Business Innovators Radio - Interview With Charles “Chuck” George Founder of Charles George Group

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Charles “Chuck” George is a seasoned financial expert with over two decades of experience in providing comprehensive financial solutions aimed at securing peace of mind for his clients. Since 1995, Chuck has been dedicated to assisting individuals and businesses in navigating the complex world of finance with confidence and clarity.As the Founder and Chief Operation Manager of the Charles George Group, Chuck leads a team of highly qualified advisors committed to delivering top-notch financial guidance and personalized strategies tailored to meet the unique needs and goals of each client. With Chuck at the helm, the Charles George Group has earned a reputation for excellence and integrity in the financial industry.Chuck’s expertise spans a wide range of financial areas, including investment planning, retirement strategies, wealth management, and risk mitigation. He believes in fostering long-term relationships built on trust, transparency, and a deep understanding of his clients’ aspirations.Learn More: https://www.cgeorgegroup.com/The investments and services offered by us may not be suitable for all investors National Producer # 594238 | Florida License # A095440Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-charles-chuck-george-founder-of-charles-george-group

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with this Charles Chuck George, who's the founder of the Charles George Group. Chuck, welcome to the program. Well, thank you, Mike. Hey, so I'm looking forward to chatting with you. I know we want to talk about a really powerful

topic of how life insurance fits into retirement. And I know that that might raise some questions for people because a lot of times you think, oh, life insurance is a bill I pay. And then when you die, someone gets money. But you have a whole lot of a deeper approach to it than that and how it fits into a retirement plan. So I want to learn about how you serve your clients in that. But before we dive in a little deeper there, give us a little bit of your story and background and how did you get into the financial services industry. Well, I started back in the, actually a long time ago, back in 1995, I was actually one of the old style insurance guys who walked around collecting money from door to door in an old debit

style insurance field. Wow. I just progressed up and just started doing. And everybody started going away from that and going into their own offices. And then whenever COVID. We all went to videos and Zoom and like about the rest of the world. But been around for a little while and started working in this and starting helping people out. I've been around long enough to watch some people come and go and I'm still here.

Yep. And, you know, kind of learning some things along the way. And I think that's really cool. Sometimes it's like, hey, do you have 10 years of experience or do you have one year of experience 10 times over? I know that you're a student of the industry and you learn and improve and stay up to date and maybe take continuing education type classes. So I think that's really important for people to realize as well. So let's dive into this topic. How does life insurance fit into a retirement plan?

Well, you know, my life insurance can fit into a retirement plan. It can actually become like the structure of the backbone that you have of the plan. I mean, out of today, you have to have money. doing more than just one thing. A long time ago, money used to just sit there, collect interest a little bit, and it was there for a safety net. Now you can't just do that. Money's got to be able to do multiple things. And a life insurance plan, if you put it into the right stage, you have to design their life insurance plan now. With a lot of companies, you can actually design your own life insurance plan with the riders you get and everything. It can actually become the backbone

and the safety net well beyond what a normal retirement plan you would think is. I mean, you have to make sure that the main thing that a retirement plan is and what your life insurance wants to do is basically cover your known cost. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I love when I hear the phrase like backbound or foundation because it's like once you have something like that in place, then everything else falls into place and works from that start. So when you say foundation about a retirement plan,

how does that life insurance approach really feed into structuring a good retirement plan? Because I think a lot of times people think of life insurance, like I mentioned a minute ago, as like a bill. You know, I write the bill for the premium and then that's it. But you're saying that it's a lot more than that. Oh, yeah, a lot more than that. I mean, there's several main things that the first thing that it was designed for, back in the Roman times, it was made by the different societies of Romans to help bury the people that died that was belonging to the clubs and society of it. And then back in the United States itself, it was designed in the Presbyterian Ministers, I think it was 1759 or something around there.

Presbyterian Ministers Fund decided to get together to perform life insurance to be able to bury the ministers and take care of the ministered families after the minister's passed. And then it evolves into now. Not only does it give you, like you said, a lump sum payment on the death of somebody that's insured, but it can redo replacement of the income that they're collecting so security. because you have to admit most of the people that get the life insurance, they're going to be in their older age, and they're looking at possibly passing on, but they're going to have to replace that

because a lot of people are couples, and they're depending on both social security incomes coming in to be able to survive. Well, it's replacing that income. It's also you can leave the legacy for the loved ones that you have, that you down the line, your kids, people that you, your loved ones that you want to make sure that they're taking care of. It can now work in estate planning.

Some people that have the really large estates and stuff, they're going to be paying the heaping amount of inheritance tax whenever they get ready to go. Well, you know, if you have a life insurance tax enough to pay the estate taxes, you're now paying pennies on a dollar for the estate tax where before it would have to come out of your estate. Now you can use the insurance, some of the, some of the estate. insurance code. The insurance itself, a life insurance policy, United States, the beneficiary pays no taxes on the money coming in. So that can now pay the estate tax, as well as a lot of the different policies have cash value build up in them. You can take loans out against them, withdrawals out against them. And this money doesn't really have to be paid back because it's your money to begin with. You don't really have to pay it back. It just gets deducted off of the

and whenever the beneficiary gets the money, it comes off the beneficiary. Now, I know I was saying earlier that your money has to do double duty. Well, here's what I'm talking about on something like that. You can put riders inside your life insurance policies now that help pay for your critical care, your nursing home, long-term care. You can put riders in these that if certain qualifications are met, you can actually start getting up to 90% of the benefit of your life insurance policy to help pay for these unexpected costs. So, I mean, it really is the back end of this.

Yeah, there's a lot of benefit there that I would suspect many people when they hear the word life insurance, they think, you know, death benefit. But you're describing a lot of things you can take advantage of while you're still living. you know, some of the cash value growth and taking loans against it to whatever, buy a car or fix up the house. So there's some huge benefits. And I want to zero in on something you said too because I think a lot of people really need to know this. When you think of like long-term care, I think the statistics are staggering of what percentage of people will ultimately need long-term care services. But you see these policies out there and, you know, not to bash standalone long-term care. policies, but they tend to be expensive. And if you don't use it one year or two years, you don't get

your premiums back. But yet with this kind of a setup, if it's set up the right way, if you needed long-term care, you can access it from this policy. But if you didn't, the money stays right in there growing. Is that a fair assessment? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, you have a long-term care writer in there. It allows the policyholder basically to take some of the assets of the death benefit. And if it's a chronic illness or whatever, it will actually pay for your long-term care. And then it just deducts it at the end of the thing. Now, the downside of this, to be honest, is the beneficiary going to have a lessened amount coming in. But to be honest, the way I look at it, I would rather have money up front.

to be able to take care of me there because I'm been the one paying for this life insurance policy to begin with. It's my money. My beneficiary can figure something else out. Besides, he's going to be looking at having a lot of other stuff coming in and adding whenever I'm gone anyway. Well, the beneficiary would have less anyway because that long-term care bill has to get paid. So whether it got paid from this insurance policy or your savings account or an annuity or somewhere else you have money, it's still coming out. So it's just nice to know that it's a feature of this kind of a policy. And that's a that's a big relief, I would suspect. Oh, yeah. I've had to, I had a couple that he got really sick. I mean, he ended up getting cancer. And on top of that, it was a brain cancer. So it

kind of numbered his days for sure. I came in, I said, hey, listen, we set this up whenever we got the policy. Why don't we try to access it? Because I know you qualify for it. They were saying, like, well, no, I wanted to have all the money. I'm like, well, listen, the money's going to be there for her in another form that we've done for you. Let's access this money so you can have it and make it more comfortable. And he didn't really require a hospital stay and he didn't require long-term care, but it made it actually easier for her. Yeah. Not really him. It made it easier for her dealing with everything because she knew she didn't have that weight of all that debt coming down on her because he got sick. Yeah, that's huge. And it

gives you flexibility because like you said, if it, you didn't quite need this, but you had that and you have to meet all these qualifications and that's how some of those long-term care policies are. Whereas this, you just go, hey, I need X amount of money, please send it to me. And then you, you know, contact your financial professional to get all the, you know, eyes dotted and T's crossed to access it. But I would think that it would give that flexibility. You know, you mentioned tax implications and estate planning. And I know that's a huge gift that a client of yours would be giving their heirs, which is, hey, when I pass, I want my money to go to these people with as little tax burden to them as possible.

And I know that if you were maybe, you know, your IRA or your 401K, that's never been taxed. So now here comes your errors having to deal with that, however that is. But yet talk a little bit about the benefit of having funds that have grown over the years as cash value in a life insurance policy like this, that when it goes to the errors, it really helps that situation out. Well, tax life insurance policies, beneficiaries receive the the funds of the life insurance policy tax-free. In the United States, they are not taxed at all.

That is a lump sum given to them not recorded anywhere. It doesn't require taxation or anything else. It is a lump sum given to them dollar for dollar. So the beneficiary can do with it, whatever they want to do with it. So that's the way it worked. I have one client who, well, a couple that took out what's called a second to die policy. I know it's kind of a bad terminology for it, but that's what it is. She passed away.

He had $3 million estate. Now, we know in the United States, the inheritance tax on this is going to be quite overwhelming. and the air only has 10 years to pay all the taxes on his $3 million. He's got to pay all the taxes on it. And it's actually in a lump sum. So that first year he'd go, I mean, he's got 10 years to spread it out to a certain degree, but he's going to be paying 33 to 45% sales tax on this stuff, or 33 to 45% tax on this estate on top of what he's already earning. Yeah.

So now he's got this huge tax burden. And with what happens is whenever she passed, all the money went to her husband that she had tax free because they are together. That's considered a joint account. Now whenever he passed, it goes to his heirs or ever how he designed his estate to be divided. But they only have now 10 years to do this. If he has a sizable amount of qualified money or money, meaning that has not been taxed yet, like your 401's, your IRAs, money like that, he is now,

they're now stuck over the next 10 years of trying to pay the taxes on that as they get it. And that's a huge tax burden. So in the policy was set up so that it now goes to him, he can now have the money to pay the taxes on it. and now he gets the rest of the estate tax-free for the most part. I mean, the taxes are still paid. The government is satisfied, but he gets the money. Yeah, you can't avoid that, but you've put a provision in place so that the air has access to funds to pay those taxes out of this account.

And if you didn't plan it that way properly, you know, the right way, then all of a sudden, can you imagine a million-dollar tax liability? That's staggering. Yeah, that happens. happens a lot, believe it or not. So I know that there's, you know, many, many, many types of insurance, you know, term, permanent, whole life, all these things. We don't want to get into the details, but I feel like maybe just a high level explanation of cost would be helpful because I think the premiums on these kind of policies tend to be a bit higher, but with all of these benefits, we're talking about it far outweighs the premium cost. But talk a little bit about how the cost fits

into the mix. Okay. That's a big pile of worms to get into. There's two main different types of policies, like you mentioned. There's a term policy and a permanent policy. Now, term policies are the cheapest because they only go for a short amount of time or a duration of time. Five, ten, twenty, I even have some 30-year policies that I have on the books.

but at the end of that term that they're made that's why they're called term policies they're done that you don't unless you put the rider in for a return of premium in the policy then if you outlive that policy you get a return a premium rider you can do that but other than that the money's gone you're insured you're done it it's like buying a piece of candy you chew on it you eat it once you eat it, you're done, it's gone. Yep. The whole life policy is more expensive or a permanent policy generally more expensive, but the, it goes until whatever time is set in the contract.

It's normally it's 100 years old. When you get 100 years old, then you get the benefits of, then you become your own beneficiary at that point and you get all that money. Or if you die before. that 100 year mark or before the contract ends, then your beneficiary will get the face amount of that policy. So they're more expensive, but that cost is actually locked in

when you buy the policy. That cost that you then say it's $100 a month, that $100 a month that you're paying, when you start the policy, when you're 20 years old, it's still going to be $100 a month when you're paying on it down the line unless you set up a time where it starts renewing under its own interest. Because your cash account builds up cash value and whole life policy where terms do not.

And you can actually get to a point inside the cash value of the policy that it starts renewing itself on its own interest. So you don't even have to pay any more premiums. Right. So, and especially if you go in with a mutual company or you have a company that, pays high interest on the cash value of it and it builds it pays up it so it becomes I hate to use the term paid up policy because it has to be a division of an actual paid up policy where it says that like a seven pay plan you pay on it for seven years then the policy paid up now those policies are generally more expensive because

that money's got to come from somewhere and it's not the interest that it's making. So you have to pay for it more expensive, but over the period of time, it's a lot longer. But I do want to mention one thing about term policies that a lot of people do not get, they don't quite understand. As we get older, the term policies might get more expensive as they go along, but if you can't afford the whole life policies up front, try to get at least a term policy so the lower cost you are protected you are protecting your loved ones and your family but you're also insuring yourself against insurability as we get older our bodies start malfunctioning and we get sick sometimes the sickness precludes us from being able to get insurance so with the term policy

and the right writer you're actually insuring your availability for assureability yeah makes sense That's huge because if you get a typical term like policy, like the ones you see on TV, you know, call today and get, you know, a billion dollars for 10 cents, you know, these crazy numbers. You know, typically that's going to be a 10 or 20 year term. And when that ends and you want to renew it, you got to go get a health exam and health check. And what if things change? And now you're older and the health is declined. And then the premiums are through the roof.

So there's things to know whether you choose a term with a writer or. a permanent, like you've been talking about. The bottom line is this. Get with someone like yourself to help guide the process, make the decision. None of these choices should be done with an 800 number or online because you might not set it up the right way. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whether it's me or somebody else, they need to sit down either on Zoom, face-to-face in an office, somewhere. they need to be able to look the person in the eye and go over their financials with them.

Because there's things that people say, I just need it for burial insurance. Not really the case anymore. I mean, you have a mortgage. You have car auto policy that need to be paid. If you're the breadwinner of the family and something happens to you, what happens? I mean, one of the reasons I got into this business to begin with is I was a firefighter. And I had the guy literally fall off a roof and died. And I had to go tell the wife that he was dead.

He was the breadwinner. He was the sole breadwinner to his family. I came back to that same house as a paramedic about three to four months later. She had lost her kids. The house was disarray. She was sitting there crying and needing to go to a mental institute. because she completely had lost her mind. She had no money.

She had absolutely nothing left. Wow. And just the look on her face completely would devastate anybody. And help me get into this mindset. Okay, I can help people here doing this. And if they let me help them. So they need to be able to go talk to somebody and just look them and say, hey listen this is what I have I need to be able to take care of this in case my husband passes or in case

i pass i want my wife or i want my husband my wife comes in and says i want my husband taking care of because i'm the sole breadwinner of the family he he stays home he does his stuff and he's good at it but i want to make sure he's protected i love him i want to take care of him and they come in and we set of a whole plan and set it in place. So you need somebody there to do that. 100%. And like I said, these are just not decisions you make on Google or TV ads. So if someone is interested, Chuck, in maybe seeing what their options are and maybe putting some things into place, what is the best way that they can reach out and connect with you?

The chat icon on my website, seejoorgegroup.com, is my website. They can go there, hit the chatbot. It actually goes straight into my phone or one of my teammates' phones. And if I'm not available, and they can start chatting right there with us, make an appointment on my website. The main thing is go look at my website, and you'll be able to see me. You can see my team. All of us are pretty well qualified.

We've all been doing this for quite some time. We can get there. You can get on my calendar. There's a link on there. It says, get on my calendar. You can click on that. You can set yourself up to get on my calendar and have a little talk with us. It's one of those, get to know me, get to know you type thing.

So we can just talk over Zoom. if you happen to be in the Florida area down in the Panhandle, I can drive up to 200 miles to go visit clients. I've done it before. I live in Pensacola, but I can go all the way to Jacksonville. I've done it before to meet a client that tends to need me. Well, I'll make sure to put that link right in the show notes, but the CGeorgegroup.com to learn more and then reach out on that chat

and connect with you and your team. Thank you so much for coming on. Chuck, it's been a real pleasure talking with you. It's been great. Thank you, Mike. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.