Products
Front Range Life & Health, Inc. sells a wide variety of products, including Medicare Supplements, Medicare Fee for Service Plans, Health Insurance, Health Savings Accounts, Long Term Care, Life Insurance, Critical Illness, Fixed Annuities, Equity Indexed Annuities, IRAs, SEP IRAs, Roth IRAs, Section 125 Plans, Short Term Insurance, and Medicare Part D Plans.All the products I help people buy are designed to protect assets and provide money necessary to deal with catastrophic needs. In today's medical environment, one of the most important building blocks is insuring adequate healthcare. To this end I help people over 65 buy Medicare supplements and people under 65 buy health insurance through PPOs.
Medicare supplements pick up the costs not covered by the government through Medicare. There are a myriad of these including the first three pints of any blood transfusion, the first $100 of outpatient care each year and the first $876 of each hospital stay. Medicare plans help people put a lid on these potentially high costs.
People under 65 are even more at risk since there is no government program providing predictable uniform coverage. Recently, however, Health Savings Accounts were created for individuals. These are the most promising solution we have seen in a long time for people since they combine comprehensive health insurance with an excellent tax deduction for out of pocket medical and dental expenses. These health savings accounts are a lot like traditional IRAs except more money can be squirreled away in them each year, they have no mandatory distributions and there is no penalty to use the money for medical costs.
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One major gap not covered by Medicare or Medicare supplements or health insurance is the possibility of a prolonged illness such as we have watched Ronald Reagan and his family live with. The only government program available to those of us who are not ex-presidents is Medicaid. Before Medicaid will cover these costs a spend-down is required. This spend-down in Colorado requires that all the assets of the estate be reduced for the spouse in the nursing home and a few things for the stay-at-home spouse : $90,000, one house, one car one wedding ring etc... The best way to avoid that spend down is by having an insurance company responsible for those costs instead of the family. That is accomplished through Long Term Care (LTC) insurance. Today there are a lot of creative ways to finance long term care without losing all the money spent if there never is any need.
Another very important product that is integral to providing secure predictable finances is life insurance. Once very staid and uninteresting, life insurance has become more flexible today as companies are designing more creative policies combining life insurance, long term care, disability and critical illness into one policy. Because of product innovation most people who have life policies over four years old should be looking at better ways to spend that money.
Critical illness policies started in Australia and grew popular in countries with government supported (and limited) healthcare where, for treatment at non-governmental clinics, people needed to pay cash. These policies pay the owner the face amount upon diagnosis of a critical illness- like cancer for example. The insured can use the money for treatments not covered by health insurance, to take vacations, to supplement lowered incomes etc. The money is available upon diagnosis and not related to actual medical expenses. Personally I have seen many people devastated by the financial consequences of a critical illness above and beyond medical costs. I believe strongly in these policies.
With the pitfalls of poor health taken care of, the next step is to avoid the pitfalls of poor planning: losing money unnecessarily to taxes and stock market downturns. The Federal government has given special tax status to an insurance product everyone should have: Fixed annuities — not to be confused with their hazardous, unstable step-cousin Variable annuities. They are tax deferred until they are cashed out. Today we can take advantages of Equity Indexed Annuities which increase in value when the stock market goes up and hold steady when the market goes down. Imagine that — a product that does the market timing for you! You can have your money in the market 24 hours a day 365 days a year getting 60 to 75% of the upsides, none of the downside and preferential tax treatment from Uncle Sam to boot.
Section 125 of the IRS code allows employees to select certain benefits normally paid on an after-tax basis and, through payroll deduction, to pay for these benefits on an untaxed basis. Paying for these benefits on a pre-tax basis allows your employees to increase their take home pay without costing the employer more money. Section 125 Plans, also known as "Cafeteria Plans" or "Flexible Spending Accounts," can be structured to include a variety of benefits. Read more, and purchase 125 Plans here.