Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Mark Dierolf Discussing The Hidden Risks That Could Derail an Otherwise Good Retirement

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Mark Dierolf has been helping individuals, families, and business owners with insurance and retirement-related decisions since 1983. With more than four decades of experience, Mark focuses on helping people age 50 and older prepare for one of life’s biggest financial transitions: moving from earning a regular paycheck to relying on the resources they’ve accumulated for retirement.His approach begins with understanding the individual—their goals, concerns, income needs, existing retirement resources, and the risks they want to address. Mark helps clients better understand retirement income and insurance options, with particular attention to dependable retirement income, protection from unnecessary risk, and the important decisions that arise as retirement approaches.Mark provides insurance and insurance-related services and works with a variety of insurance and financial companies. He does not provide securities or investment-advisory services.After more than four decades in the business, helping people understand their choices and approach retirement with greater clarity and confidence remains the most important part of Mark’s work.Learn More: https://markdierolf.com/This discussion is for general educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as individualized financial, investment, tax, legal, or securities advice. No specific insurance or financial product is being recommended. Mark Dierolf provides insurance and insurance-related services and does not provide securities or investment-advisory services.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-mark-dierolf-discussing-the-hidden-risks-that-could-derail-an-otherwise-good-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 Mark DeRolf, and he's providing retirement income services for four decades, and we'll be talking about what could derail an otherwise good retirement. Mark, welcome back to the program.

It's my pleasure. Hey, you know, I always, I'm kind of like a wordsmith, and I really like when certain words jump at you or certain phrases, and it kind of makes me think, you know, when you say, we want to talk about what could derail an otherwise good retirement, that presupposes that you have a good retirement plan put into place. And we could talk for hours on end about what. that actually is, but I would venture to say you have talked to many people that come into your office that say, hey, I've got a good retirement plan and you pull it apart and go, maybe we should

talk a little bit closer. But let's get started here where we get into this topic because I want to really unpack it for people. Sometimes people can have a large retirement savings and still run into trouble. What are some of those risks that people don't think about until it's too late? And what I mean by too late is they're already retired. And there's some recommendations and moves that they might have should have already made maybe one to two to three years before retirement, but now they're coming to you and they're already retired. So talk a little bit about what some of those risks could be. one of the biggest ones is health care people will have insurance to cover the doctors the surgery and the meds but oftentimes they don't have the funds or if they do you know it will basically take a big hit

on their retirement planning for services like assisted living and long-term care that is in fact that one for me hits home because something like that happened to my family, you know, with my parents. Yeah. You know, sometimes when you see it firsthand and you feel the pain personally, that kind of becomes like your cross that you bear and you go, I want to prevent this for other people. And let's dive in a little bit deeper on that topic of the health care slash Medicare. And I know that we could talk for a whole weekend seminar on Medicare. So let's not get into the weeds and the details. But I feel like that topic is like a really big hole in the retirement bucket that money could flow out of, if not planned for properly ahead of time.

So what are some of those things that people might assume regarding health care slash Medicare, but if they don't put them into place, it could really leak out some of those expenses? Long-term care when it comes to assisted living, you know, maybe someone to have to move in and assist you. Not everybody has the benefit nowadays of having family come in and help you, you know, like maybe it used to be. You know, people have to work. It's necessary for many people to have two incomes to survive.

And so it's difficult for expecting the kids to come back, even if you have many kids, and want to. I mean, they may come by and provide some support, but there needs to be someone there to constantly watch your parents. and that's what happens. And when it comes to costs, I'm out here in California, and we're looking at for just services like that, about $100,000 a year. I mean, you might be able to save a little bit here or there and maybe moving to a different state.

But that extra cost is usually not covered by insurance. And even if you do have insurance, there's some of it is not going to be covered. So you're going to have some exposure. And so that is something that often takes a big hit when it comes to retirement. And even people who do have insurance, a common mistake is, I see this all the time. You have a couple. The wife will have long-term care insurance and be well covered, but the husband decided he didn't want to get it.

And she couldn't get him to get it for some reason. But what happens is when he gets sick, that, money is going to come out of the retirement fund. So it's going to be basically, you know, the retirement fund is going to be depleted. In some cases, it could be depending upon how long a person lives. It could be not just a hundred thousand, it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars that could set back a retirement plan. You know, I think that there's some statements that people can make that people roll their eyes and go, oh, come on, that'll never happen. You know, like, you know, $10,000 a month for long-term care.

Well, I've heard advisors tell me that there can be the cost of that much. Maybe it's not every single time, but I know that you can attest to that. You've seen that. But also add to that point in your comment, what percentage of people have you seen either in the industry statistically or in your practice of people that need some type of long-term care? more and more as I age. So as time goes by, more and more people I notice are actually needing that.

And if you live long enough, you'll probably need it. Even if you're fairly good health, very few people are able to make it to, you know, up there in years without some type of health. But, and so, you know, most of the time, people will need some long-term care. Yeah. And by the way, it's important to mention that when it comes to long-term care planning, there are many options. One of them is the insurance. And one of the, there's different types of means of having to pay for it or plan for it. and there are many different types of insurance products to pay for it.

Some of them, for example, the most traditional ones is where you basically treat it like term insurance. That just increases a little bit every year and every year, you know, to pay for the cost. But that can get so expensive. What I've seen people do is by the time they get close to needing it, they drop that insurance because it gets too expensive, just like a term policy. but there are alternative forms of coverage for people who have assets to where they can plan for it and not have to worry about having to lose it later. You know, that's a really good point, too. I've heard the example given that, like, if you have, you know, car insurance and you did not have an accident all year long,

you can't call up your carrier and say, please send me my premiums back. Well, same with these types of policies you're talking about. They tend to get more and more expensive. So if you didn't use it for the long-term care because you didn't need it, you're not going to get the premiums back. But there are some alternatives and you don't need to get into detail, but just for people to realize that there are some alternatives than some of those older traditional standalone long-term care policies where it provides the coverage, but it's not those higher premiums. And if you didn't use it, you know, you get the benefit of not using it. your money still stays doing what it's doing, but if you use it, then it's there for you. So that's a really great point for people to keep in mind.

Well, when it comes to, I want to correct you on something, usually that's not how it works when it comes to returning premiums on a long-term care insurance contract. It's usually either they'll provide, if there is any kind of return, it would be either as a death benefit or the plan would be set up to where the plan itself. would help fund the insurance at the same time as being able to help you manage or grow your investment portfolio or not investment portfolio, excuse me, this would be basically your retirement savings. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think I must have misspoken. That's not what I meant with return of premiums. I meant that it would be nice in a perfect world if that were the case, but that's not the case. So there's other vehicles that can accomplish the same thing to give you the protection. If you didn't need it, it's there. If you did need it, it's there.

So that's powerful. You know, you mentioned something, too, I want to go a little bit deeper on his longevity. Statistically, we as people are living longer than decades and decades ago. You know, maybe the actuarial tables used to be like, hey, let's factor in living to the age of whatever it might have been, 75. and now people are using those kind of longevity tables to 90, 95, and our health care is better. We're eating better. We're exercising more. We're staying more active.

And that sounds wonderful. We're living longer. Yay. But that adds another level of complexity to the financial plan because, A, will you have enough money in that realm? And B, what we're talking about here for long-term care, those statistics might be a lot. more prominent to where, hey, if you're living into your 90s, you may very well need some type or some level of long-term care. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, people as part of any retirement plan should actually include this. And I also think about the issue, like I said, one of the biggest

problems I've seen is people, they pay for their long-term care insurance for many, many years. And then when they get up, I mean, if it turns out you need it while pretty, while young, the premiums may not be too bad. But I know people, I know people now who are paying huge premiums who are approaching their 80s. And they're, you know, unless they get sick, you know, or needed, you know, those are premiums they're never going to get back. and what some people will often do is they'll drop it. At some point they'll drop it. And I just saw that recently where someone ended up, you know, they didn't keep the coverage.

And then a few years later, they actually needed it. And so that's why when it comes to the planning, you need to think of something that's going to be long term, something that would last as long as you need it, and not take a hit on your, you know, financial. or, you know, then, you know, I think of the traditional long-term care contracts, you know, the ones, they're good, but think of them more like a term life insurance policy. Yeah. That's a good point.

Yeah, it's kind of in another analogy, because, you know, men like to use analogies. It's like renting versus buying. Yeah. Very similar. It's not the same as buying. but it's closer. It's where you have more... Well, yeah, term life might be renting

and maybe a permanent policy might be buying or, you know, things like that. That's an interesting comparison, but it's more like predictability, you know? With a term, it's predictable. It's going to go up. Okay.

You need one that's predictable. It's not going to go up. Yes. The protection will be there and it's not going to go away as long as you have the contract. Yeah, that's a great. great point. I think you had mentioned a few minutes ago that you may have had a family member that

kind of was impacted with long-term care needs. Can you tell us a little bit more detail about that? Well, that was a situation like I mentioned earlier to where, and it happens a lot. I think women tend to understand this, I think, better than us men. They understand that, you know, we need to plan to who's going to take care of us in the future. But unfortunately, a lot of us guys, we, I don't know why. It just, I mean, happens, since I'm in the business and I see this happen all the time, you know, my feelings are different. Okay.

But I guess if I wasn't, I would probably figure, like most guys do, that, well, you know, I don't really need it. She needs it, not me. Well, the problem is if you get sick or if it's me, well, guess who's going to end up paying for it? It's going to be, well, both of us initially. because it's going to come out of our retirement savings. And then later, you know, when we're sick, that means we're most likely to pass first. That means that your surviving spouse is the one that's going to take the hit too because that's less retirement savings.

So if you're going to set up a long-term care plan, both people in a relationship need to do that, not just one. That's a huge point. And I think we could, you're talking about statistics of the female typically living longer than the male, many financial plans, I'm sure, just treat them both the same. But yet, there needs to be a little bit of a calculation there. So what do you do when you're- Especially since, unfortunately, we don't live as long as the gals. So, yeah. Yeah.

So there needs to be that consideration factored in and whatever that looks like. But your retirement plan should, you know, at least, consider that. Yeah. So how do you talk with retirees about market risk without saying you should avoid it altogether or market all together because the market was their friend in the previous 30 or 40 years. Now you're getting to retirement age and you need to maybe tap the brakes a little bit, but does that mean you avoid it all together? The best way to explain this is going back, to the money management system when you're in a casino. Now, when we're talking about the market, it's not the same unless you're investing in individual stocks.

But you need to take some of what you've earned and put it aside to something that's a little bit safer and more predictable in growth. So you can rely on in case there's a market swing. You don't want to be in a position to where you're retired now, and a market decline will take years to recover from, because you don't have that. And so you never really want to put as much in the market, then you can afford to lose. And it's mostly, like I said, unless it's an individual stocks, it's mostly time that you lose. And some cases, there's a recent history. I recall it took like four years for people to recover. I mean, yeah, they recovered, but four years.

I mean, four years is when you're retired. That's a long time. And so you need to have your savings, at least some of your savings to where that's not going to make an impact on your plans. Yeah. And we realize that nobody can, you know, predict the future. But if you have that factored into the plan, then at least you know you've got that contingency. And, you know, history gives us clues on what we should be, you know, a planning for. So there's going to be those cycles.

And if we have that baked into the plan, then we know that we've got some guardrails put into place. Yeah. You know, I think that when we're talking about here, what could derail and otherwise good retirement? I think that one of the big things that would go under the, you know, the umbrella of a good retirement is show me some guarantee. income. So that sounds super attractive. What does that look like? What's the catch? You know, because I think that a lot of people are going guaranteed anything is suspicious. What does someone have to do to get that guaranteed income put into their retirement plan? Well, guaranteed income would be an insurance contract that would guarantee a specific amount. And that amount could be

be increased based on age. It could be, I mean, it could also be increased on a specific percentage. There's, there's different factors that you can use to, to, to have that formula done. But what you're doing is once you do put that in place, so I mean, once you activate the guaranteed income, that is, that is a decision that usually is permanent. So once you have it locked in, I mean, the company will guarantee that. And so in which case, you know, it's that contract's locked in. So once you do guarantee that income, you usually cannot change that. Sometimes they may, they may make some changes or they might offer somewhat of a refund. You can make that part of the contract if you like. But usually when you plan that, it's set in place

because they're going to make you a lifetime guarantee, and so they will live up to it. Yes. Well, I tell you, Mark, this has been really helpful and encouraging to listen to. What are some final thoughts that you would have on this topic, and then how can people learn more and reach out and connect with you? They can call me at 831-753-0507.

My website is mark dearoff.com. That's M-A-R-K-D-I-E-R-O-L-F. Excellent. Mark, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you again. My pleasure. 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. Influential EntrepreneursRadio.com.