Government Employee Insurance Strategies by The Gov Geeks, LLC
welcome to The Gov Geeks! We're honored to provide professional development
strategies to help you get in and get ahead in public service.
I'm Javier, and in this interview will hear from the chief insurance geek herself,
Ellen Davis. A top executive and sought-after expert for public servant
benefits her specialties include health life long term care and disability
insurance. Today, Ellen will share three government employee strategies to help
ensure well-being. Plus we'll also include a few actionable career tips along the
way and here we go... (intro music)
hi everyone this is Javier Lopez with the gut geeks and I'm very excited to
welcome Ellen Davis today to talk to us about life liberty in the pursuit of
happiness welcome welcome thank you so much javi I'm so excited to be here
thank you absolutely we are so thrilled we've had
a lot of conversations before and I'm really excited about all the wisdom that
you have and also your willingness to share it with everyone oh it's my
pleasure actually the more that people are educated about what what is
available to them and their options the the better choices they can make for
themselves and their families so I'm really excited about this well please
tell us a little bit about yourself in your company well my name is Ellen Davis
and my company is life help home Insurance Group and I am a native New
Yorker that moved to Maryland 23 years ago I will always be a native New Yorker
I joke that though my children were born here they are New Yorkers that grew up
in Maryland though they are truly truly Marylanders so I'm actually very proud
of them and the fact that they feel so homegrown here we have four really cool
questions and I know you prepare them so I'm really excited looking forward to
them to your responses so the first question is who is your spirit comic
book character well you know when you asked me that to think about I realized
my spirit comic book character is actually the entire group of the
Avengers and the reason being is that I know you're very happy about that is
that the Avengers as a whole they come together I think and excuse me if I'm
incorrect but I think there's over 60 Avengers in the entire franchise but
they all come together to work together to take care of bigger problems that one
person can't do and one of the ways that I run my businesses is this is a team
sport for lack of a better word going planning thinking about insurance and
long term short term how do I take care of my family how do I take care of my
parents my children myself is a team effort and without experts in other
fields to work with how am I supposed to help my client go from point A to point
Z in the most efficient cost-effective way and so I I think the Avengers is my
spirit comic book group so question number two Star Wars or Star Trek
okay so easy Star Trek I'm sorry I Star Trek / Star Wars I know I'm gonna get a
lot of a lot of pings on this from friends and family but I grew up with
the original Star Trek I know not to wear a red shirt notice the purple
exactly never wear red shirt never wear a red shirt though yellow does happen
Reds get hit more than men yellows but I'm a Trekkie through and through Oh
perfect so question number three Marvel Comics
or DC Comics I'm sorry hands-down Marvel I mean you know the Avengers you got to
go marvel across the board and their franchise again when they started it's
all about the good guys it's all about coming together and I and I love that
not to say that DC comics is bad no no I'm not saying that it's just I happen
to prefer Marvel comic characters or you know at least I did as a kid question
number four PlayStation my home we have Xboxes my goal like Xbox so that's where
we are so I'm not really good at it they they love to tease me about that
yeah I know that you have a lot of experiences a lot of great things that
you've done and one of the things that we were focusing on is top three
suggestions that you would have for federal employees now this is a very big
question because of all the expertise that you have how do you smash it into
just you know three things but let's give it
a shot Wow you know it is really difficult so when when I talk to
somebody who is wanting to get into the federal government or state government
or local government or somebody who has been working within any government
agency for a short or a long period of time we tend to look at point planning
for now and for the future and so we take a look at this pie-in-the-sky
concept of this is where I am today this is where I'd like to be you know in five
years you know almost like an interview where do I want to be in retirement well
I have no idea nor do you and we don't know what will happen over the years so
let's take a look at pie in the sky and let's slice them by pieces because when
you take a piece of pie and if it's small enough you can go back for seconds
thirds and on occasion fourths and fifths but you can do it over a period
of time instead of trying to to eat the entire pie at once this is not a
pie-eating contest this is life this is something that that takes time so we
individual is just that they're an individual their wants their needs their
desires their goals they're all very different so it ultimately comes down to
them what do they want how do they want to get there and what vehicle or
vehicles are we going to take to do it and you know I'm I'm kind of thinking
you know you know beam me up Scotty is is I'm hoping in my lifetime I get to
actually see that that we that would be really cool and if there's some way that
we could plan for that I'm sure that you would have the answers for how to get it
done so it sounds like the recommendation is to really think
through the big picture and then break it into smaller pictures and see how you
can make the path forward that's right and and this is a living breathing
concept so no matter what you do there's nothing that's truly set in stone so
what you may start off with it has to be reviewed on a regular basis so I talked
to my clients minimum of once a year some clients I talked to multiple times
in the year because as you and I both know life changes
I have children the day each of them were born life changed the day that each
of them talked and walked and rolled over and one is about to go to college
and the other ones in high school life changes on a day-to-day basis and so you
can't just assume that once you put a document in place or once you put in an
insurance policy in place that's all that you ever need it's not the case you
actually have to review things every year every three years every five years
because life does change the people that you've involved in your planning they
may also change it makes me think of Ferris Bueller I said it before and I'll
say it again life moves pretty fast you don't stop and look around once in a
while you could miss it you miss it that's right that's right
planning sounds like a good first recommendation what would you say is the
second one day well once you plan well how do you execute that plan so again if
you're taking this big pie in the sky that's the plan oh this is what I want
all right now what do we need to do to execute well if we talk about life
insurance for a moment we talk about what do you want it to accomplish there
are a lot of rules out there you know people say oh you need seven times your
income ten times your income you need to protect your mortgage it could be
anything life insurance is this incredible organic product and and
that's how I see it because what you want it to do for you is ultimately what
we're gonna focus on does it mean that it has a dollar amount or a face amount
that equates to covering your mortgage or seven times your income or creating
an education fund for your children it might but that might not be how we got
there in addition those amounts they may sound great but what if you can't afford
that what is right now your income and your debt
mortgage car payments school payments you know student loans debt credit card
or maybe you're just starting out there's just not a lot happening so we
start small and sometimes we do something called laddering and we do a
little bit here and maybe in five years we add a little bit more maybe some of
it comes directly from what the government agency gives you you know X
times your salary as part of your benefit package maybe we add a little
bit through FEGLI depending on the cost versus cost outside of the government
agencies it depends because every person is different what if you have a medical
issue and the underwriting outside of the federal government or state or local
government creates a situation where your premium is too high but internally
because it's a group policy it makes more sense financially then we take a
look at that but what if it's the other way around we also take a look at that
so I would say the next part of you know this big picture plan is yes we plan and
then we look at different pieces to execute what can we execute today to get
you part of the way or to start the process what can we look at or what do
we choose to look at each and every year to get us to the next step and because
life changes and incomes change sometimes I have had government
employees leave the government go out on their own and all of a sudden what do I
do now okay well you might have looked at that planning the year before and
prepped for it as opposed to well I'm done now so now put everything in place
everything's gonna happen and and sometimes that happens as well so it
sounds more like that we have two steps really good recommendations so far
setting this goal setting the plan defining what the pie is and then
putting the pieces into place to appropriately execute how to go about
everything what is the third recommendation always review review
review review I mean truly this is life is organic
as as are your plans I talked about this a little earlier about that life changes
in every single day it is a new experience and so you need to not
constantly meaning every day every month but minimum once a year review those
plans review those documents I tell my clients no more than three years to look
at your wills your health care proxies your living wills all of those documents
need to be looked at your beneficiaries change your children all of a sudden you
know if you have a child's trust that brings them into their 30s all of a
sudden they're there outside of that child trust well you no longer need that
the that trust wording in your wills or in my case I'm truly as a Sandwich
Generation I have I have children I also have have had elderly parents I still
have my father with me that I have cared for for over a decade at this point and
so I have a parent trust in my documents because if God forbid something happens
to us I need to make sure that at the time my parents but now my father is
cared for in the manner in which he should be so there are lots of different
ways to do things so review review review kind of like I don't want to say
taking a test but you have to look at things you can't just write a document
put it in a vault and forget all about it you talked a little bit earlier when
we were chatting of that awesome picture that you have behind you that
autographed jersey the the picture and the faces of all the players that are
there can you tell us a little bit about the determination that they have on
their faces and where that picture was taken
yes absolutely so behind me is a jersey that is signed by every member of the
1999 Women's World Cup players at the time and the photograph that's taken if
you if you can see it clearly you can see bait
they are just super super focused and they almost look like what are you doing
well it happened to a taken right before they scored the
winning goal and one of the reasons why I love this is it reminds me again you
might recognize some people you might see me ahem in the front row you might
see brandy and you might see Brianna Scottie you you might see all of those
people but it's truly the team that got them from a group of people to the World
Cup winners I mean what about Sarah what about Kate what about Shannon what about
all of those players and so it's kind of the same conceptual idea like the
Avengers group it it is a team effort it feels like the three recommendations
that you have really come together with this idea about a government employees
responsibility to assemble their own team of experts to help them achieve
what their vision is well they can yes and sometimes that can be daunting how
do you find the experts well when you're working at your job you're the expert in
that job and you may talk to your cubicle maid or your office maid and
they may say oh well I did this this and this and that might be the perfect
solution for them but it may not be your solution it may not be your goal or your
dream so one of the things I always tell people is ask for recommendations talk
to people see who they've done business with if and and talked to several find
somebody that you connect with that you trust don't just take one person's word
for it find the people that really are going to well hold your hand through the
process these conversations I know are crucial and having that trust and
relationship with the right people to help them along the way is important and
on that note how is it that you would suggest that people get in touch with
you about finding out more about building these relationships looking at
all the opportunities that you're able to provide how can we connect with you
well Xavier thank you for for offering that so I I do have a website which is
WWF health home comm of course you can always call me at
three oh one seven two eight five five zero five I'm on facebook under life
health home I NS Twitter life health home
I do have an Instagram that's life health homes everything's kind of like
home so Ellen this has been a fantastic discussion I really appreciate your
partnership in helping the cupcakes community it's much more in our careers
than just showing up to work getting the next promotion to find happiness we have
to have a team of people that can help us and your insights as i mentioning
earlier help people see so much further down the road that we have the capacity
to see right now so you're just awesome thank you so much happy talking with you
has been an absolute treat today and getting my geek on is you know I I am
chief insurance geek here so you know to talk to another geek minded person I
love that absolutely thank you very much for the opportunity it's really my
pleasure and so if I can help anybody answer a question happy to do so really
Ellen has helped dozens of public servants and their families over the
years to benefit from her insights remember today's three strategies number
one build the dream piece-by-piece number two execute your plan and lastly
number three review your progress we hope you find them valuable in
application as we see it your work helps others so be sure to let good planning
take care of you too please follow us on your favorite social media site for more
great interviews and career advice check out www.TheGovGeeks.com (The Gov Geeks) for coaching,
courses, and resources. At The Gov Geeks, we're all about service for public servants!
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