Lafayette Life CEO Why Whole Life Insurance is The Ultimate Asset

 One of the big, I would say, selling pitches of just mutual insurance carriers that have been around over 100 years, and then consistent paying dividends is safety. Can you help us unpack what that actually looks like from a standpoint of how safe our insurance carriers compared to other alternatives? I've been running Lafayette license 2019. That's one. Just the power compounding is very important. When I think about it, I always talk about the three likes to the store. You've got the death benefit, the tax benefit, and then if you need it, you can access the cash. When I retire, I want to be able to go do things with my wife and enjoy the money that we've built up over time, but I also want to pass on something to my kids. That just simplifies the financial planning because I know that my insurance, my permanent insurance, is going to be there to do that. Any potential risks that you see from a standpoint from just insurance? You've got uncertain tax policy, right? So how does that affect overall tax rates? What does that do to the buyers of our products in terms of their willingness to, you know, part with the cash to fund them versus their little concern about what's going to happen to taxes? In some aspects, that could be a good thing for our industry because of the tax benefits that it has. When you look at your at the type of assets that, let's say Lafayette life insurance from a standpoint, where are most these investments being held? John Boltma, president of Lafayette life, president of Columbus life. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Great to be here. I appreciate you having me, Kale. It is an honor having someone that's an executive from not just one insurance company, but two insurance companies. Highly respected, gray ratings. If anyone follows what we do at Better Well, we have another channel that just talks about life insurance. They know that Lafayette life is an insurance company that we talk about a lot. And I don't get to talk to executives of these insurance companies very frequently. And so I appreciate you taking time out of your day to make it happen. The purpose of this conversation would be like, we can just get to better know how executives are thinking. Because I think there's a lot of wisdom in looking at all different perspectives. And obviously you might have a different perspective than many other people potentially selling this or even clients owning life insurance. So welcome. Thank you. It's great to be here. I appreciate you having me, Caleb. Think a lot about what you're doing and what to have some youth in the industry and in the business. You know, that's one of the concerns that I have is how are we going to replace the talent that's leaving the industry and leaving the business. Because the need is so vast. It's really important that we have people coming into the business and into the industry. I know you've got a lot of passion for it. So happy to be here. I appreciate you having me. If you had to give like a three minute overview of like, okay, who you are. Sure. What are the qualifications of you running a mutual insurance company? Sure. I know that you had 22 years of banking, which is interesting. But why don't you give that? Why don't you give that back story? Yeah. So real quick, originally from Michigan, grew up in a household that my dad was an entrepreneur on his own business. My grandfather on his own business. I thought I would be in business for myself. I had a law in business in high school. I spent a lot of time working for dad when I was younger, but was always fascinated by economics, finance, and just had this desire to get into that space. I worked side by side with my dad for many years. We ran a Marina business, scaled it up in Michigan, then got into banking. As you said, I did that for 22 years. What I loved about banking is that it was a relationship business. I got to see the other side of the table, the other side of how loan decisions are made, how banks interact with business owners. My dad was in the contracting business, which that's a high-risk, high-reward type business. He had a bunch of equipment out on the lakes and out on the water, built in piers, lighthouses, and any time the wind blew, he was afraid something was going to flip over sink. He was always worried about risk. When I got to get into banking and be on the other side and understand how banks look at risk, how banks make loans, I was just fascinated by it because I had been on his side of the table all the time. I got into banking, loved it, did well there, and then had an opportunity to join Western Southern back in 2017. I moved five times when I was with fifth-third, had a very understanding wife who did that with me, my kids were young, and was just really attracted to the story of Western and Southern, in fact, that they were very large, tremendous ratings, lots of capital, but that they were essentially a private company, that had been a mutual, a mutually holding company. I was attracted to that, and banking had gotten somewhat commoditized, and I didn't really want to stay in banking, and I was looking to do something different. What I loved about insurance, frankly, is it reminds me back in my days running a marina business where we had a lot of small business owners who were clients. It was about servicing them, taking care of them, and I just loved that interaction, that relationship that you could create, and it's one of the things I love about this business, it's high relationship. I think the banking background has been a great source of knowledge for me, coming into insurance, I think it's a nice balance in that banking is much more of a transactional business on a regular basis, and they're much better at surrounding the client with solutions. I feel like insurance companies are tend to think a little siloed still. Some of the technology isn't where it needs to be, and so that I think has helped me, as I've come into this role, being very open-minded, in terms of what things do we need to change, where do we have to continue to advance and move forward, as it relates to financial services. I've been running Lafayette License 2019, Columbus Life since 2020, and it's been a great opportunity to steward those businesses and help them grow. I'm curious your definition of risk, because usually when you look at the people, like the ultra wealthy, like Warren Buffett, he talks about, he's less concerned about upside and more concerned about getting the same returns for less risk. I can't think of better companies than insurance companies as relates to their frameworks for risk. How do you risk from being in the banking and now running insurance companies? There's a lot of parallels in banking when you're looking at a large loan to a company. Your tolerance for risk on that transaction is very small, because it could be a very, very large transaction. In life insurance, you're making a bunch of smaller bets right over a period of time. But when you look at how you invest what you put behind that, I think for our company, Western Southerners is our parent company, the mutual holding company. Our view is that we don't ever want to put anything at risk where the client's going to question as to whether what we're guaranteeing is going to be there is going to be there. While we invest conservatively to ensure that we're going to be able to match and meet that risk, we also recognize that we have to be thinking ahead in terms of where can we get better returns as well. If all we do is just invest it all in triple-erated bonds, the rates we pay at our product, etc. wouldn't be what the client would want. We also have to find areas where we can take risk and invest that money appropriately where we're going to get the money back and be able to pay better returns to our customers on our products. It's finding that sweet spot that we've done really, really well at. One of the things I talk a lot about is because Lafayette Life and Columbus Life are part of Western and Southern, we've got 115 billion in our own assets and other assets that we manage. We're able to attract really good talent to do that for us. I was just out trying to hire a CIO for Lafayette or Columbus. It would be a much smaller footprint and I probably wouldn't get the same level of talent that we have access to by being part of Western and Southern. I think the concept of mutual insurance companies are really key. I know for me there's been a little bit of confusion around Western Southern, all the other companies that Western Southern and Illinois including Gerber Life. How does that work in the concept of mutual? Someone could look at that structure and say, okay, wait a second. The idea of mutual is like, I as a policy owner get the benefit of the grown, but how does that work in the context of Western Southern? How would you explain that whole structure? Lafayette and Columbus are mutual insurance companies, but they're owned by Western and Southern, which is a mutual holding company. Western and Southern owns the two mutuals, 100% of Columbus and Lafayette life. Yes, when you buy a policy, there's policies you're participating in the ownership of those mutuals that you purchase. Not all the companies underneath Western and Southern are mutuals. Right? Gerber is not touched on mutual funds or not. Eagle Realty, which is a real estate company is not. If you think of the holding company as holding all the stock of those different operating entities, but not all of them are mutual underneath that structure. There's efficiency by Western and Southern having a lot of different entities. Correct. You can see in that, but at the end of the day, someone is a Lafayette life policy holder or Columbus life policy holder. Even though the holding company holds it at the end of the day, the accounting is totally separate from here. Correct. Correct. Yes. That's correct. The reason we own those companies is we've been opportunistic in buying them. We bought Gerber life in 2018. And then when we bought Columbus and Lafayette back when we purchased those, it was really because we wanted to be in those businesses. It was a way for us to get into them. And we believe that each of those brands have value. So Columbus and Lafayette may not be nationally recognized brands, but within the independence base, they're very well known. Yes. So we want to maintain those and perpetuate those. What benefit does Western Southern have by having owning a mutual company where you could say if you just basic, it's like what's upside does it have owning a company that all the profits go back to shareholders? Sure. Is there, I think I know the answer because you guys do the investment side and there might be some things from that. But I don't know if that's this. Well, back in the day when there were a lot of mutual holding companies getting formed, the thought was the thing on mutuals was that they didn't have access to the capital markets. So they couldn't raise capital, they couldn't sell stock, etc. So we created the mutual holding company to own the mutual insurance companies as a means of the holding company can go raise capital if necessary. And so that's really the reason that a lot of those were structured. You also had some that did IPOs and went public. And so we don't believe that a public company is necessarily the optimal environment for life insurance companies. The returns are not great. The lower return businesses, you know, if you look at public companies are going to want to get 15% our, we kind of returns. And it's hard to get that in the life insurance. And you've seen a lot of stock companies exit the life insurance market. And so I think being with a mutual or mutual holding company is really important because they can take a long term view. They know the returns they get in this business. We love this business. It fits very well with our business model. And I think that's why a mutual is important because they're accepting the returns are getting from that business. And if your public company is just hard to do, because you're sure there's going to demand a bigger return or that you return more that capital back. Yep. You may and you might know the answer to this. You might be the only person that is the president of the IUL carrier and a whole life carrier, which is very interesting. There's a lot of videos that I do. I bring on people that have different opinions. Sure. An event that I did last year I actually had an IUL versus whole life debate. Sure. And for me, I don't get triggered. I see these as tools. I want to understand perspectives. Right. There's people that are very passionate on both sides. From someone like you and you obviously have to be careful. Yeah. I think I'm delighted to get all over this question. And potentially, but like, what are your thoughts around IUL whole life? Yeah. And then I would, my next question is going to be like from a, from your perspective, what value do you see in the life insurance space? Because like, is someone with your credentials could probably go work exciting, more exciting jobs that maybe are more sexy than running a mutual insurance company? Sure. And I'm just curious like why you are, why you love life insurance period. But before that, the difference between IUL whole life, not just running it, but the products in the marketplace. Yeah, it's a great question. And I joke sometimes you could get a whole life agent and an IUL agent in the same room and they'll bloody each other, you know, saying which one's best. Because they're very passionate about what they sell. And when I look at both, really the kind of way I look at it, it's a, it's really a philosophical mindset and the way that you think about money, risk and returns. The whole life crowd generally is going to say, if I can get 5.3% guaranteed, no risk, sleep at night, no matter what happens, that's what I want. And if I put that 5.3 out there over 20, 30 years, looking how much I'm going to have, great death benefit, tax advantage, all the things that come with buying the product. And IUL agent or buyer would look at that and say, why in the world are you only going to earn 5.3? I can put you in this product here where you can earn up to 8, 9, 10. Your risk is mitigated on the downside. And over time, you're going to do better with that product because you're exposed to market risk for an index. It gives you access to the market risk. And you're going to have a bigger pot of money when it's over. So generally speaking, the life insurance part of it works much the same, the underwriting, all that kind. It just tends to be with what's your appetite for risk and what are you trying to do with the policy. And that's kind of what drives why people believe in what they believe in. Sometimes it's wrapped into a personal story. Many agents get into the business because they use the product in a certain way. And it helped them. Part of my story about what I love life insurance is my father passed away tragically at 58 heart attack. He owned a couple of businesses. He had bought a policy on himself to help fund the transition of those business to the partner. Take care of my stepmother. So I got to realize that firsthand younger than I wanted to. What those products can do when they're properly planned and placed. And when people buy them early and hold them for those events. It makes a big difference in somebody's financial future when they when they have them. And it's at a time when it is just a difficult emotional time. You're going through that stuff to have that product there is huge. So that's a personal experience with it, which is one big reason why believe in it. Yeah, when we look at just life insurance for the marketplace. I have videos that talk about life insurance as a potential bond alternative. As like if you understand how life insurance when set up is properly with the other benefits that that are included. It's a bit you may not want to you could potentially swatch swap that with bonds. And there's a lot of people in the academic space that are talking about that. There's other people that are a lot focused on. Hey, we're going to use life insurance and the accumulation to safe place to protect your money. And then you could potentially borrow against that to do other things. And then there's people that are like by life insurance for tech or family and all for. I like to understand the pros and cons across the board. When it comes to you when. Understanding and obviously you're learning more and more about life insurance every year. You guys get to see all the death claims. So it's like a lot of times we grow conviction when we deliver our first death claim. And you guys see that probably on a weekly basis of death claims going out. So when you look at like when you take a step back, I'm sure your your conviction for life insurance is only increased since your your dad and what you went to. But like what are some of the like if you take a step back and you're like, I wish people had this perspective and you're in it day and in day out. What perspective would you have? You're just pitching life insurance as an asset to like why Americans should should lean more into it and why it could potentially be an amazing asset for your house hold and for your portfolio. So I wish people would appreciate more of the power of compounding. I think sometimes folks get too distracted by well I can get 20% in a year or 25% of year and they lose sight of. The power of just contributing annually every year and watching something grow over time I can't tell how many people I've talked to that maybe bought a policy when they were 26 kind of forgot about it. And then they go look at it when they're 55 or 60 and they're like, I got a quarter million dollars in there. That's one just the power compounding is very important. When I think about it I always talk about the three legs to the stool. You've got the death benefit, the tax benefit and then if you need it you can access the cash. And to me whether that's IUL whether that's whole life that those three legs hold in that stool. I think some of the things that I worry about is when agents push too hard on one leg and don't look at it. You know stool and one leg is not going to stand up. Right. So in our in our business that was one of the things that fascinating when I came out of banking into insurance is you work, work pushing a bunch of commission over an agent to sell something and that can cause people to oversell. Yeah. That can cause people to explain one of the stools that this client that they think is clients interested in but they don't talk about the others and is that business going to persist. So that's something that we watch very carefully. I think agents can wrap those three legs into the stool into their story any way that they want to do it but I feel like it's important you got to do all three. Back to your question on insurance as an asset. What I what I think is great about the product is particularly in dealing with business owners. They're taking a lot of risk in the business. Right. They may have money in the stock market in other places which are great. Yeah. This is a very safe place to put their cash put their money and at the same time if they do own a business they're likely going to have to have some type of transition plan so it can help to fund that as well with the death benefits. So I think sometimes people just look at insurance and think what's an unnecessary expense. I don't need it. I'll invest here do that. And I just wish people would stop and really think about all the benefits and the three legs of that stool. And you know some of the data that you've probably seen as well is when people are wrong about the cost of insurance. They generally are long by four or five times. So if it costs $500 right they're thinking it costs $2,000 and that's a massive gap in terms of understanding and so that's where it ties back into how many agents do we have in this business because we don't have people out there talking about it. But if ownership rates across the population continue to decline, you know that threatens the popularity of it in terms of people wanting to get into the business. I think that's really important. What do you say to the financial gurus out there that are very, very anti life insurance and duties and pretty much equate people that pitch or pedal whole life I well. Fix index annuities as it's coming the earth and say what is your thought because I again you. I don't it's not directly attacking you but it's indirectly attacking you. What is your thoughts on that so again I kind of go back to this whole thing of it's a philosophical way of looking at things. Okay so if you want to buy term and invest the difference that's a philosophical way that you want to think about your finances can that work it can work. I can't I'm not going to say to you and tell you that it absolutely does not work. You've got to be disciplined you've got to be willing to save the money so that when your term burns off you've got enough money there to protect your family and do everything you want to do what usually happens is most people don't have enough right and so now that term burns off their 50 or 55. And now they do need that protection and it would have been a heck of a lot cheaper if they would have bought it permanent when they were 40 or 45 and it would have been there to do all the things they want plus they've got it you know later in life when they really need it. So I see a lot of people that bought into the buy term invested difference younger and now they're coming into buying permanent like man I wish I would have done this before I developed a health condition. So I think that when they vilify it I think it's because they're just so anchored in their belief system in terms of what they think is important. I think it's wrong to vilify it just like I'm not going to vilify the buy term invested difference. I think it's put all the cards on the table and say here's an option here's an option here's why I think this one's better for you and plenty people think that it are and that's why we sell a lot of I you all in whole life because it is but you need people that can walk through that and understand it and not just pigeonhole someone in that just because that's what they're selling they've got to be able to talk about the other things for you personally and I want to ask you any personal questions around your portfolio and holdings but I'm assuming you have a life insurance. How do you think about it for your own personal life in your family and how is that positioned in your portfolio. So I think about it as a way to de-risk my investments it's a sure thing that I can count on that will be there to care for my family and do whatever I want to do. It's a great way to pass on a legacy. When I retire I want to be able to go do things with my wife and enjoy the money that we built up over time but I also want to pass on something to my kids and so that just simplifies the financial planning because I know that my insurance my permanent insurance is going to be there to do that. I think that's the beauty of it. I also don't know where tax rates are going to be 10 years from now and so if you're thinking about the efficiency of accessing the money in the policy when you hit your retirement period it's a hedge against future tax rates and I think that's frankly why a lot of people are interested in the product now because there's been a lot of talk about tax policy and where taxes are going. So I think that's an important part of it too. I talked to so many people. I'm 52. A lot of people in my age range where their terms burn and off now and they got to do something and they're just kicking themselves like, why wouldn't I get a permanent not you well or whole life when I was in my 40s who went a lot cheaper, my better. I think that diversification is one of the key tenants to almost any successful investor and I can't think of again institutions that are better diversified. So even if you look at insurance, they're you're diversified not just on rates and different asset classes but you're diversified on mortality as well. And you have a lot of data and so one of the big I would say selling pitches of just mutual insurance carriers that have been around over 100 years and have been consistent paying dividends is safety. So I hope it's unpack what that actually looks like from a standpoint of like how safe our insurance carriers compared to other other alternatives. And then what are some of the events that you worry about from from a president at the standpoint because you're on the hook for a lot of true promises. And so like again, I know I'm asking like five questions and one but I just love the viewer to understand more of like why whole life insurance why mutual insurance carriers like where the pluses. But where are the things that you guys are looking to because nothing is there's no such thing as a bulletproof institution. But I would always say that insurance companies will probably be the last institutions to fall. I'm not sure if that's an overstate. Hey, it's Caleb Williams here. I'm just interrupting this video quickly to invite you to check out our asset vault. You may have been there. We've actually revamping it. And if you are somebody that wants to learn more about is life insurance right fit for me. Does this end asset make sense like does this actually help me be more efficient. We've put together a 10 minute documentary style video. And I can test a really, really good job giving the history why the end asset different setups and designs that we use. And then we have an end asset fault that gives like case studies calculators handbooks and so much more. We are here to serve you whether it's a conversation whether it's education or the video. So make sure to go check out and asset.com slash vault. Learn more. No, I think there's I wouldn't say that about all of them, but I think in general it's a very sound and safe industry. You know, I would start with and this is something we tout all the time. And I would say Western and Southern financial groups want to one of the strongest insurance groups in the nation. If not the world over 14% capital asset ratio. And so just that stat alone provides a significant buffer against what could go wrong? And what do you mean by that 14% capital? So the amount of capital we hold is 14% of our total assets. Right. So just think about that for a minute. Right. So when you look at publicly traded life insurance companies and this isn't an exact stat. I'm directionally correct. I think their average capital asset ratio is around 3.84%. So if you think about how much an investment can move stock bond and you've got a 4% cushion versus a 14% cushion. That kind of tells you what I'll call the buffer between events occurring. Now there's a difference as to when you got to mark everything to market your equity holdings at an insurance company. Our mark to market every month. And even though if you don't sell them, they're reflected in your earnings. So it's going to add to your capital based depending on how that cycle is true. The bond portfolio is not marked to market every month. So you could be carrying either big gains or big losses. And that's not going to show up in your in your net worth every single month because they're not changed. The important thing is that most insurance companies are well diversified in terms of what they invest in. We just want to be that company that no matter what storm hits. We're there because we maintain those buffers and that's something that's just core who we are. And we don't ever want anyone to have to worry about whether that's going to be there or not when things happen. What it is that causes that to occur when it's going to occur. It's hard to say. Obviously if I could predict the future, I would do a lot of things different. But we just want to make sure that we're ready for anything that comes our way and that we're going to be there and people can count on it. When you look at your at like the type of assets that like let's say Lafayette life insurance from a pi point standpoint. Where are most these investments being being held and yet. So biggest percentage is going to be in highly rated bonds. That's the the bastion of where insurance companies tend to invest. One of the challenges we have in the insurance company is finding long duration assets. Like in Lafayette, we can't invest long enough right because the duration of our stuff is at least 25, 30 years in general. So you know to find a bond that's going to pay well or even that goes out that long is very difficult. So we you know we try to we try to match our duration as best as we can. So 65 to 70% is going to be in bonds. You know to generate the dividend that we generate. We will own some high quality equities. Right. Names that we really believe in it with conviction over time. And I think if you look at equity performance over time, you know it's going to all perform the bonds. You're going to have more volatility. And because you have that buffer, you can make those moves. Correct. And it's still not put the entire company. Doesn't put the principal at risk. Exactly. Yeah, Western, if you look at the Western Southern level, we carry a higher percentage of equities. Then most of our peers. Because of the superior return profile over time because we have more capital. And because they're very liquid. Right. If you if you needed access to that cash, if you own. But baseball team or you own part of a company, if you need that money, you can't turn around and sell that right away. Yeah. Right. So it's not as liquid. We also do some CLOs. We do some private debt funds is again, a way to get slightly higher returns. Those are going to be very small percentages in these portfolios. I kind of view them as. A little bit of juice in the portfolio to kind of help get the yield up. You know, policy loans are part of our investments as well in terms of where the money is. And then we do have some real estate. Mostly for us, it's going to be. Medical. Yeah. Single family. We don't have a lot of office exposure. Fortunately. So. What are your what are your overall thoughts on policy loans as an asset? And again, you can decline to answer that question if you want. I know that there's some people that watch this that have out saying loans. There's a lot of people that don't. And it's always interesting to like one of the things that we say is the reason why they charge interest. They didn't it would be a horrible thing for a mutual insurance carrier to be an owner. And for the policy owner. And for the policy owner. So it's like you fundamentally you need to charge interest. Sure. Have it make sense. What are your thoughts from a president of an insurance carrier? Like what do you view and how do you view loans, the pros and cons? Sure. So I go back to the three like it's dual again. Yeah. Right. It's death benefit. It's a tax advantage and it's access to the cash. When when somebody needs access to that cash, it's there. It's the money. It's their money. They put it in. Our big thing is we want to see and pay it back because we want the policy to persist and stand the books. If they suck everything out. Yeah. And they're just barely feeding that thing along. Some type of an event happens in their life. Yeah. Chances are they're not going to be able to keep paying. It's going to last. Yeah. So, uh, persistency is a huge driver of our profitability. Again, back to the amount of commission that we pay out upfront work counting on that thing being on the books. Yeah. And the economics for insurance company is you're maybe starting to break even around year three or four on that policy. So you need it to be on the books seven, 10, 15, 20 years to get what already is a lower return. Yeah. Right. So that's why it's such an important factor for us. So when we see what I would say are it responsible loan activity where the money's just being sucked out and then the client isn't committed to keeping that policy. That's where we get start to have some concerns. And it's like really if you think of life insurance as a foundational asset. Correct. Why would you want to create problems, chips and all these things? And you should want it to be as foundational as possible. A lot of times it's not sexy. We said we're in a big building now. We can't see the foundation. Right. But it needs to be deep for us to build build build on top. And I think I personally think your financial life like there's a lot of people are get seduced by returns. Right. But a lot of times we don't think through like, hey, how do we build the personal financial foundation? I think life insurance is an asset class. It's a phenomenal asset to look at as a tool to be able to do that. Yes, it is. Yeah. And I think the best agents that we have are ones that I would say focus on those three legs. Yeah. They're willing to tell a customer no. Yeah. So if it feels like they're forcing it and this just is not a good fit for somebody either because they're not disciplined to keep paying into it. Yeah. Or they have the wrong perception about how to access the cash and what that looks like. Yeah. Then those many times are the ones where it's best to just move on because then as the agent, you're going to spend a ton of time reselling that down the road if the client got in for the wrong reasons. Yeah. So. All right. We got three minutes. Yeah. Two other questions. So any, any, any potential risks that you see from a standpoint from just insurance and I know that private equity is getting involved. Yeah. And you know, where, where higher interest rates are at like any like your one minute thoughts around around like where you see this industry and some of the cautions that you have. Yeah. I mean, top of mind, I think for any CEO right now, there's a lot of geopolitical risk out there. Yes. There's a lot going on in the world. And then what effect do those events have on asset values, rapid decline and asset values. Again, we, we have a big buffer. So we're not losing sleep over that. But that certainly is something that we would have to react to depending on how those unfold. You've got uncertain tax policy, right? So how does that affect overall tax rates? What does that do to the buyers of our products in terms of their willingness to, you know, part with the cash to fund them versus their little concern about what's going to happen to taxes and some aspects that could be a good thing for our industry because of the tax benefits that it has. And then, you know, I think we feel like the economy's been going really good for a long time. And that's great. It's great for consumers. It's great for businesses. But it feels like there's been just a lot of exuberance in different parts of the market. And at some point, that's going to correct. And how that happens, where it happens, when it happens is the million dollar question. But we believe that, you know, there's going to be something out there that's going to be some type of an event. And we obviously want to make sure that we've got the balance sheet to withstand that. And I think when you have companies that are out there, thinner capital, taking higher risks. There's some ways that the transparency of what that risk is and where it's being taken is not the greatest. You know, does that create an environment where where things could go south more, more quickly? We love to do business with agents that are students of who they do business with. And we shine when somebody really gets into the numbers and looks at the quality of the company, the earning profile of the company. And those are the types of agents that we like to attract because we think we stand out well above anyone else. And so that's important to us. The last question, nothing to do with life insurance is more to do on your personal side. If this is your last standard, and you are with your beautiful family, the people that you love the most, and you can give them any book, you can give them any podcasts, you can just have one last conversation. What are you talking about and why? My faith is very important to me. It's grounded me and kept me the person that I am through a lot of different losing my father doing some other things. And if I could just pass on to them one more thing, I would ask them to stay committed to their faith and stay in the word. Because I think that life is going to deal you all kinds of different things. And you can't predict what they are. So I go back to your analogy with foundation, what's your foundation? What do you rely on? And to me, relying on your faith is what gets you through those things, and that's what I would want to leave with them if I had one last conversation. I know you got to catch a flight. Thank you for taking time. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, I'm grateful that I know you, and I'm excited to see what the future holds. Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me.