need to give you permission. And you know, it's a back and forth as well. No, and people get a little upset, because I had people calling me and asking me this question. Because they hear my they hear me on a radio program. And he asked me Can they do certain things and how to do it. I don't know why they don't call their own agent, but that's okay.

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I'm here to help. But you can transfer ownership, you can transfer ownership. Now transfer ownership means that now you're the owner of the policy, the person still is the insured individual, you're the owner, you're the beneficiary and the unit payer. With that ownership, a form to fill out is very simple. They'll ask for the policy number of the insured individual. And now the current owner, meaning the insured owner is a current owner, and then they have a new owner information. You'll print out your name of new owner relationship to the insured, of course, your address to the new owner, the city and state. You have to put your social security number down and your phone number. It's always good to put your email address and sign the documents, send the documents and send a document that transfers ownership that gives you full authority, the contact the life insurance company, although another person's insured, but now you have access. Another reason to why you may want to change ownership and this is happen a lot, where you have one individual does burn all the money out of a life insurance policy. Now as the owner in order to stop that, because at time of need, you're gonna need that policy to pay for those services we just talked about earlier. Now, by you being the owner of a life insurance policy, you can stop that individual from borrowing money against the life insurance, you'll be surprised I over my many years, I've had people come to me and say how much life insurance equity do I have on my policy. So what I'll do, I'll get on the phone, and I contacted Life Insurance Company. And because I look at the illustration, I just want to verify what I see on an illustration page is accurate. And I'll tell them us owe us you have $20,000 of life insurance, in your cash value you can borrow against. Now, I know people have squeezed all of that $20,000 out of for whatever reason, or the and I have people that never touch their cash value. So I've I've had people to never touch their cash value. But I've seen individuals just borrow everything out of their policy. By transfer of ownership, transfer of ownership, you can no longer squeeze money out of your policy, only the owner can take the money out of the policy unnecessarily. If you are borrowing money from your life insurance policy, and I know they tell you, yes, you can borrow money against the policy. And you know, there is an interest rate, when you pull money out of your life insurance policy, you're paying about a seven or eight to 9% interest on the money borrowed. In every seven years, there's the possibility that the money borrow could double every seven years. Keep that in mind transfer of ownership gives you full authority to over the policy to make any necessary changes, transfer, bank accounts, to one bank to the other, or change an address, or even get any forms you need. You can also change the beneficiary if you want to as the owner of the policy as the owner of the owner of the policy. If you don't like the beneficiaries on there, or if they have multiple beneficiaries on there, you can also as the owner of the policy, make any benefits any beneficiary changes necessary. It gives you all the authority now the insured person is still the insured person. Well, let's say in a lot of cases, two people get remarried or they lose a spouse, they forget to take the primary beneficiary off and especially if they lose a spouse, because your spouse now is your primary beneficiary. Okay, your spouse passed away before you did. And you and you do not have a contingent beneficiary. Now we'll continue to beneficiary moves in a position of the primary beneficiary once the primary passes away, if the insured individuals still live in, okay, if to ensure an individual is still living as a beneficiary, you have, you have the resources to get all the money or a parcel the money owed as a part of the money when that person that's insured passes away, regardless of the owner. Now, you could it could be a separate owner, the person is insured, and you're the you're the beneficiary. Regardless with the owner, the owner is the owner, maybe because that person had Alzheimer's or dementia or something like that, and they had to transfer the ownership but the beneficiary stayed intact. Now the beneficiary can be a child or or you know, ex spouse, but the beneficiary is the one the primary beneficiary or the primary beneficiaries are the ones that will receive the money. Not the owner necessarily if only if the owner is the beneficiary as well. Okay, um, keep that in mind. My name is Dawn Marquez. This is your insurance connection 702-236-2624 702-236-2624. My Location is on a corner of Sahara Rancho. In the US Bank Center. I work by appointment only 702-236-2624. Now the US bank center is located around the corner of Sahara Rancho across the street from the palace station hotel tall brown Ville and 13 storeys tall and has US bank on the top. I work by appointment only 702 to three 626 24. Now I will work some Saturdays my business hours are Monday through Friday, from 10am to 5pm 702 to three six to 64 I love what I do as an insurance agent. I started this business back in 1996. And I've seen a lot of them are many years of service. And I want to thank the listeners that contacted me that came in and purchase home auto and yes life insurance a lot you know, and I talked about life insurance a lot auto insurance. You know when people come in we try to offset the cost of auto and auto insurance. So to reduce the cost of auto so they could purchase the life. Sometimes that works out sometimes it doesn't. If you've been with your auto insurance company for quite some time. Sometimes is a little difficult to beat that rate. Because you get to receive those renewal discount. I do try my best I represent multiple auto insurance companies, multiple life insurance companies sixy, about over 60 Life insurance companies that I represent, but not all right, all 60 companies do have a met, you know, at my fingertips. However, I use about five companies use within five companies in the Vegas area, I can get you life insurance. Now, I'm auto insurance carriers, I have multiple auto insurance carriers, we review those companies, and to see if we can get you a lower rate than you're already paying it. It's getting a little tough, because Vegas rates are just, you know, I've noticed in the last year the rates are just increasing. And especially when people hit a certain age on auto insurance. I noticed when auto when they hit 75. And above the auto insurance rates increase. And also I see it at 80. Now I know people say well, you know, these ages my my rates should be going down. Not necessarily, because we're finding out that the senior community is having a lot more rear end collisions, their response times a little slower, and they have a lot more accidents than they ever had before. Regardless, we all need auto insurance to drive is a privilege is not a right. We have to register our vehicles, we have purchased auto insurance in order to drive the vehicle. Now, if you have all those old registrations, all those old ID cards for your auto insurance, and your registration, the police officers doesn't care. Those old ID cards, I am insurance, I've been with this company for many years, they wanted to see the most current ID card. Now some people put their ID card on their phone, that's up to you. You want to get a police officer, your telephone to verify you know you have current auto insurance, but get rid of all those poll registrations. And old ID cards. I've seen people come in my office, and I give them a brand new ID card printed out for him. And they have a rubber band full of oil it causes what do you can Oh, this is garbage getting it, I'll just throw it away. This is all you need. I'll put it in an envelope. Right, put it in an envelope, we have your current registration, your current ID card, and when you receive your registration in the mail, and I've been guilty of this myself.

Unknown Speaker 22:29
I forget to put the sticker on there. I can never put that sticker on this tray because you know you only have one time to put that sticker on straight. And I have multiple stickers layer over layer stickers, you know on the plate, that sticker that goes on the plate, have layers and layers of stickers. But you know at least I'm writing legal. I have my registration, my insurance ID card all in one envelope. Right next to me put it pulled up I already are already have it out ready to go along with my driver's license. And I give it to the office because it isn't night. You know, they work hard will probably get a little frustrated because you're you're in the glove box. Looking for the most current ID card here it is. And he looked at his eye this has been expired. This has expired getting oh, wait a minute, hold on, let me find it. Now like I don't believe it's now if you wanna expressway just kind of imagine the cars going by, you know, 7080 miles an hour. And you out there fumbling around at night trying to find the most current ID card and the most current registration. Clean out your glove box, only have the most current ID card and the most current registration. That's all accounts. Now let's get back to life insurance a little bit. Because you know, this is important. Because when money gets tight, we try to find ways to save money. And also, if we have money at our fingertips, why not take a loan on your life insurance policy. Always say when you take out a loan on the life insurance policy, pay it back, because they do charge you interest. But you know, things come up sometimes, maybe you AC went out on your house, or you need to transmit some for your vehicle. And you know, oh, I have money in my life insurance policy, why not use it, but look at it as a look, you borrow money against yourself, pay it back. What you got to do is you're gonna contact your life insurance company and ask for a loan request form. Keep in mind term insurance if you have a term life insurance policy, it does not have any cash value at all, is just straight death protects you you receive a lot of insurance, a lot of life insurance for low cost when you have term life insurance. Now people always want to know what is a better policy to have. Everyone's situation is a little different. You know, when you have a growing family, you two to two or three children and just recently Mary, you're looking to purchase a home or you just bought a home. You know maybe term is a good option because now you have a lot of insurance for low costs. Now as we mature in life, you can convert that term over to a universal life or whole life policy. You can contact me at 702-236-2624 to get you started with a term universal life a whole life policy, but there are times you could but you need to borrow money, you can borrow money, do a whole life policy this you've had for a while. And I've had people call me and take out a whole life policy and only had it for less than three months time when they want to borrow money, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way, you have to let it season. And it takes time for it to season, I don't know how long time it may take, you have to look at your illustration page on your policy. Now, if you don't know where your policy is, you will come to you need to contact your life insurance company and say send me a duplicate policy, they may charge a small fee, I think it's up to $25. Or you can just say, hey, email me the policy in the mail. They may not charge you at all, but you want to have your life insurance policy, when you come in from me with me to see me for review, I want to see your life insurance policy, I can now pull it up on online, I want to actually see it and if I need to call your life insurance company, while you're in my office for review with no obligation reviews, by the way, I don't charge you to come in and see me whether you purchase a policy or not the way I get compensated is when the insurance company, when I sell a policy, the insurance company compensate me doesn't cost you anything 70223626247022362624 Are you going to contact your insurance company for a loan request form, you fill out the form sent in so much money, they'll tell you how much money you can get. But you don't want to you just don't want to delete your all your cash assets, you just really don't you want to leave some money in there. So because you know it will fund the policy. Because as you age, sometimes you know it costs more money to insure you, and they'll pull the money the life insurance companies will will pull the money from your cash assets. So your payments won't go increase. If you experiencing your life insurance premiums going up. And you don't quite understand why. And when you call an insurance company, they're gonna tell you well, you know, you're getting older, and it costs more money to insure you, and you don't have any more cash value and your policy, because what the first thing is going to do it, the life insurance company is going to delete all the money, drain all the money out of your cash value. And then once all that's gone, they're gonna send you a bill for it in order to keep the policy active. You know, this is my how much you have to pay, or what they'll do, they'll increase your face amount, you know, they increase your face amount so you can pay more. This is why it's important to have an insurance if you I know a lot of people say well, you know, if I had my life insurance policy for a very, very long time, you're the main ones that need a review. And if you let your policy lapsed, if you have your policy of lapse, you can get your policy reinstated, you may have to go get a rebate or may pay the back premiums to catch up. So the policy you have to go through all that requalification over again you can pay rear premiums up to a certain time to really get your policy activate if you just recently lost a loved one. I've heard this happen quite often. You know the loved one policy lapse for the last three months. You can pay those last three months and keep the policy active. My name is Don Marquez this is your insurance connection. 702-236-2624 702-236-2624 Enjoy your Sunday morning. I will until next week from eight o'clock to 830 next Sunday, just keep it crispy. Thank you for listening

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