Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Roma Pithadiya, President and CEO of Affordable Insurance and Financial Services Discussing Effective Retirement Planning

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Roma Pithadiya is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Affordable Insurance and Financial Services (AIFS), a financial services and insurance advisory firm based in the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas. She is a seasoned financial professional and entrepreneur with extensive experience in insurance, financial planning, and wealth protection.Roma immigrated to the United States with limited resources and has built her career from the ground up, becoming a respected advisor to individuals, families, and small businesses in matters of health insurance, life insurance, auto and home protection, and long-term financial planning. She has been active in the financial services industry for well over a decade and is known for her deep commitment to client education and advocacy.She is also recognized as a Million Dollar Immigrant, a title reflecting her journey from starting penniless in the U.S. to achieving significant success in the insurance and financial advisory business.In addition to her executive role, Roma engages heavily in community service: she is active with the Lions Club, participates in senior citizen organizations, and serves on committees for cultural and religious groups. She frequently speaks on financial literacy and planning topics at national stages, including events hosted by CNN, the Harvard Club of Boston, New York Life, Nasdaq, and the MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table).Her expertise spans health insurance (including Medicare and individual policies), life and annuity products, retirement planning, and strategies for tax-efficient financial growth. Roma also works to empower clients to manage their finances wisely and protect their financial futures with well-structured, personalized solutions.Learn more: https://aifsgroupbyroma.com/Roma Pithadiya is not an attorney or CPA. Affordable Insurance and Financial Services does not provide legal or tax advice. Any discussion of financial strategies is general in nature and not a recommendation. Insurance and financial products involve risk and may not be suitable for all individuals. Licensing and availability vary by state.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/roma-pithadiya-president-and-ceo-of-affordable-insurance-and-financial-services-discussing-effective-retirement-planning

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 Roma Pita Dia, who's the president and CEO of Affordable Insurance and Financial Services, and we'll be talking about overcoming barriers to effective retirement planning. Roma, welcome back to the program. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, inviting me here.

You're welcome. You're welcome. You know, I feel like people hear the word retirement planning and they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do that someday. But there are definitely some barriers to retirement planning and barriers to effective retirement planning. What are some of the strategies that you, work with your clients who are busy professionals to allocate time to actually get that retirement plan initiated and put into place.

You know what? Main thing is scheduling. Business professionals often struggle with the time. But a few simple habits make plan manageable. Like a scheduling money appointment. just like a business meeting. Yeah. 30 minute monthly creates meeting is good enough.

You know, a CEO, if you said, hey, there's a board meeting next Thursday afternoon. Would they miss that? Probably not. Well, if you schedule these types of meetings, you should treat those the exact same way. Right. Also, automate contributions.

So savings happens without. Constant attentions. Yeah. Use the digital tools as well like apps and desboards, online portals and reviewing accounts quickly. So I do have one platform which is I use for the estate planning. Delegate tasks such as like research, paperwork and monitoring the trusted professionals. Breaking a planning into a small step. instead of trying to do everything at once.

That's a big one because I feel like, you know, it's like the old saying, how do you eat an elephant, you know, one bite at a time? But I heard someone recently have an interesting twist to that. How do you eat an elephant? Well, first you put the elephant on a diet. And then when you begin eating it, it's a smaller task. Well, you need to look at these big steps that people tend to start looking at. for retirement planning and think, you know what, maybe through some automation or some scheduling,

I'm going to work with a professional to help that big tasks seem a little bit smaller, and then I'm going to break it into steps. I think that becomes more manageable, right? And that's why he says consistency builds intensive. Small regular actions, build a strong retirement outcomes. Yeah. And having someone that has done it hundreds of times that can. watch for potential roadblocks, that would be really important.

I think that a lot of times maybe business owners or CEOs feel like they just don't have the right knowledge. So how does lack of knowledge impact retirement planning? That is the most important to stay away from that real. I told you about the true monsters because of the lack of knowledge is understanding the leads of under-saving, poor investment choice, missed tax advantages, whatever they can get it, over-reliance on their single retirement vehicle instead of diversifying their portfolio, fear-based decision instead of like strategic ones.

these barriers is easy to overcome through educational workshops, webinars, sought and simple financial contents, like video articles and guidance, or I put my small, small video, even though on my YouTube channel as well, working with the advisors who explain concepts clearly. Yeah. Asking questions early instead of waiting until retirement is very near.

And knowledge turns confusions into confidence. And confidence leads to better decisions. You know, I think that a lot of times people are confident in the wrong thing. And that leads to wrong decisions as well, right? Yes, yes. It says overconfidence. Right. Yeah.

It also can screwed up with the final. financial future. So the right person, right financial advisor, who understand structure of your business. It's not like a random financial advisor who do not know your structure of your business, your habit of your business. My client is like a 30 plus years, my hotelier clients. So I know from in and out from them, their habits, their lifestyles, their investment strategies. I know. everything about. So just like a, you know, primary doctor or everything know the history about entire body. Then they can easily structure and send to the specialist, same way I do to understand my clients need their financial future, their requirements, and future plan. You know, that's

such a big point that you just made there. And I'm going to dive in a little bit deeper because just knowing facts. You know, like you mentioned about your primary care physician, they ask so many questions and they've got the chart and the nurse comes in and asks you questions. The doctor looks at it. But if you don't know what you're looking at and how things connect, you're not going to come out to the right conclusion. So many times a business owner will be working with some type of a financial professional that only is very specialist in one area like, a CPA. But if that CPA doesn't work with a financial advisor, then you're not going to get the full picture. And if those two don't work with a legal professional, they're not going to get the

full picture. So how does working with a financial advisor play in navigating complex retirement strategies? Talk about how the coach or the quarterback role of a financial advisor benefits that. Just like you said, Mike, CPA, right? CPA has all different kind of specialty too. Some CPA is more into trucking business. Some CPA is more into the real estate investment income. Some CPA is doing small accounts. So CPA don't know everything.

You need to understand what kind of business plan do you have. You have to find that kind of CPA. So just like I can say doctors, even those specialists, let me give you one example, cancer doctor. But if you have a blood cancer, would you go to the doctor who is a breast cancer specialist? No. That is the main important. Right. You have to understand the role of the financial advisor is the most important.

It is complicated. But once you understand the relation between the trust, faith, between and the model of the business, we understand with the business owner and financial advisor is all about strategist. You know, personalized retirement roadmap is the most important. Tax awareness planning, helping reduce the burdens of the legally, they can invest, where they can invest, why they can invest, even though sometimes they don't forget that how soon they need unexpected money. As a financial advisor, we know their habits. Then we can help them to realize, hey, you have a habit of this. How about if you want to do this?

Do you need some emergency money as well? So like choosing the investment guide also is also level and growth of the risk. And their protection, ensuring insurance is estate planning and emergency fund and all aligned is been most important. Accountability in the partner,

we have to be a partner with our business owners. Then we can keep that client to track over the years. And that's why he says, like, you know, advisors simplify complexity. We make possibly mistakes.

and help clients make informed long-term decisions. You know, it's really powerful to think about what you've said previously about risk and preparing for the future. Because if you make a wrong decision and you take a 10% hit to your portfolio, it takes a long time to recover. So how can business owners prepare for emergencies without impacting negatively their retirement? plans because sometimes emergencies happen and you don't, you don't know they're coming quite yet. Right. Let's say about the emergency. Only the long-term care. If the client do not have a long-term care, they can jeopardize their entire retirement planning. That is another biggest monster. But if we are buying and protecting with the long-term care, then it become our favorable. Building,

a dedicated emergency fund separating from the retirement accounts, one of the diversification portfolio is a long-term care. And using the insurance, all tools like a key person insurance and disability insurance and buy, say, liability insurance to seal the business, like one of the umbrella as well. Creating multiple income strategy. So one, one district is, disruption doesn't rely on the savings. We have to understand structuring the retirement plans, like a solo 401K, CepIRA, cash balance plan with the flexibility. Also reviewing the plan annually to adjust for market, tax, inflation, business changes,

reality, and even emergency fund. Well, you said something important that I want to really go deeper on with layering. You might need to have different layers in your retirement plan to prepare for emergencies, like maybe different buckets like you've mentioned in the past. What are some of the examples of some of those layers or buckets that a business owner should keep in mind because we know that one emergency could be long-term care. Other emergencies could impact their cash needs as well. but what are some of those layers and buckets that they can consider?

There is so many different kind of annuities as well. So annuity also we can layer like a first 10 year. They need a good. So another annuity can be later on 10 year. So once we finish the one annuity, we can start another annuity. The same way long-term care also life insurance. So many times we can finish. is like let it grow the one bucket, two type of long-term care.

One is a standalone and one with the cash bucket. So what is going to happen if we understand sometimes people is looking for a cheaper, but cheaper is not always the best. You get what you pay. Yep. If you don't understand the difference between the standalone long-term care and cash growth building long-term care. care, then it will be difficult should you use that long-term care when you can use cash market,

when they can use, do they need right now, or they can differ for the future. Right now, they have already, let's just like a 401K. They have already 401K and 401K is not growing well. Let it reduce first of 401K, let it use it first. And let it grow the life insurance because there is no, RMD in there. So RMD is also very important. Disability is the most important part in the life insurance. Even though for the business owners, they are staying away from the lawsuits.

Because if business owners don't use the disability insurance, then employee can do lawsuit on. That also can reduce their entire structure. can be destroyed. There is so many different ways. And preparedness, like, you know, ensure that emergency doesn't force

owner to raid retirement accounts or pause long-term planning. You know, that's such a huge point that you bring up that there's so many complexities and so many angles and buckets and layers that no business. owner or no retiree is going to fully understand because they're good at what they're good at. They know what they know, but they don't see the big picture.

So talk a little bit about the power of working with someone like yourself who's an independent advisor that can help them see the full picture and understand how everything fits together to end up with that effective retirement plan. Oh, we have to, that is the reason I say we have to build a relation. Relations with the business, relation with the business owner, relation with the structure, lifestyle of the business, doing the business of the, this is all having a strong relation is putting into trust. Trust is also connecting with their financial stability.

And if we understand about the financial stability, that connects to the mission. So now we have a mission to build their financial future. Having the stability in the future in the business is the most important. And relation and trust is the most important. Yeah. Build a business without trust is not possible. And the trust goes both ways. The trust is so powerful because probably many business owners or clients have worked with an advisor

before that they didn't realize that trust was not there, but until it was too late. So when you can develop that trusting relationship up front, that develops a long-term relationship that is much more successful than the client holding back or the advisor giving wrong advice. So having that trusted relationship is just so powerful. And I feel that in the business world today, that's a, very rare occurrence. And when someone can find an advisor like yourself that they can trust, that's something

to hold on to. Yes. So, you know, like it's always a trust is the both way. Yeah. We have to understand their model. And we have to prepare ourselves. Yeah. And educate even though, even today, I'm every day taking class.

Every day my client has a new challenge. and when I go to the education events like MDRT training and top of the table training and high network wealthy clients financial strategy training I am learning with their questions because they have thousands of questions I keep in my mind and I got the knowledge about that and then I go back again and deliver instead of fake making a promise to deliver the kind of. You've mentioned a couple times about trainings, and I feel like it's very important for people to understand and hear that because there are some advisors that I'm sure that

haven't been to a training in 10 years, and they're just using old information. And for someone like yourself that is constantly staying up on teachings and trainings and bettering themselves, that brings the most relevant, fresh advice. to your clients possible. And that's why I say nowadays are gone from the pager, now time for the iPhone. And if you are still on the pager and never buy the iPhone, never try to understand how the iPhone work, then you will be stuck. You don't know how to use the iPhone.

So if you don't know how to use the iPhone, how come you tell someone to use that iPhone? How come you can educate them? The iPhone is the best for the today's generation. Well, Roma, once again, this has been really enlightening. And you've got a very solid way of providing clarity on these topics. So if a business owner is interested in reaching out and connecting with you to maybe have you look at their situation to give some guidance, what is the best way that they can get some more information and connect with you? Yeah, my website is

wwwWW AIFS group by Roma.com And also my phone number is 972-673-3-33-13-15. They can call me again, I can say 24-7 they can call me, I'm in their service. Anytime I am there for. Excellent.

Well, Roma, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you again. Thank you, Mike. thank you for giving me this opportunity. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with you. And I guess most of the time, our client has thousands of questions out of this podcast, and they will definitely contact us.

I know that. Excellent. Thank you so much. 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. influential entrepreneurs radio.com.