Episode 78: Getting Life Insurance is…Easy?

Segment 1 (Show Open):

HELLO Lower Alabama! Hello Gulf Coast! Welcome in. Welcome to Coasting in Retirement! That’s. Right. Thanks for joining us today, we have another great show coming your way! Josh Null here, I’m joined by co-host and show sponsor Jay Stubbs with Providence Partners. Jay, how you doing buddy? Jay and I are joining you all from Coastal College’s recording studio, beautiful downtown Fairhope, ready to put together another great show!

Listeners: Jay and I are here to discuss financial topics relevant to those of you in or near retirement, living your best life along our part of the Gulf Coast. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you today: First segment – deep dive on our topic of the day. 2nd segment - at about 30 minutes past the hour - “Headlines of the Week”. Then at roughly 50 minutes past the hour, stick around for our 3rd segment, we call it” Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth”.

Quick background on me for those new to the show. Again, my name is Josh Null, I am a fee-based financial advisor, I hold my FINRA Series 65 securities license, and I am the owner of Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, we are an independent investment management and financial planning firm with offices in Fairhope, Orange Beach, and Mobile! You can find more information on me and the team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors by visiting our website gulfcoastfa.com, or feel free to give us a call at 251-327-2124. If you missed that contact info, get a pen and pad ready because we will repeat our contact info several times throughout the show!

Jay, allow me to lay a little groundwork for our listeners before we get into our topic of the day, especially for our newer listeners. I want you all to pay attention to this term: family office. It’s an important term and trend in our financial services industry. Let’s define it for you: a family office is a private wealth management advisory firm that serves ultra-high-net-worth individuals, typically managing over $30 million in assets. The family office provides comprehensive services, such as investment management, estate planning, philanthropy, and lifestyle concierge services—to help manage and transfer wealth across generations. Beyond investment advice, family offices typically manage tax planning, legal matters, risk management, family governance, education for heirs, and lifestyle management. The goal is to offer holistic, personalized, and centralized oversight of a family's entire financial life, acting as a personal "financial headquarters". Anything to add to that Jay?

There’s a reason I bring up a family office is because that is effectively what we have built at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, only instead of only serving those of you with $30M in assets, we intentionally help regular people that have done extra-ordinary things. We have built a outsourced version of a family office for those of you referred to as “mass affluent” and “high net worth” that don’t often get this level of service with your typical financial advisor, especially any of you out there still hanging with an old-school broker.

Here’s how we do it: while we provide sophisticated investment management services, and this is very important to your overall financial success in retirement, we always lead with financial planning. And under our financial planning umbrellas, we work hand in hand with fantastic strategic local partners to handle our client’s estate planning needs, their tax planning needs, their legacy planning for transferring wealth, we help with financial education, and to the point of this episode, we use our years of experience and a critical strategic partnership to help our client’s with any risk management needs, particularly around life insurance, long term care insurance and disability income insurance. Which leads us to Jay Stubbs.

Jay, would you mind to layout what you and Providence Partners do to not only assist Gulf Coast Financial Advisors’ clients, but many other independent and semi-independent advisors along the Gulf Coast?

Great. Now, finally to our main topic of the day. In show prep, I asked Jay a simple question: has life insurance ever been easier to get than right now? Jay’s text: technology creating process efficiencies, companies more lenient on health history that used to be roadblocks in the past, and mortality pricing at all time lows per $1000..plus awareness by the consumer that protection is important.

Jay, I think all of this naturally leads us into your recent affiliation with a company called Ethos. Let’s discuss:

Listeners, if you want to set up a follow up conversation with the team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, it’s easy. You can call us at 251-327-2124, or find us on our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. There are flexible meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, a 30-minute zoom, or my preference, an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations: Downtown Fairhope, Orange Beach just down the road from the Wharf, or in Mobile near the intersection of Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you!

Alright folks, coming up next - There’s always a lot going on in the world! Particularly the world of finance, investments and money. Every week we scour the internet for financial articles that have important information for those of you in or near retirement. Join us after the break to hear Jay and I discuss this week’s relevant news in our “Headlines of the Week” segment. Stay tuned!

Segment 2 - News of the Week:

Welcome back to Coasting in Retirement, your host Josh Null here! As we discussed before the break, every week we scour the internet for financial articles that pertain to those of you in or near retirement. Our job is to help you all understand how these headlines impact you, especially when it comes to your money! Note – if you want to read our referenced articles yourself, we also include the links in our show transcript, which you can find on our website gulfcoastfa.com under the podcast tab. Alright Jay, without further adieu, let’s get at with the Headlines of the Week:

1. Alright Jay, with the war in Iran resulting in quite a bit of stock market fear, I pulled a recent article that addresses investor’s concerns around a looming stock market crash, titled “What We’ve Learned From 150 Years of Stock Market Crashes”. Morningstar identified 19 major "market crashes" (defined as a 20% drop or more) since 1871. The big takeaway? Despite 19 different "world-ending" events—from the Great Depression to the World Wars to the 2020 pandemic—the market has recovered 100% of the time and gone on to new high. One thing I found interesting was their "Pain Index." They don’t just look at how far the market fell; they look at the area between the peak and the recovery. It’s a combination of the depth of the drop and the duration of the recovery. For example, the COVID crash of 2020 was incredibly sharp—a nearly 20% drop in a month—but the recovery was so fast (four months) that on the "Pain Index," it’s actually the least painful crash in history. Compare that to the "Lost Decade" of 2000 to 2013, where it took 12 years for investors just to get back to even. That’s the kind of "pain" that can really derail a retirement if you don’t have a plan. This is where financial planning and risk management become so important, so that investors don’t feel compelled to sell when the Pain Index is high. Jay how do you help your advisors help their clients with navigating volatile markets like the one we are experiencing right now?

https://www.morningstar.com/economy/what-weve-learned-150-years-stock-market-crashes

2. One more article about stock market jitters, this one found on Charles Schwab site, titled “The Ups and Downs of Stock Market Volatility.” The article points out something most investors forget: since 1974, the S&P 500 has seen an average intra-year drop of about 14%, yet it still finished with a positive return in 33 of those 50 years. Schwab’s data also shows that timing the market is hard to do because the market's best days often occur within just a few days of the worst ones. In fact, if an investor missed just the 20 best days over the last 20 years, their total return would be nearly 70% lower than if they had just stayed put. Ahhh, it just sounds so easy coming out of our mouths, doesn’t it Jay? But seriously, for people in or near retirement, especially those looking to retire this year, this volatility and uncertainty is unsettling. So what can we do to help them address these fears?

https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/ups-and-downs-stock-market-volatility

3. Alright Jay, let’s move on from stock market volatility and back to your biz of risk management. A just released report from LIMRA shows that life insurance demand has hit yet another record high, with total premiums up 10% year-over-year. Insurance Business Magazine breaks down this report in an article titled "Life insurance demand drives record $17.5 billion in premium”. According to the article, Indexed universal life (IUL) was a major contributor to the overall growth with new premium of $4.5 billion in 2025, up 17% year over year, which accounts for roughly one-quarter of the total life insurance market. Whole life insurance saw a 7% gain and Variable Universal Life—or VUL—jumped 17%! I’ll honest with you Jay, I didn’t think VULs were a thing anymore, so can you help our listeners understand these different types of life insurances and why people are buying so much of them?

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/breaking-news/life-insurance-demand-drives-record-17-5-billion-in-premium-569779.aspx

Alright folks, coming up next: Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth. What have been some of my predictions? Have I been right? Was I ever wrong? How wrong? What do I think is going to affect investors in the near future, or maybe the distant future? We talk about all of these things and poke a little fun at my big mouth. Stay tuned!

Segment 3 – Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth:

Welcome back! Your host Josh Null here, alongside guest co-host Jay Stubbs of Providence Partners. So, I am opinionated, I have strong opinions at times, I would say a radio show host that isn’t probably wouldn’t be very interesting to listen to. And I am paid in my profession to offer professional guidance and opinions to my clients, otherwise what use am I? Just replace me with AI. I like making predictions, and while I usually proved right, there are times I swing and I miss. Want to hear me eat a little crow? Then let’s get at with Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth.

Listeners, I hoped you enjoyed a little behind the scenes commentary on how Jay and I form our opinions, and that as fathers and husbands, we are human, and we do pay attention to broad world events. We invite you, one last time, if you would like to start the conversation about your own retirement plans and dreams, then give us a call at 251-327-2124, or visit our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. We have several meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, a 30 minute zoom, or a 1 hour in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations – downtown Fairhope, Orange Beach of Canal Rd, or Mobile near the intersection of Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you!

Also – don’t forget to vote Nappies! We’re trying to win Best Lifestyle Radio Show!

Folks, that is it for this week! I want to give a huge thank you to my guest co-host Jay Stubbs, thank you to our show sponsor, Jay’s business Providence Partners, thank you to our two radio stations, FM Talk 106.5 out of Mobile and WHEP 92.5 FM in Foley, many thanks to the provider of our show music, local band Sloth Racer, huge thank to the show producer, my son Payton Null, and as always my sincere appreciation for all of your out there that have been listening and joining us on this journey. We would love to be a part of your journey as well! Until we talk again, have a wonderful and productive week. This has been Coasting in Retirement with Josh Null!

GCFA Disclosure:

Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, LLC ("GCFA”) is a registered investment adviser offering advisory services in the State of Alabama and in such other jurisdictions where it is registered, filed the required notices, or is otherwise excluded or exempted from such registration and/or notice filing requirements. Registration does not indicate or imply that GCFA has attained a particular level of skill or ability, nor does it constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any state securities regulator.

The Coasting in Retirement radio program serves mainly to disseminate general information including those pertaining to GCFA’s advisory services, together with access to additional investment-related information, publications, materials and links. The publication of this radio show should not be construed by any client and/or prospective client as GCFA’s solicitation to effect, or attempt to effect transactions in securities, nor should it be interpreted as GCFA providing personalized investment advice, or any type of professional advice, for compensation, wherever this program is broadcast. Any subsequent, direct communication by GCFA with a prospective client will be conducted by a representative that is either registered or qualifies for an exemption or exclusion from registration in the state where the prospective client resides.

Certain information, news stories, headlines, data, charts, graphs, figures or statistics presented on this radio program may have been obtained from third-party sources that are believed to be generally reliable but which GCFA may not have independently verified. GCFA does not and cannot guarantee the timeliness, accuracy, or reliability of any such third-party information and undertakes no obligation to update or correct any information that may become obsolete, unreliable, or inaccurate. The radio program also contains the opinions, views, and perspectives expressed by Josh Null and any other GCFA representatives which are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or perspectives of GCFA as a firm. Such personal views and opinions should not be construed as endorsements or professional advice from GCFA. GCFA makes no representation or warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information on this radio program, and disclaims any liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage incurred from using or relying on such information.

GCFA, Aptus, Providence Benefits and Providence Partners are not affiliated, nor are any of their respective representatives.