Motley Fool Money - Are Insurers Ready for Hurricane Milton?

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Analysts at Jeffries estimate that Hurricane Milton will do $50-to-$175 billion in damage. (00:21) Matt Frankel and Ricky Mulvey discuss: - How insurers prepare for catastrophic losses. - What extreme... weather events mean for homeowners, car owners, and the commercial real estate market. - Why Alex Chriss gets an A for his first year leading PayPal. Then, (14:27) Robert Brokamp joins Alison Southwick to answer listener questions about saving for college, finding a financial advisor, and estate planning. Vote for Motley Fool Money as Signal’s Best Money and Finance Podcast: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2024/shows/general/money-finance Companies discussed: BRK.A, BRK.B, SPG, UVE, PYPL Host: Ricky Mulvey Guests: Matt Frankel, Alison Southwick, Robert Brokamp Producer: Mary Long Engineer: Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:28 The PayPal turnaround is one year. year in, you're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joined today by Matt Frankl. Matt, how you doing? Great. Good to be here. It's been a little while. It has been a minute, but we're glad to have you back. First story is hurricanes. Thinking of everyone in the path of Hurricane Milton right now, the category four storm is expected to turn category five when it makes landfall in Florida. For the purposes of this conversation, though, we're going to focus on the business side and the question of who pays after the storm, something that I'm sure a lot of Floridians are thinking about right now. A lot of large insurers, including Allstate, Progressive, AIG. They've taken a small dip as the
Starting point is 00:01:18 storm has grown stronger. One small insurer with a lot of Gulf Coast exposure, it's called Universal Insurance. That's fallen 20%. That's the setup. Are these large insurance companies, Matt, in a decent position to handle the aftermath of Helene and Milton? I mean, the short answer is yes, but insurance companies, you know, their losses are kind of lumpy overtime, and for reasons like this, early estimates, if Milton stays on the current track are for about $175 billion in damages, to put that in perspective, Hurricane Katrina, the total damage was about 160. So this has the potential to be a very costly storm just because it goes through two major cities on its current track, Tampa and Orlando.
Starting point is 00:02:02 A lot of insurers have left Florida for these exact reasons, including the one that I used in my house in Orlando, which we'll get to in a little bit. But the short answer is a lot of insurance companies use what are called reinsurers to limit their own risk. These reinsurance companies, which are generally run by big insurers, Berkshire Hathaway has a massive reinsurance operation, for example. It's kind of like, you know, laying off some of the risk on other companies. So, yes, insurance companies are very well capitalized right now, but this does have the potential to be an earnings affecting storm. It does. And a lot of these insurance companies haven't been paying out after previous storms. I saw one report that after
Starting point is 00:02:43 hurricane last year, insurers only paid out something like 40% of claims from hurricane damage, and a lot of that is flooding. You mentioned you have a home in Orlando. I mean, just from a personal level, how have you seen your homeowners insurance pricing change over the past few years, especially after you said one of the policies have been cut? Yeah, well, first of all, public service announcement. A lot of homeowners don't realize that typical homeowners policies do not cover flooding from hurricanes. If you even named storm, there's separate flood insurance policies that you can buy. But I do have a house in Orlando. I have basic homeowners insurance. I'm not in a flood zone or anything like that. And I bought it in 2021. So not that long ago. Since then, my homeowners premium has gone from
Starting point is 00:03:27 roughly $2,000 a year to about $4,300 a year, so more than doubled in the past two years alone. and there are a few reasons for that. It's not just because of storms. It's definitely a lot to do with it. They were seeing some pretty bad storms. There was Hurricane Ian, not that long ago. But there's, you know, there's higher replacement costs of homes. Construction materials, the costs are up about 34% in the past couple of years. Medical costs are rising. A lot of homeowners insurance policies have, you know, if someone slips and falls on your property and, you know, it covers things like that. And the U.S. housing supply is aging. Home prices are up. So replacement costs are. very high. There's a combination of reasons, but it's been really just a perfect storm for the insurance industry. The historical average is about a 5% annual increase in home owners insurance. And like I said, in Florida, a lot of people, including mine, have doubled or more in the past
Starting point is 00:04:17 few years. Yeah, in North Carolina, they're going to be looking at basically how they're going to raise home insurance rates. This is from the insurance department in North Carolina rate bureau. This was policy rate changes they were looking for a few years ago. But the hearing, is happening a couple days from now. And basically, these insurance companies are looking for an average of a 40% rate increase for these homeowners insurance policies. It's a 4% rate increase in the mountains, then up to 99% in some beach areas. You talked about how these costs have been spread out.
Starting point is 00:04:49 They're lumpy payments, but you have reinsurance companies. You have a lot of homeowners under the same policy. But do you think we're seeing these hurricanes affect insurance costs across the board? I mean, homeowners insurance in the middle of America, maybe even car insurance for, as I'm seeing a lot of those rates, skyrocket as well. Yeah, well, a lot to unpack there. So first of all, North Carolina, I wouldn't be surprised for that 4% figure in the mountains changes after Hurricane Haleem, because that's where it affected in the North Carolina Mountains. I mean, first of all, I hope everyone out there is safe and things like that. And if you live in that area, what we're talking about is just stuff.
Starting point is 00:05:26 So I hope you're all safe. there is a lot of weather-related dynamics, not just hurricanes, by the way. For example, hail-related events now cover about 12 percent of all homeowners claims. That's up from about 9 percent three years ago. So we're seeing a lot of different weather-related claims. And you kind of hit on a good point. These are rate increases they tried to enact a few years ago. And with insurance companies, they have to, it's kind of retroactive in a way. It's very backwards looking. The rate increases you see, because they have to get them approved. Like you said, they have to get their insurance increases approved.
Starting point is 00:06:03 So that's why your home value will, my home value jumped a lot in 2022, but my insurance cost is jumping this year because we're just now seeing those rate increases worked in. So that's a really good point. And like I said, there's a lot of different costs at play. The North Carolina Coast is very, very weather prone in certain areas. So I'm not surprised to see they're trying to increase those premiums. And it's very – and you mentioned it's not just the coastal states. And the average car insurance premium.
Starting point is 00:06:33 I don't know if you know this, Ricky, is up 22% this year on average. And that's after a 24% jump last year. The average auto insurance policy in America is about $2,500 right now. And the biggest increases are the biggest three states that we saw a 50% rise this year alone is California, which makes sense because that's a coastal state. But the other two that grew over 50% are Minnesota and Missouri, not places you would normally associate with the biggest impacted by weather events. So, yeah, you're seeing this kind of insurance crisis, a lot of people call it, play out
Starting point is 00:07:12 across the United States, not just in the coastal areas. One angle we haven't talked about is commercial real estate. How are you seeing these rising insurance policies affect the CRE market, which I know you closely follow? The short answer is in the real estate investment trust market anyway, we're really not yet. And there's a couple reasons. A lot of the real estate investment trust in the public markets use what are called triple net leases, which pass the insurance cost onto the tenant. Triple net leases, it's very common among single tenant properties.
Starting point is 00:07:42 Like if you pass a Walgreens, that's probably a triple net leased property. That means that the tenant has to pay taxes, building maintenance, and insurance expenses. So the REIT isn't responsible for that. But when you're talking about REITs that have multi-tenant properties, let's say Simon Property Group, which is a mall, mall owner, there's different ways of dealing with it. Simon, in that specific case, owns an insurance company. They have a subsidiary insurance company, and they self-insure a lot of their properties. And so this isn't really affecting them as much. It's because it's a self-insurance situation.
Starting point is 00:08:17 But if this insurance crisis continues, a lot of companies, companies that have, especially if you have a high office concentration in like Miami or something like that, could start being affected. Let's move on to a brighter story. I don't have a good transition for this. Fair enough. It's about PayPal because one year ago, just about one year ago, Alex Chris joined the company after 19 years with Intuit. First earnings call in early November, he came in strong, promising a more focused company. Later, he went on CNBC, promising to shock the world. And we've seen a lot of that. The company's become more profitable. Earnings have gone up.
Starting point is 00:08:56 What's happened this year under Alex Chris that would not have happened under the previous CEO, Dan Shulman, you think? Well, I like that you use the term focused because Pinterest was not focused under the previous leadership, or PayPal was not focused. They remember they want, I've met said Pinterest. PayPal wanted to buy Pinterest at one point, and no one really knew why. I still really don't know why they wanted to buy Pinterest. And it's not just Alex. Chris that's new. The entire leadership team is brand new. Alex Chris is actually the longest tenured person in the C-suite right now. So a very new team, and he is making some big moves that aren't necessarily reflected in the company's numbers. You mentioned more focused. They've done a
Starting point is 00:09:36 great job of cutting costs. It's driven profitability higher. The stock is up by about 40% from the lows as a result. But just to name a few of the moves they've made recently. In May, they announced they were creating an advertising platform, which makes a lot of sense. PayPal and Venmo have an unmatched amount of consumer spending data they can leverage. They introduced a product called Fastlane Checkout that kind of speeds up the online checkout process by about a third compared to traditional methods. Some of their biggest competitors like Adion have already adopted PayPal. They partnered with PayPal to offer Fastlane to their U.S. customers. Adion, in particular, plans on rolling it out worldwide. They announced PayPal everywhere, which is the, you know,
Starting point is 00:10:18 it's a debit card program essentially. That's the industry leading cashback debit card. It's competitive with most credit card cashback programs, and it can stack with these in-app offers that PayPal gives. PayPal launched its largest ad campaign ever. You might have seen the Will Ferrell PayPal ads that are on right now. And more recently, in mid-September, they announced a partnership with Shopify,
Starting point is 00:10:41 where they're going to become an additional online payment processing option for Shopify payments in the U.S. previously that relationship was just in France. And Shopify, just for context, they had $41 billion of payment processing volume in the last quarter alone. So that could be a needle-moving partnership. And the key thing is, these moves can both add users and boost monetization of the platform, and they're not reflected in the numbers yet. And once you announce a partnership, it takes more than a month or two to really work itself into the company.
Starting point is 00:11:13 So really interesting moves, very active, is very effective. to say, and it's focused. They're focusing on what they do best, providing an online checkout experience, not on, you know, random bolt-on acquisitions that no one really knows why they're doing them. So it's a lot of movements, a lot of focus. The stock has been rewarded, as you mentioned, with a 40% increase since over the past 12 months. But if you were giving Alex Chris a letter grade for, you know, 360 feedback, we're all giving each other feedback here. What letter grade would you give Alex Chris for his first year on the job? I'd have to say an A, I'm a PayPal investor. I became a PayPal investor shortly before Alex Chris started. So when the stock was pretty low and everything,
Starting point is 00:11:57 you know, he's preserved what's great about PayPal in terms of, you know, it's user base. He actually returned growth to the user base, which remember user growth really slowed down and went negative for a bit after the COVID surge kind of dried up. I mean, previous manage, it was just just planning on the growth happening forever. indefinitely. They remember they said they were going to reach a billion users before too long. So really, he's executed on what he said. They're a more focused operation. I don't know if any of these are shock the world moves yet. I mean, they all make very good sense, adding a faster checkout option, creating an ad platform. Those are all things that make sense with PayPal's core
Starting point is 00:12:37 business. But if they're successful, the numbers certainly could shock the world. So we don't, Like I said, all these numbers are not reflected in the numbers yet. So we don't know if they're successful. So there's always that risk. But in terms of what he's done so far, I'd have to say an A. So as he goes into his sophomore year, as we start this fall, what storylines are going to be watching and grading Alex Chris on? Now I want to see things reflected in the numbers.
Starting point is 00:13:02 So this was kind of like the, he even referred to this as, I think, a transformational year or a transitional year or something to that effect. So now that you've got some of these pieces in place, I mean, he made. a big hire in the ad platform, for example, pretty recently. Now that we have all these pieces in place, we want to see some results. We want to see the company return to growth, which a year ago, when he took over, PayPal was essentially priced like it was never going to grow again, like it was going to constantly decline over the years. And now we've seen that it's growing at a double-digit rate, earnings-wise at least. And if they can return it to user growth and
Starting point is 00:13:40 increase monetization of the platform, if that ad platform could become a, you know, a billion dollar revenue stream, which isn't out of the, out of the question. That's, those are the kind of like progress toward those things are what I'm looking for this year. Yeah, I own some shares in PayPal, so it's certainly a storyline. I'm going to continue to watch. Matt Frankel, appreciate you being here. Thanks for your time and your insight. Of course, thanks for having me. Before our next segment, this quote from Machiavelli, people should either be caressed or crushed. If you do that minor damage, they will get their revenge. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their
Starting point is 00:14:21 vengeance. That quote is why I'm asking you to vote for Motley Fool Money in the 2024 Signal Awards. We're in the business and finance category and right now we're in the lead for the Listeners Choice Awards. I'd like to get further with that. I want to get ahead of our competition. If you'd like to join this campaign, please vote for us at the link in the show notes. All right, up next, Robert Brokamp joins Allison Southwick to answer the personal finance questions you sent us about saving for college, finding a financial advisor, and estate planning. Our first question comes from Kathy. Love the show and appreciate the helpful information. Oh, thanks, Kathy, and you're welcome. In the estate planning episode on October 1, you mentioned
Starting point is 00:15:05 that a person would not need to worry about taxes on an inheritance unless it was more than 10 million. While that is true for federal taxes, my estate planning advisor indicated that the limit is much lower in some states. For example, in Oregon is currently one. million dollars. Can you suggest any options for reducing or eliminating this other than setting up residency in a different state? Well, Kathy is making a really good point. So since she mentioned taxes on inheritance, let's start by talking about the difference between estate taxes and inheritance taxes. So an estate tax is someone passes away, the executor values everything in the estate files the final tax return. If they have to owe estate taxes, they pay the taxes,
Starting point is 00:15:46 and then the money goes to the heirs. An inheritance tax is paid by the people who, who inherit the money. You get an inheritance from your mother and you own taxes on that. There is only estate taxes at the federal level, but there are six states that have inheritance taxes. I'll talk a little bit about that later. Now, as I talked about in that October 1st episode, you don't have to worry about the estate tax unless you die with more than $10 million. The actual specific number in 2024 is $13.6 million. That's per person. So if you're married, you can have twice that and not worry about estate taxes. It's actually technically a unified estate and gift credit, and I'll talk about why that's important a little bit later. Now, those
Starting point is 00:16:28 limits are higher due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Those will sunset in 2026, you know, unless a future Congress and President do something about that. So at that point, they'll drop to somewhere between 6 and 7 million, again, twice that for married folks. Now, if you do pay estate taxes, it's only the amount above those amounts. And the rates range from 18. percent to 40 percent. So you may be wondering like, well, what's factored into the total value of my estate? It's basically everything you own. Your investment accounts, your retirement accounts, including your Roth accounts, right? People love the Roth because the distributions are tax-free, but it does get included in your estate value, real estate, personal possessions, jewelry, things
Starting point is 00:17:08 like that. And this gets a lot of people insurance if you own it. So if you have your own insurance policy, you own it's worth a million dollars, you die. One million dollars will get added to your estate. So for most people, it probably makes sense for someone else to own the policy on your life, maybe a spouse or a trust. And I'll mention a little bit about that later as well. Now, let's talk about the states. Twelve states and the District of Columbia oppose an estate tax. And the exemption limits are lower than that federal exemption except in Connecticut. Now, Oregon has the lowest at $1 million. So Kathy's estate planning expert is right that people in Oregon should be thinking about estate taxes. Fortunately, the tax rates are generally lower
Starting point is 00:17:47 in states than that federal rate ranging from 1% to 20%, but it depends on the state. So on top of that, as I said, previously six states impose an inheritance tax. And those range from 6% to 16%. Maryland is the only state that has both an estate tax and inheritance tax. Now, let's say you're worried that your estate will be either subject to federal or state estate taxes. What can you do? And really, the overall strategy is just to have less money by the time you die. And you can do that in a few ways. First of all, you might want to give money to heirs and charities while you're still alive. This is becoming more popular. A common phrase that's used to this is that it's better to give money with a warm hand than a cold one.
Starting point is 00:18:26 So if you're confident that you'll have a sizable estate and you won't need the money, why not give it away now, especially if your heirs are in their 40s and 50s, trying to raise a family, trying to figure out how to save for their own retirements, maybe pay for kids' college payments. Just don't forget to keep enough for yourself, especially considering that you may have to pay for long-term later on in life. Now, in 2024, each person can give another person $18,000 without worrying about Uncle Sam getting involved. So let's say you're married and you have three kids. You can give each kid $18,000 and then your spouse can give each kid $18,000 for a total of $108,000. So there are tax issues to think about when you're giving money away. Now, what if you give more than $18,000 to a
Starting point is 00:19:12 single person. You don't owe extra taxes this year. What you have to do is file Form 709 with your tax return, and that amount over $18,000 reduces the $13.61 million estate exemption. That's why it's called the unified gift and estate exemption. So basically, the bottom line is most people can give away a lot of money without worrying about actually paying any gift taxes. Another way to reduce your estate is to put money in an irrevocable trust, but the amount that you contribute is subject to the gift tax rules. And then you technically no longer own the property, unless you have no control over it. And then the other way is permanent life insurance, right? The premiums can be very high, but it gets that money and the
Starting point is 00:19:53 future growth of that money out of your estate. And life insurance proceeds are income tax free to your heirs. Just remember again that this only works that you don't own the policy, right? In many cases, when life insurance is bought to reduce estate taxes, it's done via an irrevocable life insurance trust, most commonly known as an islet. So I hope you can see that. see that this can get pretty complicated, which is why we recommend that you see a qualified estate planning attorney, someone who knows your state laws, especially if it's possible that your estate will be subject to estate taxes on the federal or state level. That was a lot. That was a lot. All right. Our next question comes from Brian. My wife and I have a joint regular
Starting point is 00:20:34 taxable brokerage account, and we have part of it earmarked as our child's college fund. The balance of that portion of the account is around 90,000 currently, and it is invested in an S&P 500 index fund. We did not create a 529 on the chance that our child did not want to attend college. He's 10 years old now, and as he under his middle school and high school, we should have a better idea of whether or not he will choose to attend college. If it looks like he will want to attend college, could we super fund a 529 account with the money from this taxable brokerage and avoid having to pay capital gains tax on the portion we contribute to the 529? If so, how does that process work? And are there any gotchas we should be thinking about in advance of the
Starting point is 00:21:14 529 contribution. Well, first off, good for you for saving for your son's potential college expenses and for choosing an S&P 500 index fund because it has been an extraordinary investment over the past decade. So that's a good news. The bad news is that you can't transfer the money that's in the S&B 500 index fund to the 529 tax free. You'd first have to sell the investment and then you'll have to pay capital gains taxes. So you'll have to decide whether and when to bite the tax bullet, get the money into the 529. then the future growth will be tax-free if the money is used for qualified purposes.
Starting point is 00:21:49 Now, you could just keep the money in the index fund and put future college savings in a 529, but just know that if you decide to wait until your kid is close to or in college to sell the index fund, the capital gains will increase your income and reduce your eligibility for need-based financial aid if you think you'll get some. As you think about how your income might affect financial aid, just know that it's based on the tax return from two years prior. So parents who applied for aid this year were using their 2022 tax returns. As for asset values that you add into like the fast fund, those types of forms, those are based on the day you file for aid.
Starting point is 00:22:26 Now, in the previous question, we addressed gift taxes. And this comes into play here as well. Any contribution to a 529 is considered a gift. And it's subject to that $18,000 annual limit. However, there's a unique rule to 529s and that you can give up to five years worth of contributions. In other words, $90,000 or $180,000 if you're married and filing jointly, without it reducing your unified gift and estate credit.
Starting point is 00:22:52 But you do have to file Form 709 for each of the subsequent five tax years. And finally, for those who are worried about overfunding a 529, you're not sure your kids going to go to college, things like that. You can always transfer the money tax-free to another qualified relative. Also, starting this year, up to $35,000 of unused 529 money can be transferred. to a Roth IRA for the beneficiary. Now, there are a lot of rules about this, including the account must have been opened
Starting point is 00:23:19 for the designated beneficiary for at least 15 years, and any money in growth in the past five years can't be contributed. And the amount transferred to the Roth IRA must follow all the Roth IRA rules. So in that that person must have earned income, their income can't be above the Roth eligibility limits. And you can only transfer the Roth annual limit each year, which in 2024 is $7,000.
Starting point is 00:23:41 So it would take several years to, get the whole $35,000 into the Roth IRA. Our next question comes from Drew. I've been doing a great deal of self-education on personal finance, investment strategies, and retirement planning, and feel that I understand these concepts well. However, I still have a good portion of my nest egg with a financial advisor who charges me for assets under management. Yeah, they'll do that.
Starting point is 00:24:04 I have IRAs, a 529, and a brokerage account with them. I do feel that I'm capable of managing my own investments along with an occasional consultation with a fee-only financial planner. How do you find a financial advisor who does not want to just manage your assets? Also, do you have any other suggestions for managing my own accounts? Well, Drew, how very foolish of you? And that is foolish with the capital F because the Lolley Fool was founded 31 years ago on the belief that the more you can learn and take control of your finances,
Starting point is 00:24:34 the better off you'll be. I will say there are good financial advisors out there, right? And they're worth whatever fees you're paying, especially if they're providing some sort of financial planning service, like helping you determine how much you should be saving for retirement or for college, how much insurance you should have, giving you tax saving tips and things like that. So the first step is determine whether the service and returns you're getting from your advisor is better than what you can do on your own given the fees you're paying.
Starting point is 00:24:56 It sounds like you're comfortable doing it mostly on your own. So you can just transfer the money to another firm. The Motley Fool has a site called The Ascent that rates discount brokers according to various criteria. One criteria maybe to look at is whether the firm provides any kind of investment or financial planning advice if and when you want it and how much it costs. With some firms, it's an additional assets under management fee, but I bet it's going to be much lower than what you're paying now. For others, once you have a certain level of assets, you get complementary access to a financial professional. The other option is to find a fee only financial planner
Starting point is 00:25:31 who just charges by the hour, and you can find those folks at the Garrett Planning Network, that's GARR-R-E-T-T, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, otherwise known as NAPFA and the XY planning network. Now, with the 529, you could just transfer it to your states or another state's self-directed 529. Savingforcollege.com does a great job of rating 529s for residents and non-residents. You may also be able to just keep the 529 plan and take it over yourself and stop paying fees to the advisor, but that just depends on the plan. And then finally, if you decide to move accounts, it should be a tax-free event with your retirement accounts and the 529. With the latter, you may have to give back some tax breaks if you move from your state's plan
Starting point is 00:26:17 to another plan. With a taxable brokerage account, you should be able to transfer most of the investments in kind. But if your advisor has you in some kind of special or unique investment that your new broker can't hold, then you'd have to sell that and there could be some tax consequences. Our next question comes from Chavam. I'm a longtime listener and fan of the podcast from the other side of the world in Singapore. Oh, hey. Fun fact, bro. Did you know that Singapore is our fifth most popular region for listeners? Wow. I did not know that. So it's U.S., Canada, UK, Australia, and then Singapore. So I don't know, sounds like Chavon needs to like schedule a meetup or something. That would be great.
Starting point is 00:26:58 A fan love in Singapore. Dare to dream. All right. I have a question related to unit linked investment plans or would I say this ULIPs or ULIPs, bro? I'm going to say ULips. It sounds more fun. As it does, as they are sometimes referred to in Asia. Getting punchy at the end of the episode here. In every meeting with a bank wealth advisor, it is very likely that she or he is going to sell such a plan
Starting point is 00:27:26 that will include investing in a basket of mutual funds with a minimum commitment time period and some insurance linked to it, usually term protection. Do the fools have any thoughts on such products and the common areas to pay attention to. Well, I have to say, I am not an expert on investments or taxes or insurance in Singapore. And I'm not necessarily an expert on ULIPS. However, I did do some research.
Starting point is 00:27:53 It looks like they have a lot in common with things we have here in the U.S. that also mix investing with insurance. So here are some things I think anyone should look at when considering these type of sort of investment-slash-insurance policy. So, the first thing I would say is to look at cost. Here in the U.S., there are lots of these sort of hybrid policies, investments that sound great, but then when you look at the costs, they cost anywhere between 2 and 4 percent a year, and they basically overwhelm any of the benefits. So I would look at that. You also want to look at how the returns are calculated. It sounds like these are just invested in straight mutual funds, so it would just be the performance
Starting point is 00:28:33 of the mutual funds, but you would also see if costs are taken out of those as well. In some of the types of policies we have here in the U.S., the returns are calculated based on some complicated formula where they say, like, you get the index's return, but with less downside. But you actually don't get the indexes return. Like if it's based on the S&P 500, it's capped at just 8%, and you don't get dividends. So you want to understand how the returns are calculated in these policies. As you suggested, there are some illiquidity issues. Often you have to commit to a certain amount of payments for a certain amount of time, or you can't take money out within five or seven or ten years. So you definitely want to know how much your money is locked up and for how long.
Starting point is 00:29:20 Taxation, I know nothing about taxes in Singapore, but here in the U.S., one of the benefits of cash value life insurance policies is that you can borrow against the policies. Like all loans, that's tax-free. So that is, and also, as I mentioned earlier, life insurance policies are tax-free, so you just want to understand the taxes. And then finally, you want to understand what happens if you stop paying premiums, right? You're committing to a series of premiums. Well, what if you stop? In some cases, that will basically mean the policy lapses or you lose some of the benefits that you were hoping to get. So you want to understand what happens if you can't pay the premiums, and then you have to look at your budget and be very comfortable with your ability
Starting point is 00:30:01 to continue paying those premiums through thick and thick. If you've got a question for the show, Email us at Podcasts at Fool.com. That is Podcasts with an S at Fool.com. As always, people on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell anything based solely on what you hear. I'm Ricky Malby. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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