Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses why millennials are under insured with The Warner Companies’ Phillip Snyder, CLU.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Joining me now is Philip Snyder of The Warner Companies, and for full disclosure, he’s also my dad. Dad, great to see you. Thanks for joining us again this morning.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
Hi Jeff, good to be with you, thank you.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
All right, I wanna ask you about this because in a couple different ways. The first is there’s a recent study that came out that said that millennials, so that’s not my generation, that’s a generation after, probably in their 30s or 40s, are actually underinsured when it comes to life insurance. What’s your reaction to that?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
Probably, that’s probably a valid conclusion for the study, although that’s not a group that I typically would work with. I think it’s not surprising given all the financial pressures people are under today, particularly young people, it’s not surprising to me that that would be the case.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
How much of the results of that survey, did the results of that survey tie back into financial literacy? So understanding, you talked about affordability, we’ll get to that in a couple minutes, but let’s talk about being aware of life insurance and its benefits, why you need it, why you need to protect your loved ones. So how much of it is just a lack of literacy about the different types of products that are out there?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
Probably the largest part of it is attributable to lack of an understanding of the why, how products work, how you access products. Today, they don’t teach financial literacy in the schools, or generally that’s the case. So these young people, younger people, have to acquire information from other sources that could be through the internet, online, TikTok, for example.
But what we used in the past, which was schooling, we’ve had financial literacy in school, but most of what I learned as a young person was at home. It was transferred information, it was by observation, it was my parents teaching me things. I think a lot of that doesn’t happen today in the same way.
And so people are out in the world and they gather their information from the easiest source they can, typically online, and that’s the basis on which they make their value judgments. But there are a lot of other forces at work beyond that.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
I’ll ask you about that in a second, but I have to make the comment that I’m really surprised that you even know what TikTok is that. I’m assuming you’re not on TikTok and- No, I’m not on TikTok, but I’m aware of it.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
I mean, people get their information, for the most part, quickly online. Everything is quick today. Everything is bullet points and summarizing everything.
And family finances is not a simple subject. It’s something that takes some time and effort and understanding. So all those factors contribute to what you’re pointing out that this group of people, I guess, 30 to 45 are- Yeah, it’s somewhere around there.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Let me ask you, what can people like in your industry, so you’re an advisor, an insurance broker, however you want to define what you are, how can people that do what you do, the product manufacturers that create the products, and the industry in general, I mean, you need insurance. Okay, let’s be clear. We’ve gone through that before, but you need to protect your loved ones.
This is hedging risk. This is hedging against the future. And the future is eventually we’re all gonna die.
So you gotta leave something behind for your loved ones. So how do we do a better job collectively to educate people about life insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, all those other benefits?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
The industry, I don’t think, does a great job at it. They advertise their name and things of that nature. They sponsor all kinds of things on TV and so forth, but that really doesn’t speak to need necessarily.
It just speaks to, it’s a marketing effort, as it were. So I really think that we’ve got to do more in the community. I think the schools have to be involved.
You gotta teach that at a young age. You are, if you remember back in your school days in the fourth grade when you were learning about finances and how to manage things and so forth, but that doesn’t happen today to the best of my knowledge anyway. So we’ve gotta find other ways to do that.
Now, accessing insurance, the need for insurance, I’m not sure that everybody really even understands why they buy life insurance. You speak to it as though it was a natural thing that people would think of, but if you didn’t come from a background where you were taught finances and family security and things of that nature and responsibility, then you’re not gonna be aware of all those things. You’re gonna have to get that information elsewhere, and it’s hard to get good information in snippets.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So- Yeah, hence TikTok, Instagram. So, Dad, benefits. Let’s just talk about benefits in the financial literacy context.
So the things that we’re talking about this morning, where would you, where in the learning apparatus would you put this? I don’t see this as a fourth or fifth grade conversation. Do you put it into the high school curricula?
Where do you go with this type of information? Or college?
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
I think you build it over time. So you start with simple things like you did in the fourth grade, and you build on that. But by the time you’re in high school, you ought to have a pretty good awareness of the value of money, how to save, what my expenses are going to be.
Maybe you get an allowance, and so you learn to manage money. But I also think in college, they should be teaching these kinds of things, and maybe they’re not. I think that’s probably not a universal statement that they’re not, but in many cases, they’re not.
So where do you get the information? How do you even know what your responsibilities are? I think one advantage, though, is that most of those responsibilities spring from a couple of sources.
Either you have a family that you need to provide for, or you had debt. Maybe it’s student debt. Maybe it’s a mortgage, whatever the case may be.
So those are clear indicators, should be, that losing my income through death is gonna negatively impact other people, right? So that’s why people buy life insurance, to avoid that. So I think that that’s a start, but the industry has to do more.
The schools have to do more. The way we communicate, everything’s in a hurry today, as you know. So I just think we have to slow things down a little bit and start teaching some of these things to people.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Do you think it’s reasonable to think, I don’t think things are gonna slow down, dad. I think things are only gonna speed up. Now we have artificial intelligence that people can go to chat GPT or some other chat feature, chat bot, and get information.
They don’t even, so I don’t think things slowed out. I think we have to, I think the industry, my personal opinion, has to adjust to the flow of information and make information more available, but also in the context and in the form that people can consume it. Because we’re not gonna go back to the 1980s when I was growing, the 70s and 80s when I was growing up and there were, you know, the Baltimore Sun delivered twice a day.
That’s not coming, that’s not coming back.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
So I think- I think employers can help also. Most larger employers certainly provide benefits. They provide some life insurance and maybe some disability insurance and certainly medical and dental insurance.
So that’s a starting point. And maybe at the employer level, if people really understand what’s available to them, what’s being provided at no cost, what they can buy, I think that could help and educate people. But I really think that it’s a big problem.
And there’s so much financial pressure on young people today. You know, there’s debt, there’s a lack of understanding. You know, all those things are, there’s not enough time.
So all those things are negatives that impact performance, the ability to buy insurance or the willingness to buy insurance. There’s a misunderstanding of the products. People don’t really understand the products.
And term insurance is easy. We all know that, that you pay something and you get a benefit. There’s nothing else intrinsically in the product.
I think if people better understood life insurance and some of the more permanent products that build cash, that would peak interest for them. So I really think it’s just a whole educational problem and it’s reflective of the way information is communicated today. So exactly how you change it, I don’t know exactly.
I think all these things make sense. They all need to, you know, be a part of the solution. But it’s kind of sad when you see a young person who doesn’t own any insurance, but they should, at least from my perspective, they should.
You know, they got a wife, they have a mortgage, they have a young family, a couple of young children, and they have very minor amounts of insurance. So I think it’s a big problem. And I don’t, you can’t press a button and fix it.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So- No, I think it’s through repetition. Personally, my opinion, if anyone cares, is that it’s about repetition and, you know, providing information in all different formats, not just in school, not just in college, not just in community college, not just in trade schools. It’s gotta be continuous and done almost on a daily basis so people can get tips and make it consumable.
Dad, we’re gonna have to leave it there. Great conversation as always. Thanks for joining us.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
And I look forward to seeing you- I hope it helps, I don’t know.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
We didn’t solve the problem, but- Well, we’re not gonna solve the problem because two people can’t solve a problem for a country that is $330 million, where we can generate ideas. Dad, I gotta run. Thanks for joining me.
Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies
All right, take care. Bye-bye now.