Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Laurene Breitkreutz, Founder of Your Wealth Refined Discussing How Life Insurance Fits Into Retirement

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Laurene didn’t take the traditional path into financial planning. She took the real one.She started working at 16 to help her family make ends meet after her stepfather had an industrial accident. He went from bringing home $600 a week to $35. So she got a job, stayed in school, and figured out how to navigate a world that doesn’t wait for people to be ready.She spent 31 years with AT&T — starting as a junior in high school, working her way up, and eventually retiring at 48 when they laid me off. She had a pension. I had time. And she was not going to spend it babysitting.So Laurene went back to work. She has now had four careers. The one that shaped me most — before financial planning — was 13 years as a business consultant, walking into family-owned businesses and asking every uncomfortable question until people understood what they actually needed. She wasn’t the one with all the answers. She was the one who asked until the right answers surfaced.That’s exactly what she does now.For the past 13 years, she has been helping people build financial plans that actually hold up — through unexpected illnesses, market downturns, career changes, and the hard questions most advisors never ask. She started in mortgage protection, helping families make sure a mortgage wouldn’t become a crisis if someone got hurt or died. Now she works primarily with doctors and high-income professionals who are earning well but haven’t had time to build a real plan around what they’re earning.Laurene’s philosophy is simple: Mission before commission. She doesn’t care how much she makes on a plan. She cares whether the plan is right for them. It took me three years to even notice how little she was getting paid by certain carriers — that’s how little she was focused on the money. What she focuses on is the outcome.Laurene asks hard questions. she holds her clients accountable. And she show up every year at their anniversary to make sure they’re still on track — because a financial plan isn’t a one-time event. It’s a relationship.Philosophy: Security Over ReturnsHere’s what makes her different: she doesn’t chase returns. She builds security. Especially for doctors, people already have a high income. What they need isn’t more risk. They need a plan that protects what they’ve built, reduces what they owe to the IRS, and makes sure their family is never left scrambling. That’s what they build together.Her primary focus is on doctors and high-income professionals between ages 30 and 50 — people who are earning well, living well, and haven’t sat down to build a real plan yet. Whether they’re worried about taxes, what happens if they can’t work, or just the creeping feeling that they’re missing something — I’m probably a good fit.Learn more: https://www.yourwealthrefined.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-laurene-breitkreutz-founder-of-your-wealth-refined-discussing-how-life-insurance-fits-into-retirement

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 back with us Lorraine Brightcrites, who's the founder of your wealth refined. Lorene, welcome back to the program. Well, thank you, Mike. It's good to be back. Hey, I know that we want to keep talking through the way you serve your clients and guiding them and teaching them.

And this topic today is how life insurance fits into retirement. And I feel that, you know, there's certain words in the English language when you hear them, you kind of make an automatic assumption. And I think if you say life insurance to people, they're like, oh, no, I'm good, I'm good. I'm, you know, and they don't really fully understand. And so where does that misconception begin with on people when they hear life insurance and they assume they're covered and got plenty? But really what they're saying is I don't want to be sold anything new. So I think that when I think about my first education into life insurance, I thought it was misnamed. I thought it should be called death insurance because that's really what people's connotation is when I die.

somebody is going to get paid. So they don't really understand what the uses of life insurance can be. And so as you said, they think, oh, no, I'm not going to buy any life insurance today. She's working up the wrong tree. That's a really great distinction. And I agree with that because it's kind of like the same joke or funny, ha-ha, that we don't really have a health care system. We have a sick care because you don't. don't really go in when you're healthy, you go in when you're sick, you know. And so it's just that

mindset shift where if you did treat the healthcare system like a true preventative, you might not go in with as many maladies as people have these days. So if you treated the insurance side of things as a, you know, preventative and looked at what benefits you can put into place and access while you're still living, that changes the story a whole lot, right? That is actually correct. So you brought up a word there, living. So one of the things about life insurance is that it has changed so much over the years that it's not just death insurance, it is living. So if you had some sort of a living problem such as health issues,

then there are living benefits if you developed cancer. If you had an automobile accident, you were critically injured, then you could collect living benefits while you're living. So it's not, you know, it can be used for both. But so many other things that folks just don't know about in the insurance arena. I know I didn't know them all. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, let's kind of dive into a little bit of that without getting into too much detail. But what are the types of the life insurance policies that?

you recommend or that can actually be considered to factor into retirement because I think a lot of times people don't think about the connection to retirement, but there's a whole lot of options there, aren't there? Tremendous amount. So life insurance is really divided into two categories. And one is simpler. The other one is a little more complex. So there's term. And all that means is it's for a specific period of time, whether it's 10 years. I think the longest policy I've seen is 40 years. Unfortunately, in that scenario, God didn't share with each one of us how long we're going to live whatever he allowed us to come to this planet. So we don't know, we don't know how to plan accordingly. But that's term. It's only going to be for a certain period of time.

whole whenever we look at whole it's for your whole life or supposed to be but there's several forms that it can take so um it can be for your whole life it used to be planning to live to a hundred now that number's been expanded to 120 age so um but in that hole there's several different ones than just that age qualification. And also, isn't there a distinction between like the whole or permanent life? Like it's not term. It's not just for a certain 10, 15, 20 years. It's for permanent. And then all the choices under that. Isn't one of the benefits of getting the permanent side of the equation? The fact that you never need to redo it again, you never need to do health. and what if you're in your 60s and now you have to get new insurance because the term ran out.

Now you've failed the health exam and now you're up a creek. So is it there a big benefit of having the permanent side that way where it's like they can never take it away from you? That is exactly right. You hit the nail on the head. So you've got done your investigation. So you don't have to go through underwriting is what you're talking about again. And you have the benefits. And then as I said, there's several types.

So you could even have a whole life that you pay off at a certain time. But I mean, you're not paying into it anymore. But it continues to cover you until your final days. That's really powerful. So let's so let's talk about that side of the equation where, you know, like any kind of policy, you've got premiums. So the term premiums are paid the whole term. but the permanent side of the equation, the whole life side, you may have it structured where you pay premiums for a certain number of years. And then the policy just is still in effect. Like you just said,

talk a little bit about the cash value build up side of things because, you know, yes, there's the death benefit side, but on the living benefit side, as cash builds up inside the policy, you can do a lot of things with that. Exactly. So just for instance, I have a client that he's a doctor, no names to be mentioned, but he is putting $50,000 a year into his policy. And for 20 years, so if there are any math geniuses listening, $50,000 for $1 million. So when, if he decides to retire at that 20 year mark, then that money will have grown cash value that will exceed a million dollars. In his case, it would be $1.4 million and not to get too technical, but his plan is to retire about six years after that date, and it would have grown to

1.8 million. Now, the numbers on that because of the fact that that cash value is building and earning money, then it would have continued to grow and would provide him a paycheck in retirement. And if at a certain date, he were to pass away, in his case, it's 86. So I don't know whether he'll die by then or not, but that's the example that we're using. Yeah, the example. Yeah. And so at 86, he passes away. He would have been paid. If my memory serves me correctly, something less than $760,000, but the total would have been $3.4. So whatever that is, I just remember, the $3.4 million would have been paid to him over his retirement years. and 761,000 would be paid to his beneficiaries.

Now, all of that money would have been tax-free. Wow. So let's think about something. You just mentioned the income stream in retirement when you decide to turn that on at that certain age, six years after whatever that calculation. So at some point, that insurance policy turns into an income stream. That's huge.

And I would venture to say that nine out of ten people that think of the word life insurance, they don't think of it as an income stream. So that's really an interesting aspect. Then, of course, you've got the death benefit side like we always think about life insurance. Like, oh, at 86, what if he were to pass away? Now his family gets money. So that's great. But then you brought up a huge point there. Tax advantage, tax free.

That's really powerful because when you start thinking about all. the other benefits and then you you grab that money all of a sudden uncle samms got his fingers in the cookie jar but not with this kind of a setup exactly so in this instance um just to bring a recollection to my mind years ago i kept hearing this phrase use other people's money use other people opm yeah and i kept wondering who are these other people i want to know i want to meet them So I didn't know it was going to take me a lifetime to learn that they're insurance companies. They are other people. Let's use their money.

So they contribute to that cash value continually over that time and let it build. If you buy a term policy, you're not getting that benefit. It's just a monthly bill. Yeah. Exactly. So. And so it's, but I finally learned. what other people's money.

That's awesome. So you mentioned the doctor and 50,000 a year and some people might go, oh, my goodness, I don't even make 50,000 a year. I certainly can't contribute. Would this same type of financial instrument be beneficial even for the smaller figures? You know, like what if it was 5,000 a year? It wouldn't provide all of the big numbers and returns. But is this still a good strategy for the middle class?

people that that aren't really in that realm of doctor income? Absolutely. Absolutely. So I don't have the numbers run on a number like that, but it's easy to do it. But anytime you can get someone else to pay you without doing anything extra, you're not paying interest. They're paying you interest. So you let that money build. So it doesn't matter the number.

It just so happened that he had, I mean, doctors make money. let's face it. Sure. He had that amount of money and could do it. The numbers would still be relatively beneficial even with the lower investment. So I just wanted to clarify that, you know, this is not just for the high flyers. This is for anybody. You just get set up a smaller policy and you get, you know, wonderful benefits that way.

Because some of the cash value that builds up over the years, you can do more with. that than just the income in retirement, right? Like if you all of a sudden, five, seven, eight, nine years into having the policy in place, what if you needed to access it for something? Like, I need to send my kid to college or I need to buy a car. You can, you can access that again. It's not locked up and you can never touch it. That is absolutely correct. You can borrow from the cash value and not to get too much too technical. you're borrowing from the insurance carrier's general fund. You're not borrowing your money.

So you, a specific would have to be discussed with a client, but it's not going to go away. It's going to continue to sit there and earn interest over the years, even though you have an obligation for it to be paid back at some future time. But your money continues to grow. no place else can you have that no place that I know of yeah yeah like I think a lot of times people go oh man I put all this money into whatever an IRA or 401k and now I need some back but I can't take it because it's my retirement account and I'm going to get taxed or penalized not with this you can

reaccess it and then you you sit down with someone like yourself and go hey I need a chunk of change what should I do and then you explain all of those things but I think that's really powerful You know, that kind of is another of the living benefit side of things like, hey, you can have an income stream in retirement. You can borrow if you needed to have that. What's some of the other ways that someone might not understand the living benefit side of things that you can kind of tack on to these kinds of policies? So when we propose a policy that has living benefits, we bring out the, fact that, well, for instance, one living benefit is if you cannot perform at least two of the functions of daily living. So let's say that you are in that critical car accident and you cannot

move from your bed to a chair or a walker or anything like that. And or you can't prepare your, you can't groom yourself, you can't get yourself to the washroom, the six activities of daily living. So if two of those six applied, then part of your funds could be paid to you while you're living to help you pay your mortgage, pay your doctor bills, hire somebody to take care of you, whatever you need the money for. And you would still keep your quote unquote, life insurance. Yeah. That's a really big thing for two reasons in my mind. So correct me if I'm wrong. But if you needed that kind of care like you're describing and you don't have this type of policy set up, you've got the choice of, well, I got to dip into my cash reserves or my retirement accounts,

which if you have it, then that's impeding the growth. So that's not a wonderful scenario. If you don't have it, you're really, you know, in trouble. But then also, there's some standalone in policies that would take care of the long-term care like you're describing, but they tend to be super expensive and restrictive. So hearing that you can add this in and have this as a living benefit, that's another layer of peace of mind that people would really appreciate, I would suspect. Exactly. And the other thing is it's not necessarily added in with most of the policies that I recommend. it's offered by the carrier at no extra charge. Wow. That's pretty cool.

That's pretty neat. So let's kind of wrap up our thought process with the legacy planning side of things, which is what you touched on. And again, we could do like a whole three-day seminar just on that one phrase, but touch on some of the benefits of, okay, you put this in place, you've let it accumulate, you've got cash value, death benefit, whatever. Now when the money needs to pass on to your, airs when you pass on. What are some of the benefits of that wealth transfer?

So I guess the biggest one is there's no taxes. Wow. No taxes at all. There's no, it not happening. And it's money that you can plan for. You know the, you know the approximate amount that will pass to your beneficiaries. And let's just say that you even turned off paying into the policy at that 20-year mark or whatever, no matter how much you had put in, that money is going to continue to grow. And if you don't use it for living benefits, then there's no telling what it can grow to by the time you do pass. Yeah. That's pretty amazing.

So just so many, I think we can wrap up this conversation the way we started, which is there's a lot of people that think life insurance is a bill. And when you die, you get some money. But we've just opened up Pandora's box to so many benefits. And there's probably several more that we didn't even touch on. But this is just such a powerful opportunity. I venture to say it's not something you just go Google or use AI and go set. this up for me. You got to talk to someone that knows all of these intricacies, how to fit it into your specific requirement, and then know all the ins and outs because it's probably not just fill in

the blank, set it up. There's some ways to properly set this up the right way. You're absolutely correct. It's not a do it yourself kit that you can buy and do it. Yeah, like, you know, when I've I've sold a car, you know, my son helped him with the car. You just go online, you find some boilerplate, one page, you know, bill of sale. This person sells this car to this person, sign and date. That's easy. But this kind of stuff, boy, you need someone that can sit down and really, you know, ask the right questions, give the right options, tell you some things to consider. And then check the right boxes and set it up the right way.

So, Lorraine, if someone is thinking about this as a possible addition to their retirement, plan, what's the best way that they can learn more and then reach out and connect with you? I think the best way, Mike, would be for them to go to my website, which is yourwealthrefined.com, and book a call. Let's get to know each other and make sure that it's a fit for us to work together. Perfect. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for coming back on. This has been really nice chatting with you again. Thanks, 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. www.Influentialentrepreneursradio.com.