Military widow benefits

Sep 2, 2009 12:30 am

I met a woman today door knocking whose husband lost his life in Iraq last year.  She said the military provides her with financial planning/advice benefits for life at no cost.

Anyone have any idea what this encompasses? Is it a the Pentagon credit union or do they have licensed people to help them?

Sep 2, 2009 1:22 am

Probably USAA.  That wouldn’t necessarily be the “military” providing her w/the services, but USAA can sell it that way as being exclusive to military personnel and spouses.  I’m not an expert on the quality of their funds, but I’m pretty sure they can only offer USAA funds, if you want to use that as a selling point if it is USAA she’s dealing with.

Sep 2, 2009 1:30 am

Actually they do have something very similar to your EDJ Advisory Solutions, and the fees are pretty low.  (Maximum 1.05% net advisory fee, and it goes down for every $250,000 thats put in).  Its all discretionary though, and the client has no power over buying and selling.

Sep 2, 2009 2:16 am
voltmoie:

I met a woman today door knocking whose husband lost his life in Iraq last year.  She said the military provides her with financial planning/advice benefits for life at no cost.

Anyone have any idea what this encompasses? Is it a the Pentagon credit union or do they have licensed people to help them?

  I would ask her more questions about what kind of planning they are doing for her.  The more you ask the more you can size up your competition.  Find out if the person is local (if it is even a person and not a 1-800 PLEASE HOLD).  Does she even understand what they are doing for her?  Tell her at the very least you could educate her on what they are doing for her so she knows, knowlege is power, this will also give you an in to find out the quality of her investments and if you could inprove it.  I could be way way off on this because its just a guess but if she is younger (under 40) she may be stuck in some way to conservative government run allocation that may not grow enough for her needs.  I would be really surprised if she is taken care of as much as she probably needs to be, find value you can add and let her know.  Dig up one of those Jones (woman and investing) kits and talk about how your firm caters to single woman who and woman who do the family finances.
Sep 2, 2009 3:01 am

Thanks … we established a good rapport and agreed to meet in the future.  Just wanted to know what kind of horsepower was on the other end.

She has two small children so I’ll hook her with that.  Insurance and college + as LA talked about my focus on woman and investing.