Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Nef El Bey with C & K Healthcare Advisors & Founder of Insured By Nef Discussing Asset Management for the Working Class

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Nefertarei El Bey (Nef-er-tar-ee), a woman whose goal in life is to be integral and live a purpose-filled life. She worked in healthcare for over 23 years. Her past experiences prepared me for a variety of development and leadership. She has worn lots of hats: Insurance Claims Management, Customer Service Management, Medical Billing and Coding, Auditor for Subrogation Cases. The list goes on and on.The commonality of all these roles is people. Everyone wants to be heard and understood. All the roles she found herself in were liaisons between the company and the people. This is how she came to know my true purpose, being a servant to man.She is honored to be a community resource, helping individuals understand Medicare plans and final expenses. She’s a licensed agent for health and life in 13 states. She is invested in each client by educating and keeping them informed of updates.Nefertarei is a wife, mother, grandma, sister, auntie, daughter, and most importantly, a child of God. She resides with her husband in Concord, NC. Her ideal weekend is not to have plans and do NOTHING!!! Nevertheless, when you hear her name or think of her now, she is passionate and always grateful to serve.Learn more: http://www.insuredbynef.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-nef-el-bey-with-c-k-healthcare-advisors-founder-of-insured-by-nef-discussing-asset-management-for-the-working-class

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 Neff L Bay with C&K Healthcare Advisors and the founder of Insured by Neff. and we'll be talking about asset management for the working class. Neff, welcome to the program. Thank you so much.

I'm happy to be here. Hey, so I'm excited to talk to you, but before we dive into asset management for the working class, give us a little bit of your story and background, and how did you get into the financial services industry? Wow, well, it's very interesting. So I've always been in the healthcare space where I did medical billing and coding. and so I held several positions. I was an accounts receiver, well manager. I also helped fight appeals.

And with that being said, the common goal was always helping people. And so when my family members started to age and they had questions about Medicare, I realized, okay, this is another space. So having to help them navigate through their insurance plans, although I was very familiar because my prior background, I said, oh, I can get a license in this. So I end up getting my license. I enjoyed it. And I really enjoy speaking with individuals and helping them be comfortable with their plans.

And so the space I started off with was, like I said, was Medicare, helping a lot of seniors. And I enjoyed it. And so that's been my attitude, you know, always go in, help educate individuals. And so that's where I am. You know, what I love about that is that it's everything you just said was all about the other person, not you. It wasn't like, well, I wanted to get into an industry to make a bazillion dollars. It was, this is a confusing industry. I want to help people.

I want to serve people. I want to educate people. I want them to realize their options. And probably if you were to, you know, take a survey from 100 people talking to about Medicare, probably 99.2% would go, I am confused, which end is up. So that is such a noble cause to be able to say, look, let me just be real. Let me just help you understand what is going on here. So that is so powerful. So when we talk about asset management and for the working class, let's define first what we're

even talking about. What is your view and what should someone understand? What is asset management? Okay. So when you think about asset management, you know, the key word is like asset. You know, what is an asset? An asset is a resource with economic value that an individual, a company, or that owns control with the expectation for a future benefit, right?

So thinking about that, a lot of people don't even think that insurance is that. And you know why? Because a lot of working class individuals don't own their policy, right? So anything that when they're working and their job offers them benefits, they don't own that. And so they never think about insurance. being an asset to them. But what I try to educate and provide is say, hey, you need to own your own policy. You know, if you don't have a policy outside of your job, you really don't have anything. And what I mean by that is that job could be terminated tomorrow or you could walk away.

And a lot of times there have been times where you've walked away from a job and you have to start all over. The HR person needs to see you to provide you with these benefits, you know. And what happens a lot of times is guess what? Insurance is based on age. So now, oh my goodness, if I a policy back when I was 25, 30 establishing that asset, then my premiums will be a lot lower. So when you just educate on that little piece alone, like, hey, own what you have, like, own that and you can use it in the future, then it kind of like puts on the light bulb because I think so many times we put those type of responsibilities in other people's hands as far as our future of finances, right?

You know, we rely on our job to give us that paycheck or rely on our job to give those benefits. But when you actually can own that, that is powerful. You know, I love that mindset shift that you just went over because it's been a couple decades since I've worked in corporate America. But I know that I remember. And my kids and I are getting into the workforce. And they're calling me up going, what do I do about? I've got this HR meeting and papers and 401Ks. But I know that with all these papers that go in front of you, you're like insurance and we provide this as part of your benefits and it's $100,000.

And you're like, okay, sounds good. well that really is part of the job and it's like if you have a company car and you leave that job you don't take the car with you same with what you just described many of the now a 401k that's yours and you can transfer it over but this company provided insurance life insurance it is not an asset of yours that you have control over and that is step number one i think that's huge step number two once you make that decision to go okay that's news to me how do I make it my own? How do you begin viewing insurance as a wealth-building tool

instead of just a bill that you have to pay every month and that one day if I ever die, it's going to pay my family X number of dollars? Because I feel like a lot of people don't view life insurance as a wealth-building tool. They view it as an expense that pays when you die. Absolutely. So that is one of the keys that I love.

So one of the products that I love to push is an IUL, which is that wealth management that you're talking about, that wealth building, right? So it is a permanent policy. And so really speaking with individuals and educating them on insurance, I have to really start from the basic, right? So we know that there's two type of insurance, you know, term. You know, that is for a specific time. And then once that time is over, you no longer have anything. Okay. But I do encourage people to get more of a permanent policy, which is, you know, your whole life, keyword, whole life, your whole entire life, right? And so the IUL kind of steps in and do a little bit more than just protecting your whole life, okay?

So it does three things, which I love. For one, you're going to get your immediate death benefit, okay? That's one thing. So if something happens to you, your family, or whoever you love, they are able to get that policy. It also builds up cash value. So people say, what is cash value? Basically, when you are responsible for putting this policy into place, you are assigned a monthly premium. Okay.

So that monthly premium, what you pay into the policy, that is your cash value. A lot of the products that we have, it is assigned what we call an internal rate of return. So it's like a percentage. So you have a percentage time your monthly premium. So think about that. You put that in there for 15, 20 years. It's building up a lot, right? Right. So prime example, what I tell people all the time is let's just say that you have a insurance policy is $300,000.

Okay. It has built up $50,000 worth of cash value. That's a lot. Well, think about that. Things happen. You know, emergencies might happen. You might need to move. The air conditioning unit could go out. You might want to go on a trip. For me, an emergency for me is, you know, going to Paris and spending money. I'm just playing. But that would be something that I would want to do. So when the money bills up, you can borrow against it tax-free, right? And people are like, wow. And guess what? Nothing has happened to your face value. You just pay that money back at a specific time, but it's still yours. And then it also provides you with living benefits. So a lot of times people are looking like, well, what are living benefits?

If I had a heart attack today or stroke or cancer, I'm not going back to work, right? But guess what keeps on coming every month? Those bills. I have a mortgage. I have car insurance, car payment. I need to eat, right? And so after a while, my savings is depleted or PTO, you know, but I can't return back to work. Well, with that product having a living benefit, it allows you to access 80% of your policy.

So I can access 80% of that cash, I mean, that face value, which is $300,000, and I can continue to live. Is that not awesome? So with that, you know, yeah, we talk about asset management, you know, and life insurance, but I just really want them to shift their mind like, this is a necessity. It's not like, oh, I'll think about it later on. Let's just think about that now. Well, and to me, it also brings up this aha moment, I think. If you have, let's say, car insurance, you pay that bill.

And every month you pay the bill if you don't make a claim. then it's just a bill. And at the end of the year, if you didn't make a claim, you've paid all that money and you don't get that money back. If you need to make a claim, okay,

it covers you, that's wonderful. But same with traditional life insurance like most people think. If I die, my family gets X number of dollars, but it doesn't do me any good while I'm living.

What you just described is a tremendous amount of benefits that I can tap into if needed right now, like what you were mentioning, like, oh, I need for some disability, or this, but also, I've even heard that some of these policies will allow you to go, like you said,

vacations, but how about college? You know, you get your kids heading out to college, and man, those 529 plans, they might not be cutting it just yet. But this could be a great way to kind of almost, you know, not go begging at the bank. You're your own banker. You can go and take care of things like that, right? Absolutely. And that's one thing that I do like to speak with families about, you know, especially my young family members that have children, you know, that have not graduated from high school yet.

They're still in their matriculation process, you know, so elementary, right? And so what I asked them is, hey, have you, you know, saved up any money for your child's college funds? Some people say, yes. And then others, you know, say, well, I hadn't thought about that. So they have heard about that 529 plan that you mentioned. But I do encourage them, you know, that, well, are you sure that your child's going to go off to college? know, with the state of the world, everybody does not want to go to a four-year college. And there's nothing wrong with that.

They might have a more open mind, want to travel or do more certificate-based type of a, you know, like the trades. Yeah, absolutely. So the good thing about the IUL is that, guess what, you can start a policy for your child. It still builds up that cash value, right? And then if they get 1821 and you want to purchase them their first home or car or whatever, they can still bar against that tax-free. The 529 is a little bit different because if they don't go to college, they just can't just take that money out.

It's only designed. Yeah. If you're going to a higher education type of program. Yeah. So I love that. That's huge. You know, another thing about this that makes me think you had mentioned briefly about like, oh, yeah, but you went for one job and got this and then now you're older you need. And then you're older.

You pay a higher premium. Or maybe your health changed with a traditional type term type policy. if you bought a 10-year term or 15 or 20 and then that ends, now you're in your 50s having to buy new insurance and you might have some health concerns. So with this kind of policy, it's permanent, right? So you don't have to re-qualify. Right.

That is so true. And that is one thing. That is one of my talking points, Mike, when I talk about, you know, term versus the permanent insurance, you know, the IUL. Because like you said, what's the term is over, it's over. And then things do happen in our health where you're not insurable. Right. And so that is one thing, too. I mean, we do have to look at those policies. Some policies are underwritten and, you know, ask a lot of questions. Sometimes we don't take care of our health like we need to. But this right here, when you go ahead and get in this plan and it's permanent, you don't have to worry about that. The one thing that I also like about this, too, is from the day that you're quoted, your premium does not increase at all. Wow. So that's why I encourage individuals, give it why you're young. But if you have not taken the time to that it's okay, you know, even if you get it in your 50s or 60s or 70s, that premium will not

increase. It will, you will still be responsible for that monthly premium, what you were quoted as originally, which I love that. You know, another thing to think about, too, is when when people have this plan in place, it is, I just feel like if I can have one thing that does multiple outputs, that's a, that's a great tool, you know. And this is doing so many things. You mentioned tax-free growth, that cash value that you're talking about. If you put your money, let's just think in an example of like you're talking about, the working class,

you sign those papers with HR and you put your money in that 401K. Well, maybe the company matches whatever percent will down the road that money grows that you have to pay taxes on that because it's not been taxed. Talk a little bit about the tax-free aspect. of this type of a product. This is one thing I love about this product as well. So you mentioned, you know, that if you work for a traditional employee, but I also encourage individuals that are business owners, right, to take advantage of this IUL as well, because it happens a lot of times when you're trying to build a business, you know, you're thinking

about how the operations is going on, you know, trying to stay in business, your day-to-day. A lot of times you don't take the time to think about retirement. and it's so prevalent that we need to. However, you know, in the back of our mind, it's like, oh, we'll get to it whenever. But I do encourage business owners to go ahead. If you have not put any money into your retirement, look at it like that. So it's not too late. Yeah.

You know, if you're 45, 50 years old, you have not planned for your retirement. Set you up with the IUL because I have had individuals that have not planned for that. And when I told them, hey, it's not too late. they feel a sense of relief. You know, a lot of times people don't like to talk about it because they might be embarrassed or they feel guilty that they have not made those plans. But yeah, this is a great thing to do, you know, as well. Now, with the 401K, like you was mentioning, you know, as we know that most people that retire

with the 401K, they just don't have enough money. I mean, I think the average retire with 401K is maybe $21,000. So we see some of our elderly working at the Walgreens, Walmart, Greeting, It's not that they're bored. They've just run out of money, right? And so if a 401K is their only source of a retirement, that's not going to last them. They're going to run out of money. We also encourage individuals that if you do have a 401K or any other source of retirement,

use an IUL as well to use that in addition to that. Because, again, this policy is building up that cash value and you can use this in your retirement. So to me, it's just a win-win all around. You know, it's something that you should not say, oh, wow, I heard this wonderful idea about this product. I'm going to now do that as 100% of my retirement plan. No. And is this the best idea for every single person out there? No.

So I think that it's so invigorating when we hear about ideas this way to say, hey, tell me how I should look at it and could this, help me. And if it could be a help, yeah, have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But here's the big thing I want to ask you. Too many of us feel so self-sufficient that we hear a neat idea. We go Google this. We click on that and yay, I did that thing I heard. You can't do that with this because it has to be properly structured and set up the right way to do all these things you're talking about. So you can't just buy it off the shelf, right? No, no. You need an agent, right and so what I do is I sit down with individuals couples you know business owners and we do what we call a financial assessment okay so um a lot of times you know we know we need money but we don't like to talk about

buddy but we have to talk about it to know what we need in the future right so this is all about planning we have to plan because if you do not have a plan then you're really in a pickle right so what we talk about is hey whatever your salary is today right you need 10 times of that for life insurance. And a lot of people say, oh, my God, I don't know, you know, if I can afford it, you know, so when we start doing the financial assessment and showing them, I say, well, you might not can get 10 times, but let's get close to it, you know. And at that point, what we do is we start talking about what they have out there, you know, like if you are the breadwinner, sir or ma'am, you know, and you passed away and died, you know, who is going

to take care of that mortgage for your family, you know, and they don't have enough life insurance. got to talk about that. So that is what we do as far as the first steps. We sit down, we make a plan for them, find out, you know, where are we, you know, and then what do you want a retirement to look like? You know, if you want to travel, if you want to go out to eat a certain amount of times, if you, whatever you want to do, you know, we have to put that in there so we can make sure that that that money is working for you, building up that cash value, let that interest work, that compound interest, all of that. And so that when it is time to take that retirement, then you'll have enough.

So it starts with the plan. So once we sit down and find out where you're, where you are, I'm telling you the sigh of relief. And I love to see that. They feel like then now we are prepared because I've seen when you're not prepared and it's not a good feeling. But for those that I have sat down with and talked to about preparing for the future, it's a great feeling. You know, it really is something where it's like when you sit down and you plan something out,

you kind of take that deep breath and go, okay. This might change. We might need to readdress it and tweak and check in here and there. But it kind of gives you that spring in your step and it gives you peace of mind. And that is worth its weight in gold. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, what I want people to just understand is that, you know, for the average worker, it's just not a life insurance policy.

It's not that. It's the foundation for a really financial freedom because, you know, it's just not, oh, okay, let me go get this life insurance. But it's not that because you might live. to you 125, but something might happen to you where you need to access those living benefits, you know, or you might want to do something and can access that cash value, you know. So I just love that. It's just really that foundation that you need to stand on when thinking about that. Shift your mind from just a life insurance policy.

It's more than that. It does all of these things just by starting with speaking with one of our representatives today to get your family on the path to financial freedom. Love it. Well, Neff, if someone is interested in. and finding out a little bit more, what's the best way that they can reach out and connect with you? Absolutely. Well, you can always contact me at my website, which is insured by NEF.

And then I have a business line, which is 980-866-8407. Excellent. Well, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you so much for having me. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders to learn more about the resource mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes. Visit www.

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