Why Everyone Should Invest in Long-Term Care Insurance With Jeff Levin

Jeff Levin

A 35-year veteran in the insurance industry, Jeff Levin is the Vice President of Sales for Care Solutions at OneAmerica. OneAmerica is a leading mutual insurance company providing services and products, including retirement, individual life insurance, long-term care, and employee benefits. Aside from his genuine passion for care solutions, Jeff attributes his success to relationship management. He prides himself as a hands-on leader, quick to jump in to help others achieve their career goals. Outside of the office, Jeff is an avid reader, music lover, and triathlete.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Jeff Levin talks about OneAmerica, what it offers, and his role in the organization
How Jeff’s childhood passion influenced his lifelong career
What does long-term care entail, and why should you invest in this type of coverage?
What Olympic organization is OneAmerica partnering with, and how are they helping underserved communities?
Surprising findings as a result of a recent long-term survey
Three factors to consider before purchasing long-term care coverage
How have long-term care products evolved?

In this episode…

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have insurance, whether it’s automobile or health coverage, it’s a privilege that gives us peace of mind. Bonus coverage often includes life insurance and short and long-term disability. But, have you ever pondered the reasons to invest in long-term care?

Long-term care solutions expert, Jeff Levin, advises that all insurance holders opt for this type of coverage. Long-term care insurance helps to cover costs for those with a disorder, a chronic disease, or a disability, or to help plan for care later in life as we age. If you haven’t considered this important coverage or are looking for guidance on investing in long-term care insurance, this episode is for you.

Join Chad Franzen of Rise25 in this episode of Advisor Today as he talks with Jeff Levin, Vice President of Sales for Care Solutions at OneAmerica, about how insurance holders can benefit from long-term care coverage. Jeff discusses why everyone should have a conversation about long-term care, factors to consider before making a decision, how long-term care products have evolved, and more.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by NAIFA's Limited & Extended Care Planning Center.

The LECP Center empowers professionals to network with solution and service providers to share best practices; directly access subject matter experts, research, training, and resources; and provide thought leadership so we may continue to address the changing needs of the market.

At NAIFA, we enhance professional skills, promote ethical conduct, and advocate for legislative and regulatory environments. By joining NAIFA, you gain access to a partnership that elevates your performance while providing greater purpose to your professional work. NAIFA members are happier, make more money, and stay in the business longer.

Get in touch with NAIFA and learn more about how to join NAIFA by visiting NAIFA.org.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to NAIFA's Advisor Today podcast series, where we focus on how financial advisors work, live, and give to their local communities and our greater financial services industry. Now, let's get started with the show.

Chad Franzen 0:20

Hi, Chad Franzen here, and I am your host for this episode of the Advisor Today podcast where we feature top leaders in insurance and financial services. This episode is brought to you by the limited and Extended Care Planning Center of the National Association of insurance and Financial Advisors or NAIFA. The number one association for producers and financial serviceS. At NAIFA, We enhance professional skills promote ethical conduct and advocate for legislative and regulatory environments. This is a nice way of saying NAIFA members are helping more Americans with their long term financial security plan, and that includes long term care. If you are already a member, you know how awesome NAIFA is and if you are in the financial services industry and you're not a member yet, join today. If you are interested in becoming a member go to NAIFA.org\join to learn more.

Chad Franzen 1:14

Before introducing today's guest I want to give a big thank you to Carol Golden and Jonathan Neal of OneAmerica who have recommended today's guest. NAIFA has been working closely with OneAmerica for several years now. And of course, our co host Chris Gandy is OneAmerica's number one producer for several years straight. we've paired up with Jeff Levin. He's our guest today who was the Vice President of Sales for Care Solutions at OneAmerica to talk to us about the work he's doing as part of our long term Care Awareness month at NAIFA. We hear that OneAmerica has also announced some exciting news that Jeff will hopefully touch on later in the podcast. Hey, Jeff, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

Jeff Levin 1:53

Morning, Chad. Good. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And thanks to NAIFA and LACP for getting us together. Excited to talk today.

Chad Franzen 2:00

Yeah, great. Absolutely. Hey, so how about you give us a debrief on you your role and OneAmerica if people aren't familiar with the company?

Jeff Levin 2:07

Sure. i My name is Jeff Levin. I am the Vice President of distribution for OneAmerica's care solutions products. These are asset based long term care products that we sell through a very, very large number of distribution partners. OneAmerica has been doing this for more than 30 years. I myself am, I think most people would affectionately call a long term care geek, I started straight out of college. But doing this for 35 years now, absolutely have a passion for this product in this industry. I have seen what happens when people are protected. And unfortunately, I've seen what happens to individuals and families and their assets when people are not protected. So great opportunity to spend some time with you today and kind of share some of the things that we've been doing, and hopefully provide a little bit of education to the audience.

Chad Franzen 3:00

How long did you say you've been doing this?

Jeff Levin 3:03

Been doing this for? Let's see if I do the quick math. This is coming up on 35 years.

Chad Franzen 3:08

Okay, well, so we're always curious to hear how people got started in the industry. What's your personal story 35 years ago, started?

Jeff Levin 3:17

Well, I'm a, I'm a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara. I was a communications major, I thought I would go into advertising and radio and follow in my mom's footsteps. I graduated, came, came back home to Northern California to the Bay Area, and went to have lunch with a friend of mine from high school. His name's Pat Kelly, Pat asked if I had filled out an application to work there. And I said, I'm not going to work for an insurance company. You know, I'm going into radio and advertising. And two weeks later, I was sitting next to Pat. And certainly not the industry I thought I would go into but I have to tell you. It is an amazing industry. It is a very tight industry. A very, very, very good friend of mine. His name is Dave Soares. Dave learned from a mentor of his that we are in the business of having courageous conversations. We have the conversations that most people you know, don't want to have. It's about subject matter that people don't want to talk about. And so while it wasn't an industry I thought I would go into are generally never even conceived going into. It has been it has been a fantastic opportunity to meet incredible people and hopefully do some some good work with consumers.

Chad Franzen 4:33

So you thought you were gonna go into radio and advertising and then you ended up doing this, what was your kind of your first job?

Jeff Levin 4:38

So my first job, I actually started as an internal wholesaler. And what that meant was I took incoming calls from all of the distribution partners that were selling at the time, it was Amex life, and then eventually GE then eventually Genworth, but I took all of the incoming calls. I sat with a team of about eight folks, and we answered product questions, planning questions, industry questions, it was an amazing training opportunity, if you will, it was a great place to start. And I did that for probably about nine months, and then moved into more of an external wholesaler role, where I was out meeting with our distribution partners. Every day, I covered the Midwest from San Francisco. And so I literally traveled 26 weeks a year, it was off on the road for a week, come home and send your shirts to the dry cleaners and then leave the following week. And I haven't really let up but since then, it's been amazing.

Chad Franzen 5:32

Very nice. Was there ever a point where you where you thought to yourself, like, this is what I'm gonna do? I'm not gonna go back to radio and advertising? Or did you just kind of always plan forward and you never look back from the beginning?

Jeff Levin 5:43

You know, that is a fantastic question. And thank you for asking. My passion ever since I was a little I remember vividly the day, I always wanted to be a firefighter, I wanted to be a firefighter, EMT. And I said to myself, that coming out of school, I was gonna, you know, give whatever career, you know, I thought it was gonna be radio and advertising a start. But after a year, if I wasn't enjoying it, I was I was gonna pursue the fire service. You know, when you get into your career, and you know, what your hopes and aspirations were, sometimes they change, you know, you start making an income and you become dependent on that income. And, you know, there isn't much of an opportunity to kind of deviate from that. And certainly, as I grew in my career, I enjoyed the people, it's always been about the people that I've had an opportunity to work with. But I did kind of keep on the side, my interest in the fire service, and I went through school to become an EMT, and I did some volunteer work. And eventually, I reconnected with a friend from college, and learned about a volunteer firefighting program, and got into that, and just did them together. You know, my, my primary job was in the long term care space, but I kind of had an opportunity to pursue what I thought was my passion. Long story short, I was given an opportunity after testing to actually become a full time firefighter. And so that was the first time I ever thought about deviating from the work that I was doing. And it was a really tough decision. But what I found was I was, I was probably doing more work, I'd like to believe better work for a larger organization, than being in the fire service. And I kind of met my own band of brothers, if you will. And that really, if you will, sparked my passion, I figured out that this was no longer just a job. This was this was something I was really excited about, that I've never deviated from.

Chad Franzen 7:38

Very cool, very cool, so did you had experienced firefighting though a little bit?

Jeff Levin 7:43

I spent, I spent about six years as a volunteer firefighter EMT, you know, mazing group of people did some things, you know, that most people will never get to do. You know, I delivered a baby on Thanksgiving, you know, you got to, I moved my way up to, you know, drive the engine. So you got to make lots of noise, and, you know, lots of bright lights. And as I always said, you know, when the fire department shows up, unless your home is literally on fire, most people are really happy to see the fire department, there's just something good about that. And I love being out in the community. I love going into the schools and providing education. And I think that's really, as we talked about earlier, I think that's really when I found out that my kind of ambition or goal in life is to give back, whether that's in a community setting, whether that's through volunteering, you know, with junior achievement or other organizations. I, I would like to somehow think that, you know, when my time on this earth comes to an end, that I made a difference somehow. And I think that's one of the opportunities I have in the role that I have today.

Chad Franzen 8:46

Sure. Did you ever find yourself in a position where you were battling a blaze?

Jeff Levin 8:51

you know, once or twice, but I have to tell you, the fire service is all about training, training, training, and it's amazing, you find yourself in the middle of something that you're training for, and you're actually doing the job, so to speak, and it's just something that you've trained for, you know, for me, most people would think that, you know, some type of a structure fire was the scariest call that we ever went on. My scariest calls actually, were more medical calls where you found yourself in situations for people that just were having a tough time in life and police were involved in it, it was just it was a very what's the right word? It was very tense situation. And that's often where the troubles were, or often times, fire departments usually when somebody calls 911 that the fire department is the first to respond. And so you know, unfortunate situations of domestic abuse and things like that, where we have to wait for the police to arrive. But it you know, I'll tell you what, if there's any correlation, it's that in this job, like for many of us, each day brings new opportunity and each day A brings something new and you're never quite sure what you're gonna get whether it's, you know, the next call at the fire station or the next opportunity to speak with a distribution partner and figure out how to help them everyday bring something new. And that's that's one of the things I love about this job as well.

Chad Franzen 10:16

Sure. Well, speaking of this job, tell me a little bit more about what OneAmerica does for long term care and to raise a raise awareness within American consumers.

Jeff Levin 10:25

Yeah, yeah, thank you. So OneAmerica is a very large organization, we actually have three business units, if you will, are three very specific businesses. We work in retirement services, we work in employee benefits. And then for me, asset-based long term care is part of a larger business called independent life and financial services where we have life long term care, annuities. And in my specific role, I have this amazing opportunity to lead a team of close to 50 sales professionals. And we go out every day, to work with our distribution partners, and help them present long term care solutions to their clients. These solutions are what we call asset based long term care, meaning there's usually some type of an investment, whether it be in the form of life insurance, or potentially an annuity. And then what we would call a continuation of benefits. And in the event that somebody needs Long Term Care, long term care is assistance with activities of daily living, things like bathing, eating, dressing, you know, so forth, when somebody finds themselves or a family member in a situation where those individuals are going to need care for longer than 90 days, or perhaps there's a cognitive impairment, often we think about Alzheimer's, these solutions help to provide an income to those policyholders. And I'd like to think about it in those terms. You know, a lot of times people don't like to think about insurance. It's certainly Chad with long term care. It's one of those things, I think people believe that if they don't talk about it, it's not going to happen to them. Right. Like, if I avoid this topic, I won't have to deal with it. Unfortunately, statistics show that that's not really the case. But when it does come time for care, what we find is a solution that provides income to help pay for that care, not only alleviates the family or alleviates someone from having to spend their own assets that they may have saved for retirement, whatever that might be to pass on to heirs. Long Term Care is actually a benefit to the family that is providing that care because it takes away the financial concern, it actually takes away the physical concern as well, because you can have somebody come into the home to help provide care, and really allows family members and loved ones to focus on that individual and just be that, you know, provide love, be a family member, be a friend. And it you know, it's, as I said at the top of our discussion when when you see these plans in place, and people needing care and receiving care, you know, again, I'm not at the table, if you will, with a consumer, but I know that the work that the team I have an opportunity to lead and working with their partners is is truly making a difference. They having those having those courageous conversations.

Chad Franzen 13:18

Sure, absolutely. I understand that OneAmerica does a lot of other work for the community. Can you tell me about that?

Jeff Levin 13:24

Yeah, so we just just rolled out last week, a brand new partner partnership with USA Swimming. This is something really, really exciting. So USA Swimming is an organization of more than 400,000 people. So we'd like to say we have 400,000 new friends, but this is an amazing partnership. And what it really is is an opportunity to support swimming. For us. We're we're headquartered in the Indianapolis community and and beyond, as part of this relationship OneAmerica will be helping strengthen communities that are often underserved and don't have a lot of opportunities, maybe to even get into a swimming pool. And we know that you know, learning to swim is one of those things that actually saves lives. The other thing that's really really exciting is USA Swimming is you know that is in other words US Olympic swimming, and getting a chance to be part of this organization and watch some incredible athletes do the work that they do and provide back to the community is amazing. Our CEO Scott Davison said in a press release and I'm going to share this if you don't mind. He said we are excited to partner with USA Swimming and support their efforts to build champions save lives and strengthen communities. USA Swimming has achieved more success at the Olympic Games and world championships than any other team in history. At OneAmerica we share the commitment to excellence as we coach and support clients and advisors on the journey toward financial security. This partnership enhances our position as a national leader in life insurance, long term care, retirement plans and employee benefits. while also supporting the 2024 US Olympic trials, you know, and again, this is taking place right in our own home community of Indianapolis. He finished by saying we are excited about elevating our partnership with USA Swimming. And we're proud to call them our teammates. So this is this is something brand new, you know, it just came out last week. And it's it's really it's very, very exciting. I I stopped doing a few years ago. But just to stay in shape. I started doing triathlons. And now I am not the I'm not the Iron Man. That is something that we have one gentleman on our team. He's one of our wholesalers. His name's Mike. And Mike has done Iron Man's. That is something that I would aspire to do, but never got there. I was doing more of interesting elf, a Olympic distance. But I was not a strong swimmer. And I learned to love it. And it is just it's an incredible sport. It's a good people sport, Chad, you know, you're, you stick your head up, and you talk to the person in the lane next to you and you strike up a relationship. So just really exciting about this opportunity with USA Swimming.

Chad Franzen 16:08

Very nice. Very nice. Hey, I understand that what I meant. Let's get back to the long term care real quick. You guys have recently completed a a long term care survey. What can you tell me about that?

Jeff Levin 16:19

Yeah, you know, so having been in this industry for more than 30 years, OneAmerica is really a thought leader when it comes to long term care and asset based long term care. And we partnered with Hanover research, we went out and surveyed more than 1000 respondents to really understand their mindset from a consumer perspective about the long term care industry. You know, all these respondents were at least 40 years old, they were kind of planning for what they would call the retirement stage of life. And the findings were really interesting. They were interesting, because what we uncovered was, there is a huge demand for education. And I can share some of these statistics with you. But the statistics didn't necessarily line up, Chad, date, they were a little bit counter counter of one another. And again, what it came back to was, people really, really need help. When it comes to understanding long term care. One of the statistics that we found was that only 18% of the people that we had spoken with, had actually worked with a financial professional on LTC planning. Now, that doesn't even mean that they purchased Long Term Care coverage or some type of a solution. It's really saying that, you know, one out of five even had a conversation about it. And so for for the audience today, that means, you know, four out of five people could benefit from those individuals simply having a conversation to, to discuss their concerns. What we found was, you know, the two areas that people were most comfortable, or two professionals that people were most comfortable talking to about long term care planning, we're not surprisingly, financial service professionals. But then they're doctors. So you know, 40% said, I talked to a financial professional 39% said, you know, I might talk to my doctor. But again, these were people saying these are, this is who I would have the conversation with. In actuality, only 18% of them did have a conversation with a financial advisor, and only 7% of them had a conversation with their doctor. And, look, I you know, this may be counter intuitive to what most people would think of as a sales leader. But I actually believe that long term care is not right. For everybody. It's just not. You know, when I first started in this space, we used to say there were three things that you needed to consider purchasing some type of long term care solution, you needed health, wealth and a desire to protect it, it's oftentimes a health underwritten product, obviously, you have some assets you want to protect, and you realize the importance of doing that. But not everybody can qualify health wise, not everybody has the assets, and there are other solutions out there. But while I, I'm a firm believer in that this coverage may not be right for everybody. I'm also a firm believer in everybody should have a conversation. It's really about education, and being informed and getting the information that every individual needs in order to make an informed decision around this. And so it doesn't come down to you know, an incident taking place and not being prepared. I guess hand in hand with that I would rather somebody be uninsured than, excuse me, underinsured and uninsured. And obviously the best Long Term Care coverage that you have in place is the plan the day you need care. So it's not a matter of you know, it's the best one out there. It's about having an educated discussion. coming to a conclusion. Writing down with that conclusion is putting it in writing, you know, whether it's for your financial planner, whether it's for your children, you know, whoever might be, and then knowing that you've made a decision. And you could take that off your list of of concerns.

Chad Franzen 20:06

What made doing this survey important? And how did the results kind of affect how you move forward?

Jeff Levin 20:13

Wow, great questions. You know, one, these surveys happen from time to time, this was a really focused on consumers, we will have another survey that we'll talk about later in the year that we're wrapping up now that we did with with producers. Part of the reason that we wanted to do this survey is, as we all know, and she's we're all experiencing, still kind of concerned about what the implications were of COVID. In the long term care space, there was certainly a lot of news about long term care when when the pandemic first hit, and unfortunately, they were terrible stories, you know, nursing homes were COVID spread very quickly throughout the facility. And there were a large number of deaths, people not being able to go and visit loved ones, you saw it on the news all the time, you know, people standing outside of a loved one's bedroom and kind of waving or talking on the telephone, to their loved one, people needing to stay home, and not be able to go to a facility because of the concern that one, if you moved into some type of a long term care facilities assisted living facility weren't going to be able to see loved ones, there wasn't a lot of interaction. So people just wanting to stay home longer. And we were curious if there were any implications, well, but we also wanted to kind of a current heartbeat, if you will, on what was going on in the marketplace. And as I shared, people are really in need of education. They don't know where to turn to they hear things 86% of people actually feel like they've had a had a conversation. That's that's not that's not the case. And, you know, I won't go into all of the statistics, but some of the other findings were, most people when it comes to long term care, are expecting to rely on family members or a spouse. And yet, those family members and spouses didn't know that that was what the expectation was. They also said in similar, you know, in the same survey that people don't want to rely on a loved one. So right there, you know, you're kind of at this Well, which one, which one is it. And it's just that, we always think that people don't want to have the conversation. It's not that people don't want to have the conversation, they want to have the conversation, they just don't want to think about themselves needing care. And we know statistically that, you know, for 70% of the people, and that's just tick is overused all the time. But we know there's a pretty good chance that look, it's it's, it's life, as we age, and as we grow older, we don't, we can't physically do all the things that we used to be able to do. And heaven forbid, we reach a point where we do need care, and we can't do it on our own. It's just about being prepared and knowing you know what happens, what happens at that stage. One of our wholesalers, Kevin Riley, Chad, talks about, you know, you, we have all of these huge life changing decisions that we make. Where do we want to go to college? You know, who do we want to marry? Do we want to get married? Where do we want to start our job? Where do we want to live? You know, we have all of these life changing conversations. And yet, when it comes to something like long term care, we avoid thinking about it, because we don't want to consider what that means. And you wouldn't leave that those other conversations up to somebody else. So why would you do it with long term care? So again, it's if there's a theme here, it's about having a conversation.

Chad Franzen 23:44

Is there a time in life where you may not think you need it now, but it would be a good time to really start thinking about it?

Jeff Levin 23:53

Yeah, that's a great question. It's one we often get asked, I can tell you from a OneAmerica perspective, where we see people really purchasing, if you will, the the cohort where people purchase the most is really between the ages of 50 and 54. If you were to add, you know, on the front end of that, say 46 to 50, if you were to take it one step further on the back end, you know, 55 to 59. So that kind of 40 to 59 age group, or 45 to 59. That's really where we typically see the largest amount of sales coming from. It doesn't mean that people aren't purchasing at an older age or at a younger age. But that, that that age bracket, if you will, tends to be what we call the sandwich generation, meaning that they may be in a place where they're actually providing care to an older parent. And yet they still may have kids in college or high school or whatever it might be. And so they're kind of in the middle of the sandwich, and they're seeing, they're seeing the effects of aging on their parents and they're saying, you know, I don't want my kids to have to go through what I'm going through with my parents. The other thing is, you know, usually at that age, you are kind of hitting a different stage of life where maybe all of the financial responsibilities that you have for your children are starting to come to an end or at least lessen. And so people have more income, if you will, to be able to look at other needs that maybe they weren't able to satisfy when you were so busy thinking about term life insurance or health benefits, things like that. So that's typically where we see it. But again, it certainly right runs the spectrum. The one unfortunate thing and I hate this because I obviously we're all growing older. But, you know, there's a little bit of truth that we're never healthier than we are today. And so oftentimes, you will see people purchasing at a younger age because of health conditions and the ability to maybe get discounts and things like that for better health.

Chad Franzen 25:50

Hey, as you look back on your 35 year journey, now, in this industry, are there any milestones or or kind of big moments that you're particularly proud of?

Jeff Levin 26:00

Oh, my gosh. You know, I, I think the milestones come when you think about the evolution of this of this industry. I know that when I first started, and a friend of mine, Kent Herlihy recently said this, you know, when we first started, long term care was nursing, home coverage, it was for a nursing home, you know, today, the majority of people begin to receive care in their homes. So the advent of products that allow for carrying any type of setting has been been really, really huge. I think some of the work that is being done right now by NAIFA, and other organizations to support long term care more at a government level, and see about what are the implications for tax legislative legislation or state funded programs similar to what just took place in Washington, the ability for states to look at programs for their constituents, you know, this is not something that's going away, this is an aging population. And so we know that the statistics are only going to grow. So you're really watching this industry continue to evolve, and then certainly the evolution of products within the industry. I think, for me, personally, the evolution that I've seen is just with the distribution partners that we have to support, and then even closer with the sales professionals that I get an opportunity to work with their their knowledge, their passion, how they help distribution partners and consumers. i There's a small army out there that is having those courageous conversations. And that's that's been an incredible thing to see and to watch.

Chad Franzen 27:51

Have you had some some mentors during your career? And can you share maybe a great piece of advice that you've gotten?

Jeff Levin 27:59

I have had some incredible mentors in my career. Probably the gentleman that jumps out the most and is always top of mind is a gentleman named Bob Eckhart. I met Bob when I first started in my career, over the course of the time that we worked together, I had two opportunities to report to him in different roles. He taught me a lot about building a team, and what it means to be a team and how and as a leader, you have a responsibility to take care of your team. And that's not something I have ever forgotten. I also learned it, it's funny, if you if you first meet Bob, you would say he's a man of few words, Bob can very eloquently take what someone might need five paragraphs to say and say it in five words, and you completely understand the meaning. But the more you get to know Bob, he is just a wealth of knowledge and wisdom. And he was an excellent individual and building partnerships at the professional level, which is always, which is also something I've I've watched and taken into consideration of and it's funny, you asked that question, because I just made a note over the weekend that I needed to reach out and catch up with him. It's been a few months since I talked to him. But yeah, like I said, Chad, it's a small industry. And you have an opportunity to learn from everybody. But certainly Bob is one of those individuals that sticks out for me.

Chad Franzen 29:33

Great, great. Hey, last question for you, Jeff. What would you what would you say are a few kind of, of your daily rituals that you find most important? What's kind of in a typical day and maybe are there some things that you find particularly valuable?

Jeff Levin 29:45

Yeah, so for me, in being in this role, I have a post it note that sits on my screen at home, and it says team down the side. And for me team means the team and team is really about the team. What does the team need? Today from there, if the team needs X y&z What does that mean to our enterprise? What does that mean to OneAmerica that's the E and what do we need to do around that? The A is if we do all of that work, what are the implications for our accounts or our partners? And then the end is me, am I doing what I need to do to to be to be a good leader to be the representative of OneAmerica? So I would say that's, that's on the professional side. On the personal side, I'm an avid reader. I love I love to read. I'm always trying to kind of be a student of this business. And the other thing is, I'm a big fan of music. So I need to I need to hear something really good every day just to kind of keep motivated and keep things going. But it's a great question. Thank you for asking that. I appreciate it.

Chad Franzen 30:52

Sure. Hey, one last question. You said you were getting into swimming. When you go swimming to train for a triathlon. How, how long is your typical swim in terms of you know, meters?

Jeff Levin 31:02

Yeah, so when I was swimming, the race itself was a mile long. And so I typically did a mile in the pool every other day. For me that, I'll tell you, I had I had the opportunity there. Wendy Boglioli, who is a gold medalist, is a friend of mine. And when Wendy would come to visit Richmond for business, we were business partners together, both working for for Genworth at the time, she would come and she would get in the pool with me, Chad, and she would, you know, literally give me some instructions and help me with pointers. And, you know, you don't just get to swim with an Olympic gold medalist. It was it was pretty amazing. And there was one point when she said, Just just watch this for a minute. And she flipped over and did this dolphin turn, and she was at the other end of the pool. And it's like, I can't even see you down there. How are we going to be able to watch this. But, you know, interesting, you know, bring back around to USA Swimming. Another great, you know, just another great individual I've had, as I said, I've had that chance to meet incredible people and do incredible things. And that's just yet another example.

Chad Franzen 32:11

Is there, sorry, one more question.Is there any pointers regarding swimming that you found particularly valuable? You know, I've found that I've really gotten into so many lately. And I've found that that kicking, kicking does nothing for me when I do the freestyle. Has she given you any valuable pointers?

Jeff Levin 32:28

Yeah. So kicking is what kind of helps you from stopping to sink. You know, you don't want to let your feet you don't want to let your legs trail behind you. But it is all in your strokes. Absolutely. And the other thing that I learned and I'm sure you've experienced this, too, is don't try to get in the pool and swim a mile right away. Take some time work into it. Otherwise you you wake up the next morning. Your arms aren't moving real well.

Chad Franzen 32:52

Oh, Yeah, most definitely. Hey, Jeff, it's been great to talk to you. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Jeff Levin 32:58

Thank you, Chad. Appreciate the opportunity and thanks again to NAIFA.

Chad Franzen 33:02

Thank you. So long, everybody.

Outro 33:07

Thanks for joining us for NAIFA'S Advisor Today podcast series. Make sure to subscribe to get future episodes. And if you're interested in coming on the show, let us know

28 min read