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In America today, there are millions of people who are active caregivers either for a family
member, or a friend, a spouse, or even a child with special needs.
Today's caregivers provide unpaid care to someone who depends on them for daily support.
Caregivers are often invisible as a group that also needs care.
With us today is Lisa Flanary, CEO of Degree of Honor.
Good morning.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
I was reading here, I love your philosophy, it says "Insurance With a Heart."
Well, Degree of Honor is an insurance company, but it's a special insurance company.
It's called a Fraternal Benefits Society, and we have an obligation as a Fraternal to
not only provide insurance but to also give back to the communities.
So, to me that's what Insurance With a Heart is all about.
The statistics are really incredible.
Roughly 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. is an unpaid caregiver.
What we've learned is that on average caregivers, unpaid caregivers, have lost over $300,000
in income.
Wow.
And that's because they're either taking a step back in their careers, they're maybe
not saving as much, they're not contributing to their 401Ks, they may lose Social Security
benefits...
Because they're helping someone.
Because they're helping others.
And you have a personal story of a mother who adopted a little baby in China.
Tell me what happened to her.
Pam was a member of our family, or our Degree of Honor family, and Pam and her husband adopted
a child, Allie, from China, and she was one-year-old, and she expected that she was adopting a healthy
young baby.
When she got Allie home, she discovered that she was having some seizures and she wasn't
sure what it was all about.
And it took up to six or seven years for her to discover that Allie had cognitive issues
and seizure disorders.
Yes.
And then had become now a single mother with this baby with these additional needs that
she really didn't expect.
So, when you look at unpaid caregivers and what they contribute to society, if you put
a value on that and you paid them a reasonable hourly wage, on an annual basis it would be
greater than Medicaid and out-of-pocket health care costs combined.
So, it's a big number and it would be a big burden if that care had to be paid for.
So, how are you connecting with these people because definitely they have true needs?
Absolutely.
So, we've done a lot of exploration in this area, and really their needs are in three
areas.
One, is just navigating the system because there are a lot of resources available to
them...
And they don't know.
But they don't know.
Mm-Hmm.
And so they need help navigating.
And then they really just need help getting their lives organized.
But the third, and to me the most compelling need that they have, is that what keeps them
up at night is that they are really worried about what is going to happen to this person
if something happens to me.
Lisa, such a difficult transition for so many baby boomers today that are becoming caregivers
and living with this day in and day out.
Right.
And they're transitioning in many cases.
Our members are in that baby boomer, maybe the older end, of the baby boomer market,
and they're transitioning from caregiver to care receiver.
So, we're trying to reach out now to that next generation that's moving into that caregiver
role to help support them in their new roles as caregivers.
And I know you're helping in so many ways.
In fact, I want to wrap up with a wonderful video.
Tell me what's happening here because this is just awesome.
So, this was in September, and it was an agent and his wife who started a service club as
part of our company, a Degree of Honor Service Club, and the wife worked with her church
and with the service club and she put on this event.
And for many of these children, they had never been to a dance before.
So, it was a chance for them to get dressed up, walk the red carpet, and just really have
a fun night.
You know, what we've seen is that the stress on the caregiver is so great, and they're
in a position where they just absolutely need to protect their families.
And so we want to do everything that we can to help them protect them financially, and
emotionally, and in the community.
So for more information on Degree of Honor, where do our viewers go?
So, you can go to DegreeOfHonor.com to learn more about our company and what we do.
Thank you so much for what you do.
Appreciate your time.
Thank you.
And if you'd like more information on Degree of Honor, you can also go to our website,
TheBalancingAct.com.
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