Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Kerry Morris, CFP Founder of HonorShield

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Kerry Morris, Author of When Retirement Goes Bad, Life Sucks, Certified Financial Educator, and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional.Kerry Morris has been serving families for the past twenty-five years as a financial planner and advisor. He has recently launched HonorShield, LLC., as a way to challenge the current thinking and behavior of consumers and financial advisors preparing for the potentially high cost of aging.He has spent several of his twenty-five-year career advising hundreds of families experiencing the nightmare of paying for care. The question, always, was “How to make the money last”?Morris has watched too many families, too many men and women not be fully prepared for retirement. The financial industry has put this cost-of-care issue on total “ignore” mode, often shoving it onto a small-but valiant band of “insurance specialists” around the country. Only about 1 in 100 Americans embrace this model. That is a problem for American families and our country. Morris found a better way, a win-win solution that more Americans could feel good about embracing. It’s a whole new way to approach and solve this problem: the LCAP—the Longevity Care Allocation Plan. Every person and every family deserves to know how an LCAP works. Kerry Morris has made it his life’s goal to ensure that those he helps can hold their head high and know that no matter what curve balls retirement throws at them, they will be prepared.“One of the most important things I’ve learned in my 25 years in the business is that a great life is supported by three areas, Health, Relationships, and Money. My job is to make sure that a family’s money is working effectively to accomplish that job.”Learn More: http://www.honorshield.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-kerry-morris-cfp-founder-of-honorshield

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 us, Carrie Morris, who's the founder of Honor Shield. Carrie, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike, good to be here.

You know, I'm looking forward to talking with you because anything with the word honor is exceptional. I'm looking forward to what you do with that. But before we dive into how you serve your clients, tell us your story. What's your background and how did you get into the financial services industry? Yeah, well, that's a long one, right? But we got to make it really short for this purpose. But yeah, you know, I've been serving clients with financial strategies for 25 years. I was insurance only from 1997 up to 2008.

And then a partner at the time and I saw that we really wanted to be able to serve clients in a more comprehensive way. So I got my securities license and then passed the certified financial planner exam, became a CFP in 2009. And then began to build comprehensive plans, helping people transition from accumulation to distribution. And what's interesting is I had an experience during those years that very, very few financial advisors, ever actually have. And that's that I had started in 2007 volunteering to meet with wartime veterans from like assisted livings, home health care companies, helping these families understand how to access these little known benefits that were out there. And what that grew into was really over 700 families being referred into the office. And we had to teach

our referral sources that we wouldn't call anybody because we didn't want to be seen as chasing holder people. And so the folks would call the office, get on the calendar, fill out our intake sheet, and then I would sit down with them. And that's what was very unique is having a front row seat with all those hundreds of families who were actually at that point of having to pay for care now at that point. And, you know, seeing what happened not only financially, of course, there's a big financial drain. And we're going to talk about that today. But seeing what happened to them relationally, emotionally, the different generations and that interaction. And so as an investment advisor and a planner, as I took that into increasing our work after that with more of the transition into retirement work, then it just became a mandate that every client must know about these risks that we're going to discuss today and how to go about it.

And that's where I developed an allocation methodology called longevity care allocation planning and just a systematized way to approach it. You know, I think before we dive into that, there's something huge that I want to just spotlight because what you're doing is not just selling widgets. You know, like, oh, if you need X, here it is next. You are working with people and making a difference in their lives and really generationally because what is what your, when your clients are receiving this benefit, their children, their spouse, their extended family are. feeling that benefit because it's relieving financial worry and doubt in their mind. And I think that is such a spectacular thing because, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we talk about some financial, we've got to do that too. But boy, it's almost like, you know, emotional insurance, so to speak. Oh, incredibly. It's a multi-generational issue. You know, there's 53 million caregivers in the U.S. today out there

on the front lines every day, helping care for their family members and friends. And if you take out the special needs kids out of that number, you're still up into the 40 million that's really just senior related. And so these families are paying the price. I call it suffering in silence a lot of times. And it's often because nobody brought it up to them. I can't tell you how many people have read my book and said, you know, why did nobody ever tell me this? And so it's a huge neglected area, Mike, from the financial services industry all the way across the board, even to consumers just wanting to live in denial as well. And is it, in fact, something that many people don't even know exists, kind of like a tax deduction for your business that people don't realize, but once

you find it out, it's a great benefit? Is it that kind of a thing where you're kind of enlightening people to say, you're in this situation, here's this thing, this benefit? This benefit. fit that you can take advantage of and they're saying, wow, my eyes have been open. Why haven't I heard of that before? That's very insightful of you to ask that question, Mike, because that's exactly what it is. And that's why we started on our shield is because we're like, we got to get the word out. Like, you know, because what I saw happen in our industry, in the financial industry, is really what people came to think of as protection against the high cost of aging and care costs later was really just one little slice, and that was called traditional long-term care insurance.

And although it has a place and it can be very good at times, what I saw was, again, as an investment advisor and a planner, I wanted a win-win for a client. So then I saw that there's all these different options and solutions out there that don't have the trappings of use it or lose it, like the money's wasted if I never need care, and that kind of. of thing. But, you know, so it's a lot easier to get done than people think about to have some protection in that area, feel good about it, and not feel like you're just betting against yourself. You know, so the thing is, is that people work their whole lives building their nest egg. And whether they're doing it by themselves or they have an advisor, there's a lot of

attention put on market loss, taxes, inflation, all these different things. And the energy that's spent on just portfolio design and large cap, small cap, international, all this stuff, right? All of that work that you think about done to help people grow their wealth is really setting there at jeopardy. We call it a ticking time bomb because the high cost of aging can come in towards the end of their life and sometimes not so close to the end. Sometimes it's earlier, right? The high cost of aging can come in and literally destroy even large portfolios. And that's why I wrote the book when retirement goes bad, life sucks. It's got a dramatic title, but I set and I saw that happened to families. And the subtitle is the hidden defect in a retirement portfolio that everyone

wants to ignore. And so that's why at Honor Shield, we're getting the word out. training advisors across the country to help people go in and understand that their portfolio is not prepared to handle the type of threat that the high cost of aging can be. And there's a good there's a there's a win-win way to handle it. You know, in your book and your teachings, you talk about what's the biggest threat to family wealth. And I think that's what you're leading into, but talk a little bit more about that. Yeah. So in our country, we're in the middle of a shift right now. So we're shifting in America from about 15, 16% of the people being 65 and over up to in the mid-20s. That's a huge shift for a population of 330 plus million people.

And at the same time, you know, you see what's happening. The care industry itself is kind of like having a hard time finding people. So not only are we living longer, but we have two things happening. One, the longevity. Everybody kind of knows, oh, people are living longer, right? But there's a counter to that, which is a lower birth rate. So the birth rate in our country has not replaced the younger workers. So this is just kind of a macro thing not to get in the weeds with it. But that shift in America is not going to stop. And so you contrast that up against this major transfer of wealth that's going to happen in the next 10, 15, 20 years. So you have the boomer generation. and then some of their parents are still alive. And as they pass away, this wealth is getting transferred over. Well, another component here is that a lot of that wealth, especially boomer's wealth, has been built pre-tax in what?

Yeah. 401K, 403B. Qualified plans. Yeah, so the first qualified plans really began around 1980. So here we are, you know, 43 years later, where all this wealth has been built and not a dime of tax has been paid on it. So one thing that we talk about at Honor Shield and a show in the book is that there's a compounding that happens when people get to that point. They're pulling money out of their IRA to pay for care.

Now, not only are they, do they have the math working against them in down markets? They're pulling money out. So that's, and then they have to pay extra taxes. And then the care cost is going up. And all that adds up. For example, I show in the book where a million dollars with just a conservative three-year example, winds up at the end of three years at $428,000, just from $88,000 a year, a care cost, three years in a row with the market fluctuation in there, a little income coming out and paying

the taxes. And so that's unrecoverable. And so that is, that has, that has the biggest threat to this transfer of wealth from one generation to the next being impacted, uh, because, just because people aren't prepared. And the thing is, it's really easy to actually get prepared. Well, and it makes me think of something else too. This is not some little known thing that probably would never happen to anyone ever and we're just making a big deal of it to scare people. There's a statistically a great chance that this is a need for many people. So talk a little bit about, you know, the chance that you might need to deal with this. That's right. So if you picture yourself kind of sitting in a room with 10 people or 100 people, maybe you're sitting in church with, with 100 people, then a 70 of those people, if you look around you, there's 70 of those people statistically are going to need some type of assistance of another person on a regular basis. And so, you know, that's like you said, and one of the examples I give is like, okay, the chances

of a house fire are 3 and 100. The chances of a car accident are about 18 and 100. And the chances of needing care and going down that route is about 70. Like I said, out of 100. And yeah, it just puts it in perspective. And so no one in our country is really going to be untouched by this, even for the roughly 30% or so that escape maybe not having to have care, well, what if, what if that is a spouse of, let's say it's a lady who ends up caring for her husband for, you know, eight or nine years. Like this one lady, I knew it came into my office named Julia. She cared for her husband for nine years. And by the time I met her, She had been, he had been passed away for six years.

And she was living in an assisted living. When I met her, she looked, I'll never forget the day she looked at me. And I talk about this in the book, because I'll never forget the state. She looked at me and she said, Carrie, I'm still tired. And financially, Mike, she had gone from 700,000 down to when I met her. She had 70,000 left and more outgo than income. You know, so we were able to unlock that veteran's pension I mentioned for her. and that brought in $1,000 a month, which helped her money last a little longer.

So as you said, this is not the kind of thing that, oh, well, it's just going to happen to somebody else. We're all going to be affected by this one way or the other if we haven't already. Well, and it might not be like you personally in that 70%, but your parent may be in that 70%, and it might be impacting you as the child or the sibling. you know, so there's ripple effects to how it affects. Maybe it is not going to affect you dollar for dollar, but maybe there's a financial component. Maybe it's the emotional component like the client you just mentioned that said, I still feel tired. So if they, if people knew that there was a plan in place or here's what to do if and when this happens, it's kind of like going,

wow, you know, I made my goals for the year and I can see that I can achieve these. It's kind of like you take a really deep breath and go, I can do that. Well, I think that having that plan in place and knowing that you've got someone guiding the process, that takes a big, it provides a big relief. Well, it's huge. Yeah. And really, behavior change is what we're after. Because when people have some type of protection in place, some provision where they are the opposite story of what I mentioned earlier. You know how earlier I mentioned the million dollars going down to $428,000 in three years with a conservative example. Well, when there's protection in place, all of a sudden now, There's confidence.

There's a plan. There's a pathway. And when that happens, people make better decisions. That's what I mean by behavior change. Like I watched it over and over happen with all these families, even unlocking the thousands and what ended up overall millions of dollars that we were able to help unlock for wartime veterans and their widows and their families. I just saw the stress go down.

I saw the decision making improve, being able to advocate for kids. because what you do is you always put the quality of life or the older person in the center position. You know, so that's why Honor Shield is named Honor Shield because we are called to honor, you know, our mothers and fathers and honor one another. And because it is a multi-generational piece, it's just, it's just been, it's kind of been cast aside, this whole area of planning, all of the available things out there that we work with and help inform people of and expose them to,

it's just been pushed to the side. And so, because, you know, to your point, a loving husband or wife or son or daughter or grandchild or even sometimes neighbors, they're going to act out of love. They want to take care of the person they love. And they're going to do that at their own expense. So we always say that the high cost of aging,

it demands resources. be spent one way or the other. So obviously people think of money as resources, but what they don't think of as humans are resources too. So that human component, that's why we lose 30% of the spousal caregivers before the people they're even caring for. And so the ladies in our country are taking an undue share of this. And I think that's pretty obvious. People may not stop and think about it, But I think people understand that most of the time it's the daughters who are looked to. It's the wives who are looked to. Not that there's not a lot of men laying down their lives as well.

So my point is that people who love their family, they love their friends, they're going to sacrifice what they have to sacrifice to get it done. That care need is going to demand those resources be spent one way or the other. What we're trying to say is, hey, guess what? We can raise the quality of life of everybody involved by just simply thinking. thinking about this ahead of time and doing some planning. And having that positive ripple effect. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Now, that's why I have a chapter in the book that talks about being a care manager, not a care instead of a caregiver. So it's about mixing and matching that. We can still take care of our loved one. But then being that care manager, I like that play on words or that twist. Because a caregiver is that action word. You know, I've got to give this care. A care manager might mean that I'm not actually doing it all, but I know who needs to do it.

And I know the plan and I'm making sure that it's getting done. That's a whole lot less stress than the one caregiving and having to roll up their sleeves and get her done. Absolutely. So it's just really multifaceted. And, you know, the other book that we have is called Financial Survival for Families in the Grip of Dementia. And it's more of a toolkit book, I call it. It's packed full of strategies and solutions and ways to go about it. When retirement goes bad is built out of around four stories and with these wisdom chapters in between.

So between the two, it helps us understand the issue, understand the problem, and then have some direction to go about it. You know, that 70% number is staggering, but it is pretty broad. Yeah, it really is. It's like, let's come back to that thing, because, you know, It's broad, but who is it, who's this threat affecting the most? Who it's affecting the most is, well, you know, that's a hard question to answer because it's really affecting spouses, I would say, more than anything. Well, and where I was thinking, too, is isn't it true that females tend to now live a little longer than males statistically? So, you know, you mean demographically, who's it affecting the most?

Yeah. Yeah. So definitely affecting females. Really, I think let's turn that question just a little bit. And I think the reason why you asked the question and you're feeling that way is because of how prevalent the onset of early onset Alzheimer's, all the dementias, things like that. You know, with that longevity you talked about with the ladies living longer generally, then that we're seeing more dementia all the time. That's why we wrote the book and called it financial survival for families in the group of dementia.

Not that that book can't help people if it's not dementia, but the point is, is that our ladies are taking the brunt of it, like we said, like you said. But it's really just affecting everybody. And so, you know what, really, the reason why you see me kind of step back on that question, and I talk about this in our seminars and things, is that there's really no predicting how you're going to age. And so I talk about that. Like we can we can do all these. We can certainly do things to keep ourselves as cognitively sharp as possible. We can work out. We can eat good.

And we should. We need to do all those things. It's going to give us a better shot, right? But there's no way to predict if someone's going to have dementia and have a loss of function because of that or a stroke. You know, the heart doctors are doing really good these days. But how often do you still hear of a stroke? coming out of nowhere for somebody, right? So there's really no way to predict who and when,

and that's why you just have to be prepared. You have to be prepared. No different than you would never consider having your home uninsured against fire or some of these other things that are a lot less likely to occur, but you know what that would do to you financially if that happened. And then the emotional and relational trickle down from there. Yep, 100%. So, obviously we've kind of talked about this issue and I don't want to dive in too deep because I think the what's the solution would take four and a half hours and then we're just getting started. But from a 30,000 foot view, what are some things that people should consider when protecting themselves from this threat? Yeah. Well, just mainly consider that there are ways out there to

look at it like any other allocation in your portfolios. So most people during their lives, they've said, okay, I want to have a 60-40 stock bond mix. I want to have it. And so I'm using that as an example, but the solutions that we use actually aren't at risk in the market at all. They're actually principal protected and safe. And that's one reason why we call it Wall Street's Dirt Little Secret, some of these dynamics that happen. And so what has been around for a long time that nobody knows about are these solutions where you can actually take a small slice out of the nest egg and just move it over a couple of notches into a solution

that then gives you leverage or a multiple of that number. I always think of like the CD, you know, like the fellow says to his wife, now, Martha, you know, we're going to set this over here at the bank and that's going to take care of us when we're older, you know? Well, the point is is that those dollars are going to set somewhere. So why not have them set in an account that can give them two or three or sometimes four times a multiple of that if they need care, but yet be able to pass some money onto the airs if that person makes it through and never needs care. You know, like my 97-year-old grandmother, she passed away. She was working in her greenhouse the day before she passed away, didn't feel good that night,

and we said goodbye to her the next morning, you know, and so she was one of those that made it through. Well, you know, how comforting it is to know that if she had one of these solutions in place that it would have, you know, her money wouldn't have been wasted. And it's just a smart way to go about it. So that's a huge point that you bring up. And let's pause there for two seconds because I want to hear your next point. But there are too many things out there that we pay on a monthly basis.

And it's a cost. It's not an investment. And that cost might not ever, you know, let's think of it like this. How many times we bought a stove dishwasher or refrigerator bought the protection plan, that's a cost. And then the thing didn't break. So we never used it. Well, you're saying that there are some ways. And again, we don't want to get into them now, but just to kind of put a cap on this concept that there are some ways that money can sit there and work for you in a couple different angles at the same time and providing the protection

while also providing benefit now. And I think that's an exciting concept. 100%. And, you know, people just don't know about it. it because our industry has not, is just kind of like this is a topic that seems like the financial industry doesn't really want to talk about or address either. You know, so taxation is the other point that people really don't realize that there's government tax incentives out there. There's laws that have been passed to be able to take that block of money. And you remember when I talked about maybe two or three, four, a multiple of your dollars being there for care. Well, how nice is it that all of them?

that that two or three of four-time multiple could be all tax-free, you know, so there's, so there's the tax piece. And last but not least, it's a matter of people want to stay at home, you know, people want to stay in their home. It's how they age. So what we really want to do is keep them having control as long as possible. Nobody likes to not have control. And that's, that's really at the end of the day, what we're trying to give families is the power of choice and the power of control. That's like I said, that decision making, being able to age where I want to age, it's very important. Control freedom, flexibility.

You know, I think that's, when you think about financial freedom, sometimes it's not having a gazillion dollars, but sometimes it's just the freedom and flexibility that I have to do what I want when I want because I put some protections in place. That's right. I had a client review just this week where they literally scheduled that appointment because I had put one of these solutions in place literally 13 years ago. And they were getting to the point where they were starting to use a board with post-its to remember stuff. Like it was so cute talking to them. And they're traveling. They're doing great and having fun. But they're so self-aware, Mike, that they called me and we went over everything. They wanted to know, you know, make sure they knew all the processes and have stuff in place for their kids. She's literally building like a jump drive for kind of break glass, right, if this happens, for her kids, for her two boys. And so I admired them so much for being self-aware enough to say, hey, you know, we're starting to see some of this in our own lives. And we know we're ready financially, but, you know, give us a brush up on this.

that is the ultimate way to show love regarding legacy planning, which is number one. That's right. Knowing handling it for your own self. Like the lady you just mentioned, her and her husband came to you. They're getting their affairs in order for their own self. But now we're not going to just hope that the kids rustle through this and find that. And you're creating a little jump drive and going, you know, if and when this happened, here's what to do.

And here it is like step one, step two. Here's our accounts. Here's this. And all of a sudden it's like, that is showing love because how many horror stories have we heard from other people out there every single day that now it's like, man, a life mom and dad passed away and we don't even know where we can't get into this and we don't know what they've got. And here's this bill.

That just kind of wraps everything up in a nice red bow of love. Absolutely. You know, those legal docs is, it's just another area that if left undone, then it can unravel a lot of things that unintended, unintended outcomes. And so that's why even in our live workshops, our seminars and Honor Shield, we have a little section on legal docs in there. We help people realize that, you know, you need to get these done. And so it's included in our conversations because it is that important.

So, yeah, but it's, you know, everybody's really busy. Life is crazy. Everybody's going 100 gazillion miles an hour. it's just that the industry as a whole has not helped people prepare for really this big part of retirement that can be there. And so if that happens and people progress and need care and then have to start paying for it, people just have no idea the devastation that can occur. And then there's a trickle-down effect to all that. And so that's what drives us. So that's what drives us to do this and want to get the word out.

Well, Carrie, it's been such a pleasure talking with you. These are eye-opening concepts. And I love how you present them with care and empathy. So if anyone is interested in learning more, connecting with you and getting a copy of your book, what's the best way they can do that? Yeah, really, honorshield.com, just that simple website, honorshild.com is the best place to go. And it's on our website's not built to be some deep down encyclopedia, but it's a connector.

It's a conduit. It can get you to different things that you're looking for. Excellent. Well, Kerry, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Hey, me too, Mike. It's been great spending this time with you and look forward to the next one. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders to learn more.

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