More Money Podcast - 270 How to Protect Yourself & Loved Ones Financially - Nicole Simons, Wealth Management Advisor at CPN Financial Services

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

When we think of financial planning, often we just focus on budgeting, debt repayment, and investing. But another important element of a complete financial plan is protection. Specifically protecting yourself and/or your loved ones if something happens. That’s why I’ve got Nicole Simons on the show, who is a Wealth Management Advisor at CPN Financial Services. For the past decade, she’s worked with clients in all aspects of financial planning, but especially when it comes to having the right insurance in place. In this episode, we discuss the important things everyone should know about life insurance, critical illness insurance, and disability insurance. Hopefully, this episode will serve as a timely reminder to review how you’re currently protected and to ensure if you don’t have the right protections in place, to get it sooner rather than later. For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/270 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is episode 270, and I'm your host, Jessica Morehouse. Welcome back to the show. I'm excited about this episode. This is one that everyone needs to listen to, so make sure to listen, share it, tell people about it, because it's on a super important topic that I haven't really, I feel like, dived super deep into, or if I have talked about this topic, it's been a while. It has been a very long time since I have. So this episode is going to be all about protecting yourself, protecting yourself, your loved ones, your family members, by having the proper protection in place, which is talking about life insurance, disability insurance,

critical illness insurance, things that I think are usually at the bottom of our to-do list. And a lot of us probably don't even think if, you know, really assess, are we properly protected? Because I mean, I know when I, you know, used to be an employee, I never thought about insurance because I'm like, I don't know, I think I've got some protection through work. And most likely you do, but it's important to know how are you protected, how much, and is it enough? And what kind of, like specifically diving into that, those materials and your kind of, you know, employer are you protected? How much? And is it enough? And what, like specifically diving into that, those materials and your kind of, you know, employer handbook and see what, what am I actually

getting? Do I need something outside of that? Most likely the answer could be yes, especially when it comes to life insurance. Because remember, when you leave that job, you were no longer, you no longer get those benefits. You no longer have that insurance coverage. So it's important to think about getting some stuff outside of the workplace. And that is why I have Nicole Simons on the show. Nicole is a wealth management advisor at CPN Financial Services, which is a family-owned business that's been in operation for over 30 years. And for the last 10 years, she has equipped clients with the tools they need to protect, diversify, and grow their financial assets. And she uses an integrated approach pairing traditional wealth management

products with financial literacy. And she believes that long-term financial freedom begins with self-awareness and strategic planning. And since I've been following her on Instagram for a while now and really, really like how she kind of shares you know, shares really useful information. And also she really knows her stuff when it comes to insurance. I knew she'd be the perfect guest for this topic. So very excited to have Nicole on the show. Before I dive in to that interview with Nicole, just have a few words I would like to share about this episode's podcast sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by Coast Capital Savings. To mark this year's recent International Women's Day, it has never been more important to celebrate

the incredible women in our lives and to show our support for all women while also addressing the startling impacts of COVID-19. That's why the More Money Podcast is partnering with Coast Capital Savings on their Keep Her on the Map campaign to shed light on the disproportionate impacts the pandemic has had on women. But more than that, to rally support for women-led businesses and provide resources for all women who have felt the impact of COVID-19. So with that, I encourage you to lean into your purchasing power and support women-owned businesses. I've shared a few of my favorite businesses on my social media channels, so do the same to spread the awareness and put your dollars where your values are. To learn more about how to support women-owned businesses or to find resources for women who have experienced impacts to their physical, mental, or financial

well-being, visit coastcapitalsavings.com slash keepheronthemap. Once again, that's coastcapitalsavings.com slash keepheronthemap. Welcome to the More Money Podcast. Nicole, I'm so excited to have you on. I've been following you on social media for a while, so it's a pleasure to have you on the show finally. Yes, it's amazing. I'm so happy to be here today. Yay. So tell me a little bit about yourself. So you are a wealth management advisor at CPN financial services, a family owned business in operation for over 30 years. That's pretty cool. So tell me a little bit about your background. How did you kind of get into the world of finance? And I know, I mean, part of the reason I started following you on social media is I really like

your content and how passionate you are about helping others and teaching others about personal finance. So tell me a little bit, how did you get into this kind of world? Yeah, well, I mean, like you mentioned, I work, you know, with my family and my family business. I was kind of, I guess you could say lucky enough to be somewhat born into this with my dad. It all goes back to my dad. My dad, you know, was an investment and insurance broker when I was a kid. And it was important for him to create a legacy, you know, for his family. So he started his own financial firm and named it CPN Financial Services. So the CPN actually stands for Colin, Peter and Nicole. So I am the N in CPN Financial, which is pretty cool when I think about it now. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Yeah. So he started that like over 30 years ago. And, you know, my siblings and I were all doing different things. I mean, definitely when I was growing up, I wouldn't say finance was my, you know, first occupation that I had in mind. I worked in the corporate world for many years, you know, downtown Toronto. But eventually my siblings and I, you know, just one by one kind of started working in the business part-time until we fully, you know,

were engulfed full-time and here we are today. So my dad is kind of more semi-retired now and we manage my dad's book of business and we have our own client base as well and have other brokers that work for CPN. So our job, you know, basically at CPN is just to build that financial fence around our clients. So in the event, you know, something happens, whether that's injury, you know, a critical illness, or even premature death, that, you know, there is minimal financial impact to their families. That's great. I'm curious, because as a family owned business, and I think back to my family, like, there's no way I would be in a business. Love my family. Could not, no, it's not going to happen. So was there, I guess, did you have a choice? I mean, I guess you obviously did have a choice, but it's, I mean,

your, your name is in the business name. So it's like, I guess it was, we all had to, as a family, be part of this, or I'm curious, did you have conversations? You're like, no, I don't want to work in finance. Yeah. You know, I feel like it was totally just organic because I can't even say that I remember my dad ever saying, you know, Nicole, you know, I hope one day that you take over. Like that was never said, you know, I think my dad probably in the back of my mind always hoped that, you know, we would be in it, but there was never any pressure on his part. What I think what drew me to the business was just seeing, because my dad, of course, was, you know, self-employed. So just seeing the flexibility,

you know, that my dad had, you know, not working a nine to five, not working for somebody else. And I think that was really important for me to incorporate into my lifestyle, because when you're working in corporate for so long, you know, taking the subway, you know, having to be somewhere and seeing that a total opposite on the other end with somebody else. It's like, wow, like I want that freedom. I want that freedom. I want that flexibility. And I want, I still want to be able to help people and make an impact, you know, on, on, on loved ones. So yeah, it definitely wasn't something I was forced into, but gradually it just became something that I became passionate about. That's amazing. So, so tell me a little bit about what you guys specifically do at CPN Financial Services. I know there is, you know, quite a bit of a focus on, you know, insurance and protection.

But what other kind of things do you do with your clients if someone wanted to work with you? Yeah. So predominantly, you know, for myself, I definitely have more of a female client base. I'd probably say at least 90% of my client base is females. And it's very important for me to educate, you know, my clients and show them different ways that they can create and build wealth. So alongside, you know, life insurance and, you know, critical illness and disability, we also do investments. So we do your TFSAs, your RRSPs, you know, showing people how to, you know, create wealth for retirement. We do our ESPs for kids as well. And then for people, for example, who let's say want

to invest, but you know, they don't have the capital to do so, you know, we provide opportunities for leveraging. So leverage loans to get people into investing. We also have other brokers that are proficient in mortgages, real estate. So we do everything. That's awesome. That's awesome. So yeah, I was really curious to talk to you about specifically kind of the insurance side of things. I haven't really delved into that topic too much on the show a little bit, but not a ton. And I feel like this is such an important topic to talk about as we're still living in this pandemic. It's not going away anytime soon, apparently. And it's definitely, I think,

for lots of people, this has been a big wake-up call realizing that they, wow, I have never thought about having an emergency fund or having life insurance or really the idea of protecting yourself, your family, your dependents. But still, I think a lot of people don't necessarily know what does that actually look like? What does that mean? How do I actually go about protecting myself and my family? So I guess when a client works with you and they're like, I don't really know where to start in terms of protecting myself, where do you start? Yeah, great question. When mean, when you're working with somebody, you know, initially, and life insurance is the need, it's really important for myself as,

you know, an advisor to really hone down what they want their life insurance policy to do for them or for their family, right? Because I think when we think of life insurance, we automatically just think of like, you know, funeral and, and, you know, having money to pay for funeral expenses and caskets and stuff like that, when it's a lot more than that. I mean, whether you have dependents that are depending on your income, or you could be single and not even married or anything like that, there's definitely a financial impact to somebody if you were to pass away prematurely, right? So initially, when I'm meeting with somebody, we have to really dig into what does that look like? Who's dependent on you? And if no one is dependent on you at all, you know, what would you want your life insurance policy to do

if you were to pass away? Are you looking to create a legacy, you know, for your family? Are you looking to make sure that, you know, your parents, maybe your parents, your parents live with you and you provide shelter for them? Do you want to make sure that, you know, they're still able to maintain that same standard of living? It can even go back to, you know, charities. A lot of millennials have, you know, a strong tug and ties with charities that are close to their hearts. Maybe, you know, they don't have any dependents, but they want to leave some type of financial legacy to a charity so that, you know, that charity can grow and reach the milestones they want to achieve. So there's tons of things to think about. But initially, I think the main thing to discuss is just looking at the client's,

you know, current financial picture, looking at their assets, their liabilities, their current income, and what exactly they want to replace if their income is not here anymore. Yeah. I think a lot of people still have this. And this is definitely, I think, is perpetuated in TV shows and movies. Someone's like, oh, I got life insurance because someone died. And it's always an idea of like, oh, this is how someone gets wealthy. It's like someone dies and you get your life. But obviously, that's not the case. It's really about protecting your loved ones. But I think a lot of people, when it comes down to like really figuring out their policy, the question that I always hear is like, how much do I need? Like, how do you

actually kind of determine, you know, hey, you know, maybe you have some assets already. How much life insurance do you need? Can you have, I think people are either worried of not having enough or maybe having too much and that and then you're, you know, paying more than you need to for a policy that's maybe too big for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. So yeah, like I said, in the initial stages of trying to figure out, you know, what policy type is good for you and the amount, it's taking a look, like I said, at your current financial picture, right? So what do you want to replace? I mean, if you're in a two income household, and you know, you don't happen to come home the next day, how will your partner fare out? Usually, when it comes to two income households, you know,

one person pays the mortgage, one person pays utilities and all of that. But a lot of the times they can't do both, right? And that's where the two incomes, you know, definitely plays a role. So I have to look at, okay, well, if your income is not here, what would your spouse or partner need to have coming in to maintain that same standard of living? What if your kid's in private school? You know, can your spouse afford to pay for the mortgage, utilities, and private school? So it's looking at all the different things and monthly expenses that occur that you want to make sure there's very little minimal financial impact, right? And then another thing that you can look at too is, you know, maybe right now you don't have a lot of assets. You're working

to create that. Maybe you are renting now, but you hope to purchase a home within the next year or two. These are things that you can actually also build into the policy as well. You can, you know, if you want to purchase a home within the next year, maybe you can think about incorporating some mortgage coverage into that insurance policy as well. So that when you purchase that home, there's significant coverage that your spouse can pay off the mortgage and be, you know, living mortgage free. So these are all things that, you know, can be incorporated at the time. But one thing that I always, always stress to my clients is, you know, I think a lot of people get caught up in trying to get it right the first time. And you have to understand that your situation is

always evolving. It's always evolving, right? Like you could be a single right now, no kids, not married. And within a year or two, that could totally change. And at that point, you'll need more. And then let's say you're renting at that point. And then you as a family, you purchase your first home. Well, then you'll need more coverage then too. So don't think that your first initial policy, you know, has to cover all bases, but enough that you can definitely take care of any debt that you have so policy, you know, has to cover all bases, but enough that you can definitely take care of any debt that you have so that, you know, the debt doesn't fall into anybody else's hands to pay. Make sure there's enough for final expenses, you know, burial costs so that nobody's, you know, depleting their savings for that. And then just know that when your life changes,

you can reevaluate because you have to actually, you know, take a look at your life insurance policy every one to two years. You can't just set it and forget it. Never look at it again. You got to make sure that it still fits your current needs. Yeah. No, I think that's a thing that people need to be reminded of is like when we're talking about any kind of element in your financial plan, nothing is set it and forget it for

like years and years and years. It's like you need to evaluate pretty much your whole financial plan, nothing is set it and forget it for like years and years and years. It's like you need to evaluate pretty much your whole financial plan and say once a year just to see is everything, has anything changed? And usually something's changed. Like you had a kid or you moved or something like that. So it's important to kind of stay on top of those things. Another, you know, key question too is, you know, when considering life insurance, obviously there's lots of different types of life insurance. It can kind of get overwhelming. You know, there's obviously there's term and then there's permanent and within permanent, there's a couple of different types of, you know, life insurance. Where do people start? How do people know what kind of life insurance is right for them? Because obviously there's pros and cons to both types of insurance. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's different types that definitely fit, you know, the lifestyle that you're currently living, right? So once again, that's all part of the initial, you know, needs analysis that you would

do with your insurance advisor. So just to kind of elaborate further on what you said, the two main umbrellas that I speak to my clients about are term and permanent. So term insurance essentially, you know, covers you for a certain period of time. So usually you can get terms, you know, 10 year, 20 year, 30 year. And what that means is that you'll be covered for X amount of coverage, let's just say 100,000, or a 20 year term. And that means that basically you'll pay this one premium cost on a monthly basis or yearly if you prefer for that 20-year term. But once that 20-year term is up, you basically have a few choices. You can renew the policy because you still need the coverage. You still have a home. You may still have a mortgage to pay. So you still need that $100,000 coverage,

for example. So you can renew. But you have to keep in mind that the price is going to dramatically increase because insurance premiums are predominantly based on your age. And now you're 20 years older. So the cost is going to increase. But if you don't need the coverage anymore, you know, you can cancel if you no longer need it. But similar to car insurance, you're not getting any premiums back. Right. Yeah, exactly. You pay into it. If you don't ever use it, then I mean, I guess that's a good thing because that means no one dies. I think some people are like, oh, I don't get anything back. It's like, well, no. But yeah, like you said, it's just like car insurance or home insurance. It's like you need it

to protect yourself and you hope you never have to use it. Exactly. Exactly. So in a nutshell, that's how term works. But one thing to keep in mind is that even if you could afford all of those increases, term coverage typically ends at age 80. So what that means is that even if you could afford all the increases till age 80 it'll pretty much cut off then no one will want to insure you because you're basically too much of a liability at that age i guess yeah like i mean yeah pretty much it won't it won't cover you for life so then what happens is is that age 80 unless you have you know uh significant savings or assets to pull from you may still require some small coverage for final expenses. And you won't have that anymore because that coverage is gone, right? So this is

where permanent now comes into play. So permanent coverage is exactly what it says. It's permanent. You have it for life. So that means that whatever premium that you're quoted, it stays the same. It does not increase. And it does not end at age 80. You have it until age 101 if you happen to live that long. So to take it further, there's a few different types of permanent coverage. For some people who are looking for an extra vehicle to invest money tax-free, you can get something called a universal life policy, which will allow you to have both life insurance coverage and an investment component where you can actually overfund your policy and create cash value. So that's universal life. The other type that's most popular is whole life.

So whole life is similar to universal life where it is permanent coverage, but instead of you overfunding, a small piece of your premium kind of gets set aside every month and builds cash value, guaranteed cash value that you can access later on in life, borrow from, pull from, whatnot. So long story short, with life insurance, it kind of falls into two umbrellas, term and permanent. And with permanent, you do have the ability to have policies that provide cash value for you to use down the road. One thing that I've been seeing, because I think a lot of people also aren't sure necessarily who needs to be covered. Let's say you're single, you don't have any debt, you don't have any dependents. Does it make sense to have a life

insurance policy? I know you mentioned, well, maybe if you want to leave a legacy to a charity, that might be one reason, but I think maybe it's not as necessary as if you did have dependents or a family, right? Yes, absolutely. Well, I'm a big life insurance advocate. So I will battle anybody that tells me that they don't need it because a lot of millennials right now who don't have kids and fresh out of school, of course, they're going to be thinking, yeah, like life insurance, what do I need that for? I don't have a family, right? Because that's what kind of comes to mind at first. But what you do have is student loans. What you do have is debt, right? And at the end of the day, that will fall into somebody else's hands, most likely your parents, if you were to pass away prematurely. So even though that family might not have started yet, there is still debt that you could be carrying right now that if you were to pass away, somebody will have to pay off, number one. Number two, if you're young and a millennial, you might think, OK, well, OK, besides that, I don't have any debt. Nicole, I didn't go to school. Do I still need it? Well, yeah, you need to understand that, like I said before, insurance premiums, once again, are predominantly based on your age. So if you're 21 years old right now, you are young,

you are healthy, and if you love a good bargain, then it is time to get your life insurance policy now because the rates will be extremely low. You have to understand that the longer you put it off, the premiums will rise and you start to see a significant jump when you get into your 40s, right? So if you can get a life insurance policy at the age of 20, 21, or under the age of 25, you're locking in that rate for life. So you don't have to worry about getting something later on and it costing you a lot of money at that time. And I guess there's also the component of, you know, even if you just want to get like a small term policy, then that could cover your funeral expenses if you were to go, you know, sooner rather than later. And you don't want to, you know, put that burden on,

you know, your parents or something to put all those funeral, you know, expenses. I know, like, for instance, I just feel like in the past several years in Canada and the US, I see so many people doing GoFundMe things to pay for just funeral expenses because maybe the person who passed away didn't have any life insurance. I'm like, this is just kind of crazy that we have to do a fundraiser in order to pay for this. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, it's really sad. GoFundMe has kind of become that little substitute for life insurance, which sucks because people feel that that is like the way to go. And GoFundMe definitely has, you know, its place in the world for raising money, but it is not a substitute for life insurance. I mean, term, I think one other

thing that people get caught up on is the price. You know, they think for life insurance. I mean, term, I think one other thing that people get caught up on is the price. You know, they think of life insurance as another bill they don't want to pay. But life insurance, especially when you're young, is really inexpensive. I mean, the cost for your Tim Hortons coffee or tea is literally the cost you'd be paying per day for a life insurance policy. Very, very, very, you know, inexpensive, especially with term, right? Because when you're younger, you don't maybe you haven't secured a full time job very, you know, inexpensive, especially with term, right? Because when you're younger, you don't maybe you haven't secured a full time job yet, you're part time, term typically is the way to go, you can get a decent amount of coverage, you know, for maybe 20 bucks or less for

in a lot of cases. And like I said, as your life continues to change, you will revisit that situation. And if permanent, you know, plays a role or plays a need, you can always convert your term coverage to permanent down the road. Now, one thing I've seen with a few people is they have policies, like say they're a parent, they have a policy on their children or like their baby or something like that. That doesn't quite make sense to me. Have you ever come across anything like that? Or what are your kind of thoughts on like having like, you know, it makes sense when you have a policy for yourself, but having a policy on somebody else, especially someone younger, does that make sense?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I yeah, I'm a big advocate for insurance for kids as well. And I'll explain a few reasons why. So once again, you know, just like I just said a minute ago, the premium obviously will be significantly cheap on you know or a child because they're super young. Not only is it super affordable to insure your kids, but as a mother, which I am as well, you don't want to think about the mortality of your child. That's not a subject that you want to think about. But unfortunately, it is the reality that, you know, it could happen. And you want to make sure that you're prepared for that financially. Because think about it. Besides the cost of, you know, funeral costs and whatnot, if your child happens to pass away suddenly due to cancer or any type of illness, best believe you're not working for a while. You're not working for a while. I mean,

you're not going back to work in two weeks, You're going to be grieving for quite some time. And what does that mean? Does that mean that you want to be rushed to go back to work because financially you have to pay the bills? expenses, but it's also giving you the ability to grieve without that financial burden of you having to rush back to work. Because you're not going back to work anytime soon. You need that time off, but bills still have to be paid. So that is one reason that I always point out for moms, which is very significant. Number two is a lot of times mothers happen to feel, you know what? Yeah, my daughter or son can get life insurance when they're older. You know, they don't need it right now, which is true, but not really. That might not be the case. We all assume that our kids can, you know, grow up and have that current healthy state they have right now, but that might not be the case. I literally have mothers that come to me that want to get a policy for their child and can't because their child maybe suffers from

sickle cell or their child is autistic or has some type of disability or whatnot where they are deemed to be uninsurable at this time. So by getting a policy for your child at the early age of one, you're doing something called protecting their insurability. What you're doing is you're securing an amount of insurance, whether it's $50,000 or $100,000 or even $25,000, you're insuring their insurability so that if their health happens to change, it doesn't matter because you've now got insurance for them prior to that. And most life insurance companies will allow you to convert your child rider or attachment to your policy for up to five times the amount without showing any proof of health. So your child can take that 25K policy and convert it to 125,000 if they want without answering any health

questions. Interesting. Because their health might have changed, right? So there's a lot of reasons why, but those are the two main ones. The third reason why a lot of people, you know, get policies for children is to create another source of income down the road. I just mentioned before that whole life and universal life give you the opportunity

to have an investment component. So when you purchase a policy for your child at the tender age of one or five years old, as your child grows, the cash value is growing as well. So when your child becomes 25 or 30, there's a significant amount of cash value that your child can use. It can go towards schooling. It can go towards their first home. It can go towards their wedding deposits, anything you want. But it's literally creating another income stream that they can pull from down the road if they need to. That's interesting. Yeah, those are some interesting scenarios, actually. That makes a lot of sense. So we talked a lot about life insurance.

There's obviously other forms of insurance that I think don't get enough attention. You kind of mentioned earlier critical illness. There's also disability insurance. I think a lot of people maybe don't think about this because typically you'll get some coverage, even life insurance, really, if you work for an employer. Sometimes that's part of your benefits package. But if you're, for instance, self-employed like myself, obviously I do not have a benefits package.

I have to protect myself. So let's kind of first talk about critical illness. I think it's just an insurance type that most people actually don't really know much about. What exactly does that entail? And what are some things, if you're looking at different policies, what are some things you should look out for? Yeah, great question. So critical illness is something that we call a living benefit. Life insurance provides a death benefit. So clearly you don't benefit because you're not alive anymore. But critical illness provides a living benefit. And what that means is that, you know, if you happen to get diagnosed with cancer or some type of illness, these days, you know, compared to like, you know, the 1940s or whatnot, you know, with medical advancements, people are living through illnesses now, right? With technology and medicine and medication and all of that, we're living, you know, the chances of us surviving a heart attack and a stroke are much higher than before. But what that means is that even if you survive, there's going to be probably a period of time where you're not working, you're trying to recover a year or two off from work. But once again,

money is going to be needed because life insurance is not going to help because you didn't pass away. So what can help fill in that gap if you are unable to work? So a critical illness policy is something that you can get where it has a list of illnesses, usually around 20 to 25, depending on the company, but it will cover you in the event you are diagnosed with a critical illness. Now, it has to be an illness defined within your policy and you have to survive typically for at least 30 days. So from diagnosis, as long as you survive 30 days, you will get a lump sum payout for you to do whatever you wish. So some people say, OK, well, Nicole, what will I do with that money? Like, what would I payout for you to do whatever you wish. So some people say, okay, well, Nicole, what will I do with that money? Like, what would I need it for? Well, plenty of things. Once again, you may not be working. So it can be paying your car payments,

your mortgage, your rent, any monthly expenses that you are unable to pay, you can take care of that. A lot of people are also under the misconception that the government, you know, or OHIP, you know, covers all treatment. And that's not the case. There's tons of cancer treatments that people have to pay out of pocket for it is you wish. It can be used to hire a stay-at-home, you know, a nanny, for example, if you have young kids, but you can't care for them the way you used to because of your illness, it can hire in-care help, whatever you want. There's no stipulations. I'm just giving you a couple, you know, things that people use the money for, but it's a great coverage to have to add to your financial plan because a critical illness will bring financial hardship onto your family. And once again, this type of lump sum payment will help mitigate that risk. I'm curious, because of COVID, I'm assuming obviously that's probably not

part of any kind of critical illness policy. But do you think in the future, because, you know, so many like scientists have said, you know, pandemics are going to become kind of a lot more popular in the future. Do you think that's going to be kind of part of the equation in the future? Just like speculating, I'm just kind of curious, what are your thoughts on that? It's possible, you know, it's possible. I haven't seen much detail just because COVID, of course, is still so new. I haven't really seen anybody talk about it as much, but it's very quite possible. I mean, as it looks right now, COVID is somewhat kind of here to stay for a bit, unfortunately. So, you know, there probably will be some serious considerations of, you know, having some type of illness.

Because remember, COVID obviously, it affects people in different ways, right? There's respiratory issues and all sorts of different things. So critical illness policies right now cover things like heart attack, cancer, stroke, deafness, blindness, there's a whole list, even up to like burns, like, you know, just getting like big third degree burns. So it's quite possible that, you know, the effects of COVID can be added in the future, but we'll have to wait and see. We'll have to see. Yeah. Well, you mentioned, you know, and every policy is obviously different. It'll have a list of things. There's like, if you fall into that category, then you get the payout. But have you seen like people that have had a policy and they get something outside of that list and then they don't get any coverage? I think that's probably a big

worry that some people may have. Yeah. Yeah. So it hasn't really happened with me per se, but I definitely have seen stories before that people have maybe gotten some type of illness that doesn't quite qualify. Like for example, a lot of critical illness policies have like an early detection benefit that's included. So for example, you know, like stage one breast cancer. If cancer, if breast cancer is caught early enough, it's not really deemed to be critical because, you know, with surgeries and whatnot, and depending on where it is in your breast, it can be surgically removed and, you know, you could be good. So for example, stage one breast cancer, you know, is not included, but in most policies, it is included as like an early detection

benefit where they will upfront you some of the money, not the entire thing, but they will give you some of the money upfront if you happen to get that type of illness that is not in their eyes deemed as critical. So there are a list of illnesses that are not deemed critical that if you get them, like I think maybe even stage one prostate might even be in there as well, that they'll upfront you some of the money, but not the entire thing. So there are definite cases where, you know, you happen to get something that doesn't fall in line, but that just falls back onto you reading your policy and just understanding

if it's not in there, it's not going to pay. And I guess a good thing to do is also look at your family history to see what are some potential diseases that may crop up to make sure that they're on the list just in case. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And all of that is basically, you know, looked at in the beginning in the underwriting process, because when you're filling out an application for life insurance and critical illness, family history questions are asked, right? So it does ask, you know, has your mother, brother, father, sister, you know, do they suffer from any hereditary disease or illnesses? So you will have to

disclose those things in an insurance application anyways. Okay, good to know. And the last kind of protection that I want to discuss is disability. And again, a lot of people, I think, don't think to maybe get a policy on that. Because, you know lot of people, I think, don't think to maybe get a policy on that. Because, you know, if they're an employee, they may be covered at work. But, you know, again, if you're not an employee, or maybe, you know, I always tell people, it's like, you need to really look at the coverage you're getting from your employer to see if it's enough. Sometimes it's not, because most people don't really look through their benefits package, or maybe they do at the beginning of their, you know, when they started there and then never again. So it's really

important to make sure, are you properly covered? Especially like the life insurance component. I know so many people are like, oh no, no, I'm covered from work. I'm like, well, number one, if you leave that job, you're no longer covered. Number two, how much are you covered? Because sometimes those policies are tiny from your work, like a hundred thousand dollars that won't even cover your mortgage. So that's important. But the disability part, can you explain what does disability coverage or insurance cover exactly? Or what could it cover? Yeah. So disability coverage, I think you brought up a very good point in regards to if you're self-employed and even if you're an employer or employee, should I say, because what it does is it allows you to protect

your income or a portion of your income if you are unable to do the duties of your job. So for self-employed people like, you know, myself and you, it's something like you really need to have because obviously our hands, you know, whatever you use to do your job, you know, as a self-employed person, that's how you make your money. And if, you know, you can't walk or, you know, you, you, you, you can't use your hands or whatever it is that you, you need to work. That's a serious thing because your bills need to be paid. So a disability policy will look at your income and it will basically guarantee that the company will give you a portion of your income. So not the entire thing, but a portion of your income in the event you are

unable to do the duties of your job, you're under a physician's care and you're not working elsewhere. So what that means is that, you know, if I, you know, happen to be going for a jog or whatnot, and I happen to, let's say, break my leg or something like that, and that affects my job where I'm unable to do something that pertains to my work, of course, I can submit a claim, basically. And from there, once that claim process goes through, I will start to receive payments of XYZ amount that I signed up for, and that will help supplement my income. And the duration of how long I get that payment for will be tied back to what I signed up for. Because when you get a disability policy, you can determine from the very beginning, you know, how much you want to get up to a certain amount, how long, two years, five years. What if you're, you know, kind of critically disabled where you can never work again? You can get policies that will literally pay you

out till age 65. So there's all different types. So it's really about just looking at the possibilities with your insurance advisor, going over what your income looks like on a year basis. Take a look at what your monthly expenses are, even, you know, your business overhead expenses are. What do you pay for? Do you pay for rent for a studio? Do you have equipment that you pay monthly for? Looking at all those things, tallying them up, and getting an idea of how much you need to have to make sure you stay afloat. I feel like so many people listening, myself included, are like, I need to take a look at all of my policies and see what's going on. I feel like there's never been a more critical time in the world to really make sure that you're properly protected.

Before I let you go, Nicole, because you shared so much good stuff, so much important stuff that people need to know. What are some other key things you want listeners to know about protecting themselves, you know, that they may have never really thought about? Well, you know, like you just said, this is a very critical time where a lot of us kind of have that downtime to take a look at things. You know, before, prior to COVID, we were so busy, so on the go, never really having time to look at our policies and our work coverage. And my word of advice would just be to, if you don't have anything in place right now, start looking at some of the things that we spoke about, say, in this conversation. Start looking at, you know, if you were unable to work or, you know, if you didn't make it home tomorrow, take a look at how the ones around you would be financially impacted and start having a

conversation, you know, with somebody like myself or your trusted advisor on ways to kind of build that fence, right? I think, and I'm sure you can attest to this now, that the emergency fund has never had more of a place than right now, you know, with COVID because COVID kind of showed people that, you know, they really didn't have a backup. They really didn't have a backup. And I think it's important, especially for my women out there to look at their finances. You know, a lot of people are working from home now. There's no bus fare being used. There's no subway, no TTC. What are you doing with that money? What are you doing with that money? Where can you allocate that money so that your cash reserve can be built, right? This doesn't mean that you just have extra money to spend frivolously. You need to make sure that any extra money that you can save, you look at it as a learning lesson and put that money away in an emergency fund. Set up some type of automatic savings even or automatic withdrawal from your bank account where diligently on a

bi-weekly or monthly basis, money is coming out to set yourself up. You have to pay yourself first. You have to pay. I'm very big on that. You have to pay yourself first. So if the funds are available to you, take a look at how you can save, take a look at how you can put some of that money towards risk management. So critical illness, life insurance, disability. And just make sure that these are things you start thinking about now. Because when you put it off, and I see this all the time because I have clients that come to me in their 60s and 70s, they wish they could pay what you guys are paying. They wish that they could get the premiums that you guys could get now.

They all say the same thing. If I had known, if I had known, if I had known. So this is your wake-up call to know that, you know, you're young, you're healthy, and your health can change at any point in time, especially with COVID. You could go to a friend's house tomorrow for a small gathering, thinking you were safe, and come home with something you didn't want. So you need to make sure that things are in place.

Because remember, when something happens, you can't get it then. It's too late. You have to think of life insurance, for example, like a parachute. If you don't have it when you need it, you're never going to need it again. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Lots of food for thought. Thanks so much. Where can people find more information about you and CPN Financial Services? For sure. So gladly, you guys can check out CPN Financial at our website. So www.cpnfinancial.com. And you can follow me on Instagram. My name on

Instagram is Advisor On The Go. And I have lots of content for you guys to check out there and lots of IGTV videos talking about debt, insurance, ways to save all of that. So I'd love to hear from you and yeah, get your feedback. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. It was a pleasure having you. And that was episode 270 with Nicole Simons. Make sure to check out cpnfinancial.com for more information about her wealth management company, but also check her out on the gram like I do. You can find her at Advisor on the Go. Also, you can find her on Facebook, facebook.com slash Nicole Simons CPN is where you can find that. Of course, I'm going to include all these

links in one easy place in the podcast show notes on my website. Go to jessicamorehouse.com slash 270. That's where you can find the show notes for this episode. You can find show notes for every episode in existence by just going to jessicamorehouse.com slash whatever the number of that episode is, or just go to jessicamorehouse.com slash podcast. All the episodes will be there. You may also not know this, but again, I don't know how you're listening to this episode. But I also have a specific YouTube channel for the podcast because I know a lot of people actually like to listen on YouTube instead of maybe a provider like Spotify or Apple Music or Apple Podcasts or whatever you're listening to.

So just so you know, if you just Google More Money Podcast on YouTube, you'll be able to. Okay. So just so you know, you can if you just find, you know, Google more money podcast on YouTube, you'll be able to find it. I've also linked it to my normal YouTube channel on YouTube, just Jessica Morehouse. So yeah, anyways, I've got lots of things to share. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I have a few words I want to share about this episode's podcast sponsor, then I'll be right back with you with some very important things to share. This episode of the more Money Podcast is supported by Coast Capital Savings. Did you know that the pandemic could set women back as much as half a decade? Yeah.

Looking back at the last year, we've seen the COVID-19 pandemic take an incredible toll on all of our lives. But the reality is it has affected women a disproportionate amount, with the impact on BIPOC women being even greater. That means all the progress that has been made in gender equality is hanging in the balance, which is why the More Money podcast has partnered with Coast Capital Savings on their Keep Her on the Map campaign. Join me and show some love to women-led businesses and all the women in our lives who have been impacted physically, mentally, or financially due to the pandemic. I've recently shared some of the women-led businesses that I love on my Instagram and Twitter, so I encourage you to share your

favorites online and with your friends and family to show women your support and to keep them on the map. To learn more about how to support women-owned businesses or to find resources for women who have experienced impacts to their physical, mental, and financial well-being, visit coastcapitalsavings.com slash keepheronthemap. Once again, that's coastcapitalsavings.com slash keepheronthemap. Okay, like I said, well, okay, going back to kind of what I was talking about, I was talking about YouTube. And you may not know this, but I have a YouTube channel that I've been sharing a ton of content on. Things that I probably wouldn't really share on this show because it's more informational. This show is very, you know, it's interviews, right? So I'm talking to a guest about

a certain topic. But the YouTube channel is really me kind of exploring certain topics in depth, giving you some tips, tricks, you know, useful guidance, especially I've been getting a lot since we're in tax season, a lot of questions about taxes, especially self-employed taxes, or if you have a side hustle. And I've got so many videos specifically on taxes on my YouTube channel, also on my website, of course. So if you don't remember, because it's been a while since I probably mentioned it last, I also have a blog on my website, jessicamorehouse.com slash blog. I also have some blog posts you may want to check out. But yeah, I've got a lot of content. I do a lot of things besides the podcast, surprisingly. I mean, the podcast is my baby, I would say, my main baby. But I've got a lot

of stuff going on that you may not even realize. Yeah, I've got a blog. I've got a YouTube channel. I spend a lot of time on Instagram and Twitter. And I do so many other things. I can't even, that's why I have a to-do list because I'm like, what do I do and what do I need to do? So yeah. Also, just a reminder, I do also still have my investing course. So it is open for enrollment. Applications are open. If you just go to, well, you can go to just like the main page of my website, Jessica morehouse.com and you can find it right there. Um, but also if you just go Jessica morehouse.com slash W B B it's kind of the shortened version of wealth building blueprint for Canadians. Um, that will take you right there to the application form and, uh, you can apply, see

if you're a good fit for the course. We'll have a little call and you'll get in. There's a ton of people in the course already. I've been getting some really great feedback, which makes me super, super pumped and excited. And again, the course has only been open for a few weeks. So that's really good news. And also I've been adding so much more content

into the course, especially like, I think I mentioned this on podcast, but I can't remember if I did. Like I'm adding like new video tutorials all the time, new lessons, and also some expert interviews. So I have quite a few contacts in the Canadian financial industry. And so I'm kind of tapping onto some of the contacts to get some experts on the show, in the course, so I can interview them specifically about ETFs or their platform.

So I've already got interviews from an expert from Tangerine to talk about their new ETF portfolios and Questrade and Questwealth portfolios to talk about their robo-advisor and also their Questrade discount brokerage platform. And I'm adding new interviews all the time. So lots of exciting things in there. So check it out. There's also a link in the show notes, jessmorehouse.com. So you can check that out. Um, last thing before, uh, I let you go, or I think there's a few things. So let me just say the thing that's at the top of my head. So I don't forget. Um, I have a contest, an ongoing contest. Um, jessicamorehouse.com slash contest is where you can find all the info, but I'm giving away a ton of books that have been featured on the season of the show. If you want to enter to win and I'll be

tell, I'll tell you, I think a lot of people are not taking advantage. Some of these books have not a lot of entries, which means you have a better chance of winning a book. So go there and enter to win. You have nothing to lose, everything to gain by potentially winning a book. Okay. And the last thing that I'd like to share with you, also share this in my email newsletter today. But I am doing a Twitter chat, Twitter party, if you will, on Tuesday, March 16th. So that's next Tuesday at 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time. It's in partnership with the CDIC, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation. You can start following the hashtag now if you want, hashtag CDICchat. Follow me on Twitter, of course, and you can find more information.

But I'll include a link in the show notes. You can find more details. You can basically sign up to get a reminder. But otherwise, all you have to do is hop on Twitter at 6.30 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, March 16th. Follow the hashtag C-D-I-C chat to find out what's going on. So basically, we're going to do a Twitter chat, learn more about deposit insurance, but also the incentive for you to hang out with me on the Twitter next week is I'm giving away four $50 Amazon gift cards to some lucky winners. So there's gonna be four lucky winners that I'm going to choose and you may potentially earn a, you know, win a $50 Amazon gift card. So why not? It'll be fun. It's always fun. I haven't done a Twitter chat literally since 2019, which is

wild. And honestly, there's so much fun. So I hope you join me. So yeah. Okay, that is it for me. Oh, except what? Hello, Jessica. I always forget this. I have a bonus episode for you again tomorrow. Two episodes in one week for two weeks in a row. This is wild. So make sure to check back here for a special episode with a special guest tomorrow. And yeah, that is it for me. Thanks for listening. See you back here tomorrow.