Episode #195 Money For Life with Harry Stout

On this segment of HyperFast Wealth, host Dan Lesniak speaks with Harry Stout, a former CEO of two of the largest insurance and annuity companies, as well as the creator of FinancialVerse. Listen as Harry provides tips and techniques on how life insurance and annuities can provide tax protection and estate planning to ensure you set yourself up to have money for life. 

Episode Highlights: 

• Harry resides in Vero Beach, Florida, where he’s been able to watch the excitement of SpaceX firsthand.
• He actually interned at NASA during college.
• Harry has been in the financial services industry for over 35 years, which has taken him all around the world.
• Harry’s current goal is to give back and improve peoples’ knowledge of personal finance matters and how they can take certain actions to reduce stress and anxiety.
• Life insurance and annuities are products that you put money into that can provide for you on a tax advantage basis. 
• When people look at annuity products, they often forget they’re insurance products.
• Cash value life insurance allows you to accumulate cash on a tax-deferred basis.
• You can think about life insurance and annuities as providing cash for future delivery, when you need it. 
• They can also be looked at as the safety aspects of your portfolio; the safety actions that you take in your financial planning to provide you with protection.
• Dan shares his personal experience with insurance products.
• You need different protections for different times of your life.
• It’s okay that you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s why it’s so important to discuss these issues with a professional who can help you figure out what best fits your personal situation.
• Dan details why he chose cash value life insurance.
• Harry outlines the three key risks that cash value life insurance helps with: dying too soon, living too long, and it acts as a source of cash should you become ill.
• There are ways to withdraw the cash out of the policy on a tax-favored basis.
• Dan and Harry share how they have taken loans against the money they have paid into their cash value insurance policies, and used the money for real estate purposes.
• Dan examples how cash value life insurance policies can assist in estate planning.
• Cash value life insurance can also be looked at as an investment, as it carries a rate of return.
• Harry looks at insurance and annuities as another asset class, one that would fit in the category of fixed safe money asset class.
• Harry thinks people should plan to live to at least 90, and use that when figuring out how they are going to pay for cost of living until that age.
• Annuities are often misunderstood, but can help you pay for the day-to-day living expenses and help plan for the long-term.
• Harry provides two examples of costs associated with later-life expenses.
• In the United States, people spend more time learning how to operate an automobile than they do gaining financial literacy.
• Harry gives his answers to the HyperFast Round.

3 Key Points:

1. Life insurance and annuities are products that you put money into that can provide for you on a tax advantage basis.
2. Life insurance and annuities can be looked at as the safety aspects of your portfolio; the safety actions that you take in your financial planning to provide you with protection.
3. You need different protections for different times of your life.

Resources Mentioned:

• Learn more about Hyperfast Academy; Download Dan’s 100 tips HERE
• Dan Lesniak (bio, Facebook, Twitter)
• Harry Stout website
• lifehappens.org