Here is the continuation of our discussion on the five types of insurance. If you have not listened to the first part, be sure to check it out as we’ve covered some pretty essential insurance information that you ought to know.
Key Takeaways You’ll Learn From this Episode:
- whoever you’re working with they should have your needs upfront
- the less likely they are to happen the less expensive the policy is
- If it’s not broken there’s no need to fix it
- the number one malpractice claims comes because policies and procedures are not in place or followed
- setup a risk management procedures in your office that everyone knows
- get an insurance check-up to make sure you’re not under insured or over insured
Listen to the Full Interview:
Full Episode Transcript:
Full Episode Transcript
With Your Host
Dr. Tarun Agarwal
Welcome to T-Bone Speaks with Dr. Tarun Agarwal where our goal is to change the way you practice dentistry by helping you achieve clinical, financial, and personal balance. Now, here’s your host, T-Bone.
T-Bone: Welcome back everybody and thank you for tuning in to part two of our episode on your five types of Insurance that you need to be aware of in your life plan and how insurance, liability and business insurance and health insurance and all these things fit into your overall financial health.
So let’s pick up our conversation back and here with Marc Ingram with Ingramchildsinsurance.com and Marc is a State Farm agent, but he’s not here as State Farm agent, he’s here just to really walk us into the different types of insurance and answer some common questions that we have and so I hope you find our conversation wonderful and let’s pick back up where we left off from my last episode.
So we’ve covered Life insurance we’ve covered Personal insurance, let’s get to Business insurance.
Marc: Business insurance, so Business insurance several of you guys out there you own a building as maybe your LLC and you…
T-Bone: Even if you don’t own a building you’re probably renting.
Marc: Right so we’re going to build to those so let’s look at first thing we have up here for the free podcast notes is owning the building. So we’ll look at the way T-Bone has.
T-Bone: So it’s like home insurance?
Marc: Like home insurance.
T-Bone: It’s building business owners building insurance.
Marc: Exactly.
T-Bone: So you got to cover the roof, the structure if it burned down, all you know if it got wiped away in a hurricane.
Marc: Correct. Any of that it’s covered just like the home is covered.
T-Bone: You know flood if you’re in a flood zone.
Marc: Right, leak. If you don’t mind talking about what happened here the water.
T-Bone: Yes, of course we’re open right so we built, we built Mona’s medical practice. We kicked out the insurance agents [laughs]
Marc: Thanks appreciate it.
T-Bone: Not Marc but another insurance agency that was renting space for me and so we didn’t renew the lease and then we moved Mona downstairs and sure enough we spent three months building a beautiful renovation, beautiful renovation and we went away for the weekend and we came back and there was a pipe that had busted.
Marc: Water heater.
T-Bone: Water heater that bursts and basically…
Marc: Yes, it just messed everything, flooded everything.
T-Bone: Half of our renovation. Within one week of completing the renovation.
Marc: So they were not happy with that, obviously that’s his building insurance their LLC building insurance covered that lost and I mean it’s pretty simple and your insurance provider you should have them on, you should have them in your phone. You should have them on your smart phone where you can text them, where you can say this is what’s going on and they say snap me a picture right, alright I’m coming out. so I remember coming out climbed into the wall look at the water heater yes this is a mess and so then we started getting – we called the insurance company and then we started getting asked how much it’s going to cost and that’s between you and your worker to get that stuff but it should be that simple, you can choose whoever you want to choose.
T-Bone: But you can choose who you recommend?
Marc: Absolutely I can recommend someone.
T-Bone: My point in this is about and I don’t mean to interrupt.
Marc: No, do you do can interrupt me go ahead.
T-Bone: To me this comes back to the relationship.
Marc: Yes, absolutely.
T-Bone: I’m working in my – obviously this is mentally damaging to my wife, okay. And I’m at a point like A) we need to stop the leak ok and then; B) I got to get to work so I can pay for this stuff, right?
Marc: Right so you’re losing on both ends.
T-Bone: But you know to me this is part of why I have an agent if they’re not vested in me and this is not about our friendship.
Marc: No it’s not, no, no, no.
T-Bone: This would to me, it goes above and beyond our friendship this is about you being a part of my team.
Marc: T-Bone would let me know if I was not doing, not doing well with him right.
T-Bone: Right to me, “hey we got these lost I don’t even know what the hell to do.
Marc: Right, first thing turn the water off. [Laughs]
T-Bone: Right, I already turned off right?
Marc: You’re right.
T-Bone: So you know I literally don’t know what to do and this is where having a great relationship and a great agent that’s part of your team, whether they come in, whether they dispatch somebody but basically you guys handle it for me and you said these are your choices of who you can choose to mitigate this right and…
Marc: Right I remember that well because you got to love T-Bone and his upbringing, I’ll say, he was trying, he was trying to price it, he was trying, he was trying, and Mona and I both had say you’re not paying for it. It’s not coming out of your pocket. You’re not paying for the mitigation of this water damage and so long story short everything is beautiful now but what you were saying is absolutely true it’s based on the relationship that you have with that insurance agent, professional whatever you want to call him, whoever you’re working with they should have your needs upfront.
T-Bone: And they shouldn’t tell me to call. I mean if you had told me for me to call somebody I would have been like what the hell, man?
Marc: Right, so I said well these are the folks that I know let me have them come out and look so they all came out and look obviously, I can’t say what you want to do and who you’re going to work with. [crosstalk]
T-Bone: You can tell me who to work with.
Marc: Right.
T-Bone: You can give me choices.
Marc: Correct and giving you choices I do these everyday people come to me all the time.
T-Bone: And you know who’s good and who’s not good
Marc: Right
T-Bone: You know you can kind of wink, nod I don’t know legally what you’re allowed to do but you know but you can make it easy for me.
Marc: And that’s the whole thing so you can get back to work doing what you do.
T-Bone: I thought you forgot about that.
Marc: Oh, I didn’t. Trust me I didn’t. I look at my claim reports and hadn’t forget but those are the things like Building insurances if you own. So if you rent, the only difference is if you’re renting that would have not been your claim, that would have been who you’re paying your rent to that would have been their claim.
T-Bone: Now what about the debts in all that the contents.
Marc: Correct, so in TBone’s case this was two claims, one was for his building and the other one was for Mona’s equipment in her desk in her carpet because that is her property that is her practice [crosstalk]
T-Bone: So even if she is not the owner of the building that’s still a separate entity that owns that stuff.
Marc: Correct the LLC owns the building, her practice is in the building, [crosstalk]
T-Bone: So that would be the case that’s still under the building insurance?
Marc: That’s still in the building insurance and now we’re kind of going into the practice side so if you’re – so this is the kind to sum up the building if you own obviously any claim happening to the structure you have to claim. [crosstalk]
T-Bone: Including flood, including water damaged, fires
Marc: Water damage influx of water in to it right, any fire, any of that.
T-Bone: So if I left my toilet on or my sink on
Marc: Right and it flooded all over the weekend that would be building claim and probably a practice claim depending on what’s damage of your what we call your business property.
T-Bone: Okay, so if my kids are so bad that they live my practice sink on.
Marc: Right so you come in on Monday and say oh my gosh you called me and say what’s going on then we go ahead and we evaluate the damage and we start getting it fix.
T-Bone: Ok so now we get into practice, business practice insurance and what do you mean by this? We talk about liability, business property, your stuff.
Marc: Correct you’re hitting the nail on the head.
T-Bone: Loss of income.
Marc: Loss of income. So the first is your general liability which is that you hear all the time some trip falls someone wants to sue you.
T-Bone: Can we not talk about malpractice insurance is?
Marc: This is a malpractice, no.
T-Bone: Ok so hey I have somebody, so now let’s clarify this, okay, if somebody trips and falls outside in the parking lot, is that my practice in business insurance? Is that my building insurance?
Marc: That is your LLC ownership of the building insurance.
T-Bone: Building, so that’s considered part of the building?
Marc: Right, because liability comes from both of those policies
T-Bone: Okay, so now if somebody falls and trips inside my office in my practice.
Marc: That is based on your practice liability, your general liability. [crosstalk]
T-Bone: So my business liability insurance.
Marc: Your business liability insurance.
T-Bone: Okay, so I don’t need just, I just don’t need a person just need my building covered I need accidental crap that may happen to my building.
Marc: Right.
T-Bone: Somebody decides that they fall over and they fall up my toilet seat because they liberate to something and now they want to sue me.
Marc: Right they have to get stitches, do all these kind of stuff and people come to you saying, “can you pay my bills? Can you do this? Always contact your insurance professional before you pay a dime to anyone.
T-Bone: So I just have the patient contact them directly?
Marc: You can have the patient contact the insurance company directly, but let your insurance professional know that, “hey, this is what happened, this is what we did, I gave them your number and this is who will be contacting you and we’ll tell you what we’re going to do [crosstalk]
T-Bone: We’ve had this happened a couple of times here and God bless these people. They’ll claim, we literally had a 400lbs man fall down and then claim that he broke his toe and he tore his rotator cuff and this was our fault right and now he wants us to pay his medical bills and so what I love about this again as I say you know what Mr. Jones if that truly happened to you we want to certainly make sure you’re taking cared of. You know, so here’s the great news we have a wonderful insurance policy I want you to contact our insurance professional and they will assist you and make sure you get paid what you’re owed.
Marc: Absolutely and…
T-Bone: I’m done with it.
Marc: Right, and I will say about eighty percent of the time these folks will call and then realized that the insurance company is very serious because this is what we do every day. We’re going to take it serious because even though we kind of joke around a little bit and say fell and did it really happen, we know stranger things have happened. Could it have really happened? That’s up for the insurance company in a position to figure that out, but we’re going to find out the truth and that right there is what helps you all because once you start paying out money to people you’re automatically accepting liability for what’s happened.
T-Bone: Right so again I believe in turning that over to professionals and let them handle ok what about business property and stuff?
Marc: Business property all of you have a very expensive X-ray machines, obviously.
T-Bone: Not everybody, but we have.
Marc: You should, right, so those expensive x-ray machines that you have.
T-Bone: So like my CEREC machine, $150,000 machine.
Marc: Absolutely
T-Bone: My X-ray machine, another $150,000 machine
Marc: Correct.
T-Bone: My chairs, $30,000 each, you know. All my stuff.
Marc: All your stuff, yes.
T-Bone: My forceps, my hundreds of forceps that cost two hundred dollars each by the time you add it up it’s twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars.
Marc: Right, so that’s why you need to talk to your insurance professional and say ok what do you have in here – you should actually be walking through because I remember here in this building with TBone walking through looking at it how much this cost and yes this is a rough estimate but that $30,000 chair five years ago is how much now?
T–Bone: What’s cost a replacement?
Marc: Right. The cost of replacement so what we’re trying to do is go through here and get a not a precise but a very accurate type of number.
T–Bone: You don’t need it all covered because what’s it like if we have total lost.
Marc: Right what’s like it if we have to replace every one of the chairs I mean it’s pretty small.
T-Bone: So the funny story was one time Marc came and I said hey Marc I just build a training center I got five CEREC machine’s out there and he’s like what you got seven hundred fifty thousand dollars up there and you haven’t told me about these?
Marc: Right because if something let’s say he went home that night and the building burned down?
T-Bone: Those five machines won’t be covered.
Marc: Those machines gone and that’s what we want to do so insurance professionals are not to take money from you, it’s to help you not lose money if something catastrophic were to happen and business property can, I mean it’s all the way down to the paper clip holder that your receptionist ask.
T-Bone: The biggest thing I find or the example I always use is I had a friend who once had these wireless X-ray sensors. This are 2×2 squares that cost like fourteen thousand dollars each and he had a temp assistant in one day and she threw it away and they didn’t realize it till the end of the day when they’re hanging everything up and then that things already gone to the trash can, I mean like the dumpster.
Marc: That’s a claim.
T-Bone: That’s a claim right so that would fall under your practice business property stuff insurance, my stuff ok.
Marc: Absolutely.
T-Bone: Now we have lost of income your overhead insurance.
Marc: Right, loss of income overhead insurance actually, if you’re say let’s get an example let’s say there were some kind of interruption, something going on let’s say half of the building burned down, that’s the easiest example to use and there’s smoke damage no one can come to work it’s going to be solved 36-90 days before you can get back in and start making money. Well, every insurance company has their own way of calculating your loss of income or your overhead. How you’re going to pay your employees? They still need to get paid. It’s not their fault, right?
T-Bone: My mortgage.
Marc: How you’re going to pay your mortgage. So that loss of income is going to look at your average for some companies it will last for months it might be eighty percent of your last twelve months it might be six months’ time to certain factor it can be…
T-Bone: And there’s a time period like some policy pay up to thirty days, sixty days, ninety days so when Mona, when we had that flood in Mona’s office so we actually had three claims there right we had to claim for the building, we had to claim for the material and then we had to claim for the loss of income.
Marc: The loss of income was with the practice.
T-Bone: Right, so now Mona couldn’t work because her office is now flooded so we were out of work for a month and so that’s a month that we paid bills and team members but yet we couldn’t see patients so somebody’s going to pay for that either I pay for it or I can actually buy a policy that covers that.
Marc: And any good business property a lot of people called them BOP’s any good business insurance policies is going to have built in you shouldn’t have to ask for that separate but if you want that peace of mind ask him that.
T-Bone: Sometimes that can be you know a significant amount of money…
Marc: It can be, absolutely.
T-Bone: You know a good practice might be doing a hundred, hundred fifty, two hundred thousand dollars a month that’s above and beyond what most businesses do.
Marc: Correct
T-Bone: So you know suddenly you need this is now the thing where you know either your insurance professionals ask, the point of view in this podcast is not everybody is blessed with a good team member insurance professional and so my point in doing this is for you the listeners to ask your insurance professional hey what would be, what would happened and this insurance is not that expensive.
Marc: No, that’s the business probably you’re outside of going to your personal that’s probably your least expensive policy right.
T-Bone: To me somebody that hate insurance this are the things that I do want insurance.
Marc: Correct.
T-Bone: Like I want to insure things that I don’t want to pay for it in the event that they happen and the less likely they are to happen the less expensive the policy is.
Marc: Now, a lot of you might be saying how am I supposed to stay on top of life, personal business and trying to run a practice. Well, our T-Bone..
T-Bone: That’s why you have a good agent.
Marc: Right, you have a good agent and TBone’s actually started, you know he educate his practice manager on this types of things so if he’s got a question he’s digging out a mouth he can just kind of holler over and say “hey, holler over and talk to Marc and ask him about these and she knows where to go what to do and so right now your practice manager if I’m not mistaken, I mean, they should be up on these types of things for you.
T-Bone: Yes, you know Cynthia is our direct contact. Actually, Cynthia is our business manager for both my office and Mona’s office and so she’s our liaison. At the end of the day I need to be working in patient’s mouth, I need to be working and Mona needs to be working. I don’t need, I don’t have time because number one a) because my relationship with Marc, anytime I talked to him it turns into God knows what kind of conversation, the next thing you know I’m half an hour behind so you know we need to cut the nip in the bud. So now that leads us into – so we’ve covered under business – there’s building insurance, there’s practice insurance and that leads us to the third part of it which is workers comp.
Marc: The workers comp which a lot of people feared the workers comp fees.
T-Bone: Is that required?
Marc: The workerscomp is required. Obviously in the state of Carolina if you have more than one employee people say based on the state, but I don’t know any dentist that doesn’t have more than one employee.
T-Bone: I wish I had zero, sometimes.
Marc: Correct sometimes, sometimes a lot of people say what about my – this is a key question on worker’s comp, well let me back up a little bit. Everyone knows workers comp covers injury or illness, or an accident that happens while you’re at work or disease so that’s what it covers. So a lot of people say well I have independent a lot of you guys might have somebody who is a 1099 for you working as a dentist coming into a something or maybe a hygienist.
T-Bone: Contract hygienist.
Marc: Right, contract hygienist, well, that payroll is included in your workers compensation because as you all I don’t know let me give you a little education on it, when you contact your insurance professional and they say well I’m just make up a number here. Well, a million dollar coverage for your workers compensation is going to cost you four thousand dollars a year. I’m just making this number up and you say ok, four thousand dollars a year and that is based on a payroll that you give your insurance professional so if you say payroll for this entire practice is twenty three thousand dollars a year and so just to give them at the end of the year workerscomp policies are what we called audible policies there’s an audit due about one month before you renew all the time.
T-Bone: Oh, that drives me crazy.
Marc: Oh, yes.
T-Bone: I can’t imagine how many times you get on us.
Marc: Oh, yes I’m always “hey, check this out. Fax this back over da da da [crosstalk]
T-Bone: Because they’re going to cancel my policy.
Marc: Because they’re going to cancel your policy and then lo and behold when there is something happens.
T-Bone: When it’s canceled.
Marc: When it’s canceled.
T-Bone: No joke.
Marc: So if you come back and say when our payroll was $125,000 well you’ll have a credit back to you for your renewal of let’s just say a thousand dollars so they will say well the premium should have only been three thousand because your payroll was less than you projected. Well the opposite happens if you have a payroll debts or two thousand dollars well it’s going to be more and a lot of people wonder that why is that more now?
Well, that now being explained is pretty simple, workers compensation is based on an estimated payroll period and so that’s why the audit is so important to make sure that you do or your practice manager does or whoever or your accountant whoever is handling your payroll paperwork that they are on top of these and can just send it in, I even know for mine small when I said it to my CPA and they send it directly back to me and I just kind of e-mail to them and…
T-Bone: So Workerscomp is required.
Marc: It is required, it is required I would say.
T-Bone: In the state of North Carolina?
Marc: As an insured professional I would say it is required, period, because my job is to make sure you are covered appropriately.
T-Bone: So talk to me what is worker’s comp have?
Marc: Give me an example someone who’ve been injured, someone catching a disease or someone who haven’t [crosstalk]
T-Bone: Like my assistant falls out of her chair.
Marc: Falls out of her chair, hit her head on the corner of the desk or whatever.
T-Bone: If I have to wheel out a patient after sedation in a wheelchair and she falls down wheeling that patient out and breaks her leg?
Marc: Breaks her leg, that’s a workerscomp claim. And she’ll go to the doctor. And they’ll say it’s work related, she’ll say, yes. And that triggers your claim for workerscomp. So think they say broke her lady they say yes and that triggers your claim for workerscomp
T-Bone: I think the more common not the more common one but if you cut your hand, you cut yourself with the blade or you stick yourself with the needle that automatically by the way cost you a boat mode because they’re going to take those medication and force to do it no matter what, you know that kind of stuff.
Marc: That is a claim of obviously you’ll pay them, you pay up all the medical bills are paid paying them while they’re out of work for the time they’re out.
T-Bone: So they get paid for loss of income.
Marc: Absolutely, underneath the workerscomp and that’s why a workerscomp is a necessity in your industry because you can have the greatest assistants, the greatest hygienist whoever is in your office if something happened they’re your worst enemy in the world.
T-Bone: This is covered things that happened on an off campus work related injury like say let’s say I send my hygienist to a CE event ok and she trips and falls there.
Marc: She trips and falls there, now you got a couple of things going on here number one – we got to go back auto we make sure she has you have employee non-owners liability which is something that T-Bone has, meaning if his employee they have personal liability where they were injured in the line of work that his insurance will pick that up.
T-Bone: Ok, so we didn’t cover that where would that be on?
Marc: That goes on that’s part of your business and that’s not…
T-Bone: Practice liability, my business liability?
Marc: It’s actually an auto policy for your business it’s next to nothing as penny.
T-Bone: But that’s like a rider or something?
Marc: Like a rider.
T-Bone: On to my liability insurance, okay. So I’ve always been worried about this I’m glad I know this. This is about non-knowing right? So if one of my team members you know I say hey like we just went on a field trip to Washington D.C with education event and I was in Denver so I flew to Washington D.C to meet them but they drove from Raleigh to D.C because it’s easier than flying, and it was cheaper than flying.
Marc: Absolutely.
T-Bone: But anyway, so if they’ve gotten to a car accident while on a work related trip, my insurance company will pay.
Marc: Your insurance company will pay or their personal could pay.
T-Bone: Or they will fight each other, the insurance companies…
Marc: They will ferret that out the insurance companies and the claims folks will figure that all out but if they’re using their… [crosstalks]
T-Bone: But you want that covered?
Marc: You want that. I mean that’s $50 every six months. It’s like it’s nothing
T-Bone: We just want to make sure you have it.
Marc: We want to make sure you have it because if they say, on us I got my insurance.
T-Bone: So what if that happens to me?
Marc: If that happens to you it’s going to your own auto insurance because you’re the owner of the policy
T-Bone: Alright no we also wrote down so that covers workerscomp, so we wrote down Umbrella club
Marc: The Umbrella club which is exact same thing on a commercial or business side, I guess you call it a bluff if you want to, Business Liability Umbrella Policy, it covers above and beyond on your building liability your practice liability so if something was to happened and that slip and fall Mr. Man in the hallway…
T-Bone: So again, we’re not talking about malpractice.
Marc: This is not malpractice. It’s totally different. This here goes above and beyond on your general liability.
T-Bone: So again same thing, hey, I see his Mercedes out there he got this big building I’m going to milk this one.
Marc: Oh, absolutely.
T-Bone: So you know my policy probably has a million, two million dollar limit and then so now I’m getting super ten million dollars.
Marc: Absolutely, and where is that going to come from?
T-Bone: Oh well, that rich dentist got it.
Marc: Then they see the practice door’s close and so on and so forth. You all move to another state but what you want to do is make sure that when you talk to your insurance professional, you ask him about these things because I mean we do this every day and the goal is to cover you not to break you yes, that’s not our goal.
T-Bone: Ok so you need some type of Business Liability Umbrella
Marc: Right.
T-Bone: And then last thing that we wrote down was, we covered loss of income the Overhead insurance. Okay, great so I know we’re running over game but that’s ok. So now we get into – so we’ve covered Life insurance, Personal insurance, Business Related insurance and I’m here with my good friend Marc Ingram who happens to be a State Farm Agent, he is not here as a State Farm representative but he is here as an educator talking to us about just various life and Business insurances just because I think it’s one of those areas I struggled in if I figure I know most are struggling in. So it’s an area that I want us to understand to look to I want us to have a potential resource I’m not saying you got to buy anything from Marc but if you want a resource that needs to look at something. So now we covered Life, Personal and Business and now we need to get to Professional. Now professional we talk about malpractice and disability.
Marc: Right, so malpractice, a lot of folks TBone and I were having a conversation prior to starting and we’ve had it several times that’s one thing I do not insure for him is his malpractice insurance, not because we’re not capable of doing it but he’s got a very good malpractice insurance right now. If it’s not broken there’s no need to fix it. He’s covered well, but malpractice is going to cover if you pulled that wrong tooth, obviously you guys are more [crosstalk]
T-Bone: You hear a no placing an implant just malpractice things that you do in the course of dental work
Marc: Correct, so I look at my role for TBone and his offices, what kind of risk management tools are place in your office to prevent malpractice.
These policies and procedures need to be in place. Everyone from your practice manager, your receptionist, to your hygienist, your assistant, your I don’t know whoever does your molds, whoever your lab folks, they need to be aware of what’s going on because number one, the number one malpractice claims comes because of the misappropriation excuse me not mis-appropriation but where notes are not in sequence if you’re not writing the right things down, you’re not following the policies and procedures that are laid down in the office and people charge no charge I mean [crosstalk] yes telephone notes they’re not done correctly and so those are what lead to your number one malpractice claims.
T-Bone: Yes, that’s not taking care of people.
Marc: Yes, not taking care of people falls on that.
T-Bone: Being an ass TBone in other words.
Marc: Change of manner and a lot of people – this is one thing I didn’t want to mention about malpractice. What if you’re going out after someone to pay a bill and they file a malpractice claim what happens?
T-Bone: Oh, God it’s a pain.
Marc: Correct, you don’t you more like you could never give their money I mean you could do a twenty thousand dollar amount and you’re not going to get their money because they’re going to file a malpractice claim and so that’s why taking your notes, having some kind of risk management procedures in your office set up that everyone knows. So if TBone is doing a CE event somewhere in Denver, as he was talking about earlier or he’s in Los Angeles and he’s got a dentist here who works for him and his staff here and they do not know the procedures which I know they do in his office we’re just using an example only, how does he know that these things have been followed? That is where you all need to look and worry [crosstalk]
T-Bone: We have a procedures manual so that where we can know try to go over what happened if somebody else did wrong, you know in particular case that Mark was talking about nothing that happened but we make sure that our associates has his own malpractice covered.
Marc: Absolutely.
T-Bone: But at the end of the day you know he’s working in my practice so I own some liability insurance. So I don’t want to talk too much about malpractice insurance but unbelievably important that you have it.
We’re fortunate in dentistry generally speaking that it’s pretty inexpensive insurance. I pay fifteen hundred bucks a year for it and in my personal belief and I may be wrong about these but my personal belief is that we’ve gone with the dental only or dental specific company and they do an unbelievable great job and you know they may be re-insuring it to State Farm for all I know [crosstalk]
Marc; More likely they’re re-insuring
T-Bone: To somebody right let’s just the face to
Marc: that’s why your rate is what it is.
T-Bone: Right so yes, so now we have disability, what is disability insurance?
Marc: Disability is if you’re disabled for a certain amount of time that you’re actually going to be getting paid a percentage of your income is at the time that you went out of work or depending on how long you’re out or injured. If you become permanent it’s a whole different world of SSI or you talk about disability, but for this for example you hurt your hand and we’re talking about you’re skiing.
T-Bone: Now you went out of work for six months.
Marc: Yes, for six months you’re disabled so who has disability insurance out there look at yourselves and ask yourself do I have disability insurance, why would I need it and a lot of us look and say likelihood of that happening to me is pretty small.
T-Bone: Like I don’t have disability insurance.
Marc: Correct, and that’s the conversation that you know we cannot- TBone conversation yes we kind of, we kind of, our conversation is a little different than most it’s not like somewhat you sit down let’s go over. It’s more of I’m going to text you this. I’m going to send you an e-mail on this now I’m going to call you on this and then I will get his wife to ask him what he needs to do because disability insurance; if something were to happen to your hands, that is the most important [crosstalk]
T-Bone: Or back.
Marc: Or your back leaning over what are you going to do, that’s the thing what are you going to do.
T-Bone: I’m going to celebrate dude.
Marc: Oh you’ll celebrate, you’re going to celebrate because you get the big amount right but what we need to look at is how are you really going to pay your bills, where’s the income going to come from?
T-Bone: You know, listen, I laugh and I joke about this a little bit but my wife does have a practice and God forbid if something would happen to me at the end of the day we can find a way to live off of her. You know we could live in our home and have some of the things that we have, but certainly we could downsize if we could live off of her right so part of my belief in disability is that but also a lot of us are single income families where the dentist is the primary bread person of the family and if something were to happen to him or her that would really put a dent.
Now so disability policy as I understand it has a time period before it kicks in and that’s where you go to your loss of income or your overhead policy and then at some point ninety days is typically sixty – ninety days and then your disability kicks in and it may be short term disability or it could be long term disability.
Marc: Right so what you’re talking about is what we call elimination period so if any one tells you about what if you’re getting a quote for this and you’re saying put together in whole package for me in life and business and so on and so forth and they say what kind of elimination period do you want and so for dentist you can ask the question how long can you survive without having the income come in, you might say thirty, sixty, ninety days or you may say a year depending on your own personal situation but that elimination period means you will get nothing so let’s just say thirty days for example. Elimination period is thirty days that means.
T-Bone: The first thirty days you are on your own.
Marc: Right, and then day thirty one a claim is submitted started so that actually one for being sixty days before you get paid your first disability check.
T-Bone: But you might be owed for that thirty days beforehand.
Marc: Correct, so it depends on the policy that you have.
T-Bone: In other words you got to be able to carry for that thirty days while you’re waiting for your check
Marc: You better live it and let me correct something that thirty days that elimination period thirty days there’s no payment for that thirty days.
T-Bone: Right there’s no payment for that thirty days now sometimes to reduce your premium you may go sixty days or ninety but these part goes into our episode that I think it’s episode three or four hopefully that showed to our link a personal savings and professional savings podcast so this is to me is something that you need to re-establish every so often so one of the things that I believe in is that you should have three months of savings available to cover you know all these things, so in the beginning when you have disability you may have a thirty day elimination period or zero day elimination period you need at least thirty days. So you may have a thirty day elimination period but when you get to the stage where you have thirty, sixty, ninety hundred twenty days of savings maybe save on that premium you go to a sixty, ninety day, hundred twenty day elimination period.
Marc: Right, I know in my profession obviously different than yours but we look at you have six months as a savings where you can survive for six months without because during that time other life events will still happen. So if we’re banking only on well, I have this much money what if something happened? What if you get into car accident or a parent get sick, you have to put someone in a home which we’ll talk about that as our next topic, but if any of these things happen your kid get sick some things goes on you got it happen so that your resources will do that so disability insurance in this industry just like any surgeon is very, very, very important. If you’re a dentist and you’re not covered with disability I believe your kind of messing out, you’re messing out.
T-Bone: You’re leaving yourself subject to risk.
Marc: Absolutely and everybody is not in TBone situation, everybody as he said your single income family.
T-Bone: I’ll go to a motel dude.
Marc: Yes, well but if he’s yes he can’t, he can’t check you into the hotel.
T-Bone: That’s ok man I’ll give you my [unclear], I’ll drive an Uber. So we’ve covered Life insurance, Personal insurance, Business insurance, Professional insurance and now our final topic is Long Term Care. Now this is something I don’t even understand because it’s not even in my radar right now but talk to me what do you mean by Long Term Care?
Marc: Ok Long Term Care most of us know of someone who suffer from dementia. Where are they? Where do they wind up being? Where do they usually take their last breath?
T-Bone: In a hospice or a home of some sort.
Marc: It’s a some kind of long term care facility or a home. If something happens to you and you just can’t really care for yourself, this is where – I mean how many folks you’ve seen here thriving these or thriving really well in whatever business they’re in and then something happens to them they become disable they need to go to assisted care facilities or some kind of nursing facilities, they need this kind of care, long term care insurance is obviously right now you pay upfront for it. So the average cost for long term purposely for someone, nurse is going to take care of you, feed you, give you medication, bathe you these types of things, these right here normally will cost you about three hundred to five hundred dollars per day.
T-Bone: You’re not talking about the insurance you’re talking about the service.
Marc: It’s about the service itself. Any long term care facility is going to cost you about between three hundred to five hundred dollars a day and that’s a decent one if you want a really nice place you can go on to six, seven hundred dollars a day. So you start paying for long term care.
T-Bone: I want the Ritz-Carlton sir, it might be a thousand.
Marc: That’s what most people want to do and everybody you heard someone spinning down your assets that’s getting rid of things to qualify so that you don’t wind up in that boat if something were to happen to you and your family member doesn’t have to be your main care giver, you get long term care insurance and a lot of you folks that are I say under 45 can really look at the cost of these and benefit.
If you’re hitting fifty and sixty and so on and so forth that is the premium on that is going to be a little bit more significant but what you would do is you pay the premiums now and if something happens you file a claim when you’re going into it.
T-Bone: You keep paying this premium forever?
Marc: You keep paying the premium yes and so that’s why this is one kind of like the whole life insurance or the permanent life insurance it pays to get it early because no one thinks that we can you know get a brain tumor or get sick something happens.
T-Bone: In other words, I’m paying insurance for something that likely will happen to me when I’m seventy, or eighty years old.
Marc: Correct.
T-Bone: God forbid something happened before that that’s covered too right?
Marc: You can go to a home for rehabilitation or any of that kind of stuff too yes.
T-Bone: Like drug rehab or alcohol rehab?
Marc: That depends on state regulations because every state has different rules on it you have to start getting things I know you all hate to talk about that like to medicate.
T-Bone: What about if I go to my psychiatric ward.
Marc: Psychiatric ward depends on the policy that you have that could be covered by your health care insurance or medical.
T-Bone: I thought that was a joke you made it sounds like you actually expects me to go psychiatric ward.
Marc: Oh, I do know you’re going there so you need to contact your major medical and let them know when you will be you know.
T-Bone: I mean you just said that with a straight face. You made me feel like you’re not surprised if [crosstalk]
Marc: I got to get you off guard, sometimes I got to get you off guard
T-Bone: And hurt my feelings. Alright so we’ve covered five different types of insurance that affect our lives whether you buy these policies or not I think it’s unbelievably important we’ve covered a lot. We’ve gone over quite a bit here but we’ve covered a lot of very important information. Things that we should know things that hopefully we’re reconsidering and ultimately number one, Marc, how would somebody get in touch with you?
Marc: A couple different ways you can contact with us you can get it ingramchildinsurance.com is our website.
T-Bone: So that’s ingramchilds- I-N-G-R-A-M-C-H-I-L-D-S insurance.com did you come up with anything longer?
Marc: You know I’ve been kind of going back and forth but I’ve got this name out there now and it’s no one else is ingramchilds so that’s how you can contact. You can contact us on facebook@markingramagency on Facebook, Twitter you can get us @marksfarm.
T-Bone: What’s your office phone number?
Marc: 919 375 4285
T-Bone: Now if somebody wants to get you to write the insurance you’re limited to North Carolina?
Marc: In certain instances, we can discuss different avenues of what we can do so if you want us to review something for you, I mean, a no look obviously just to help you out we’d be more than happy to do that.
T-Bone: And then you can probably get them to somebody that you trust in the area.
Marc: I can get you in contact with someone that I will feel comfortable with.
T-Bone: And you’re limited to State Farm?
Marc: Depending on for workers compensation no we’re not but everything else right now, State Farm.
T-Bone: Ok so I want you guys use Marc as a resource I’m putting him on the spot a little bit but even if you’re not in North Carolina and you really don’t know where your insurance is and just need somebody to help guide you. I went to his office today and he had time to hang out with me so I don’t know you must have time to help people out so you know I want you to utilize him.
I trust Marc personally and I know that he has your good interest at heart and he wants to help you so please don’t hesitate to utilize him. A) if you want to buy something that’s fine I don’t care personally about that but I want you to get your life in order and certainly I want you to work with a qualified professional and somebody who is not there to sell you something, but to help you make wise choices that would be great.
So to end this episode I want to go over something that’s unbelievably important to me is that and I’ve learned this through the hard knocks is that you need to do an annual review in your insurance policy the reason I say that and I know Marc as early maybe three to five years in life I really think that insurance is a vital component of your overall financial planning and your financial plan is something that you need to look at in my opinion every six to nine months because things change market goes up and down your needs change, you know things that you plan, things that are going on and this is why I go back having those members of your team certified financial planner, your insurance agent, your accountant and an attorney. You need to have people in your team and I like to get my team together, I like to be bounce ideas, I like to put them in touch with each other, you know my accountant will call and ask me why do you have this my certified financial planner will say what do you have and I believe in that personal relationship where I can just say, “Hey, dude here’s Marc’s information, Marc whatever you need please help him and then I have to sign some paper work, there are certain things you can’t give him just give to me to give him, those kind of things but you need to do an annual review and it’s not about dollar shopping, okay. That’s certainly a part of it because sometimes you get over insured.
Marc: Absolutely and that’s and I will say it is TBone was mentioning earlier a lot of things that insurance industry can get a bad name I mean you are mandated for certain things so when you’re looking for insurance you’ll know when the person has your interest at heart because they will not, it should never be about cost in the beginning, you should say they should lay out your plan and say ok based on…
T-Bone: All of you guys are pretty competitive you know when I say all you guys I’m talking about A+ insurance agents. I’m talking about North West, Mutual, State Farm, All State, Aerie all these well-known companies so I’m not talking about the general.
Marc: No, no, right anybody can comes to me and say Marc review this policy and this is from the general, I’m going to say really but I will review it for you I definitely review it for you, because when you start looking at the dollar, you’re shopping for the dollar you need to shop for the relationship not because you want to like the person, the relationship that someone is going to be looking out for you and I do a lot of insurance with the dental industry from general dentists, cosmetic dentists, orthodontists, periodontists, I mean and my thing is always with all of them I want to make sure you’re covered appropriately and you know what you’re paying for. I mean after you hear this podcast sometime this week look at your insurance bill, look at what you have just send a text message or an e-mail out to whoever your provider is and say am I adequately covered or am I under insured.
T-Bone: Or you’re over insured.
Marc: Or you’re over insured.
T-Bone: We keep talking about under insured but I can give you examples of.
Marc: Oh, I can give you T-Bone’s example of being over insured
T-Bone: Yes, you know over insured these are the things that we need to look at what is my example so I can write that down?
Marc: No you’re not now but I remember when we went through this policy from the previous insurance that he had and things were 1) he did not have building and or practice it was all one thing and so he did not have his LLC being liable for anything it was always practice and it wasn’t separated correctly. His workerscomp was I believe five hundred thousand it wasn’t a million and the difference between that is thirty dollars a year and things like that and then his auto, his auto coverage wasn’t as high as it is now and it’s not trying to milk premium out of you because it’s ultimately your choice you can say I’m not paying that.
T-Bone: You and I’m worth more today than I was five years ago
Marc: You are so you have to re-evaluate.
T-Bone: And I do stupider of things today than I did five years ago.
Marc: And so you guys who are moving in the direction that he is moving in now but to a certain point you kind of get there and stay with a retirement on my mind and you hope you’re not liable for a lot of debt anymore so what you want to do is you guys are going toward your retirement side of life right now, you need to also get a check up and make sure you’re not over insured for that stage in your life and that is the biggest thing you’ll have. TBone said under insured we talk about it all the time which I think people say under insured, under insured well it’s up to you in understanding your coverages.
T-Bone: It’s a risk.
Marc: It is.
T-Bone: I mean unfortunately somebody risk a thousands, of thousands of thousands of dollars.
Marc: I mean I would tell you this when I know we’re short of time but I’ll tell you this one I have these one dental professional that had – he has several locations, one location was not even insured, one location building, $2.5 million dollars there is no insurance on it and we were happen to be talking at dinner one night and he said let me send you my information and if you don’t mind he sent it and sat down and he was like so something were happened to this last night what would happened you’ve been taken that insurance professional to court because they told you they had everything covered and they didn’t.
T-Bone: So you guys have to have some kind of malpractice insurance.
Marc: Yes, we have our professional liability, it’s our [unclear] mission insurance so if I told you, hey TBone [crosstalk]
T-Bone: Like I told you from the car dealership and said, “hey, I’m buying this new car and you say you got me covered it turned out you didn’t put that into the system”.
Marc: Right, and two months from now.
T-Bone: Even a week or two from now.
Marc: Well in different state you have cross carry over but for what you’re saying yes that is what we say we’re going to do when we say we got you covered and we’ve take care of it it’s just like you’re saying we’re going to fix that your mouth if you didn’t fix it or you pull the wrong tooth out you’re liable for that wrong tooth same thing.
T-Bone: So you know ultimately get a check up I believe you got to do it every year. Get you check- up. I sat down with my financial professional, my team, maybe individually or together and I say every year let’s put it together you know I’ve just asked Marc to give to me and this is other thing that kind of comes with this is when you get to a point where you have so many policy it’s mind boggling at the end of the day and it’s not like I spend a boat load of money on it but slowly over time these policies add up and it’s not just the dollar amount but it’s the policies and I want to have in untimely death of me or untimely demise or something I want a reference that my team or my other financial professionals, my parents, my wife, my kids whoever maybe they can go to one spot so I’ve asked Mark and this is to me what good agents do they put together book for you a book of all your policies, your declarations pages, you know your policy premiums so that you know, so you know like for example if something would happen to Mona forgot to tell me about her policy she may never paid it and her father said hey she’s yours now, now you got to pay it and nobody ever told me I would have stop paying it and we may have just lost that policy right so we want to know what’s going on, what’s happening , so have your professional A) make sure that you’re not under insured, you’re not over insured, you’re properly insured make sure that they put together a book for you, a binder, in today’s world binders’ not necessary completely I still want it because I like paper sometimes but also should have access to all your policies both business and personal and this to me is why I’d like to have a single agency that provides me everything maybe I pay a little bit more, maybe I pay a little bit less you know at the end of the day a few hundred bucks at my stage of my life in my career is not going to break or make me it’s more about the relationship and having the access to a single point to be able to look at those things.
Marc: A key point I mean this day and ages it’s 2016 if you can’t access your stuff on some apps, some smart device, online you need to switch because if that company…
T-Bone: Or you call your agent and like I don’t know anything about is probably time for you to get that listen let me lay out for you guys ok because there’s no secret here ok. Insurance companies, insurance agents they get paid based on pure commission system ok, so the more business that they write, the more insurance they get, they get a percentage of that business as their level of income and they get that maybe I don’t know the percentages I don’t want to get in to percentages but they get that every year so you know some old gizzer that isn’t helping you, that isn’t part of your team that you just like and feel bad for if they can’t keep up and keep with the time and help you, they’re doing you disservice and that person just ticking around collecting your insurance checks ok their commissions and I think personally that’s totally wrong ok so whether Marc’s fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty his butt better be making sure that we keep up with the time and the time is 2016 and our times are apps. So I called Marc the other day we were talking I said don’t you guys have an App he said yes so I said dude how do I get on to it what do I got to do and boom, sure enough he helps me with it, he sends me you know the information that I need how to access it the policies that are there like go on the app and I can see it.
I don’t think you should rely on everything on app because if your phone goes away you lose that then how can Mona going to look in my app I mean she can’t right that’s why I believe that you have to have some printed sheets, you got to have a booklet, you know with Marc and I do this let’s say even with my dental supply companies you know not Marc can sell me everything but Marc is my insurance professional so even though I don’t get malpractice through him he needs to be responsible to make sure that malpractices is part of my overall coverage and he needs to make sure that I keep my malpractice with my pro and that’s part of my book that I am overall covered there whether he sells it or not and to me that’s the sign of a good team member when it comes to whether he’s your dental supply or your insurance if they’re willing to make sure that even the things that they don’t sell or that they’re not competitive in, if they make sure that your covered and they can keep that as part of your book of business and make sure that you’re well covered that’s a person that’s really in it for your best interest and not just what they make and so to me is too many of us we have insurance agents that are our friends or we’ve been with for a while and we don’t look at it anymore and they’re too lazy and stupid to help you look at it again and so just get it ok, just get it, get with it too important stuff and I hate insurance but I love it when I need it, I hate paying for things I don’t need and soon as I sat down and got a great grasp of what’s going on and how I want to be covered it’s unbelievably important. So I think we’re going to end up this two episode Marc because we went over quite a bit but that’s ok.
Thank you everybody for listening again Marc what’s your telephone number?
Marc: It’s 919 375 4285
T-Bone: And your e-mail address
Marc: It’s…
T-Bone: is it too long?
Marc: It’s too long
T-Bone: So ingramchildsinsurance.com
Marc: ingramchildsinsurance.com
T-Bone: I-N-G-R-A-M-C-H-I-L-D-S-insurance.com
Thanks so much for listening to T-Bone Speaks with Dr. Tarun Agarwal. Remember to keep striving for excellence and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
Thank you everybody and I appreciate your time.
Thanks so much for listening to T-Bone Speaks with Dr. Tarun Agarwal. Remember to keep striving for excellence and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
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