April is National Financial Literacy month so what better time than right now to learn
more about becoming a better steward of your finances.
A 2013 Pew Research Study shows women are the sole or primary bread winners in a whooping
40% of all U.S. household.
I was shocked with that.
Now, if you're not financially empowered, our next guest can really help put you on
your way.
Cynthia Tidwell is the President, CEO of Royal Neighbors of America.
An organization that's been empowering women since 1895.
Good morning, Cynthia.
Good morning!
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for being here.
So, let's talk about these statistics.
I was a bit surprised 40% and my question is, women are working hard but are they falling
short, if you will, when it comes to the children, their future, their financial lives?
It's true.
Women's income is becoming more and more important.
But there are lots of demands for that income.
There's mortgage, there's groceries, they are saving for college, retirement, lots of
competing things for that income.
But we have to think about what would happen if the women wasn't there to provide that
monthly income?
Sure.
Is she protected?
Does she have life insurance for everything that she holds dear?
Most women don't have enough and many women don't have any.
And if that is situation and you're income is so important should something unexpected
happen, you're family will suffer.
Let's talk about the importance of your organization.
You've been empowering women for over 100 years.
That's a long time, give us a brief history.
Royal Neighbors was established in 1895 so think back.
Rural America, women couldn't vote, they couldn't own property..
That's right!
9 women got together to decide that women make a difference in a family, not just emotionally
but financially.
We were one of the first organizations in the United States to provide life insurance
to women.
Now, today we empower women in three very specific ways.
Our financial products protect them.
We do financial education.
And we do a lot of philanthropy.
Mostly geared for helping women be the best that they can be.
Royal Neighbors of America has a phrase and I love this phrase.
"Knowing your worth."
That's important, right?
We play lots of roles in our lives.
Mother, wife, daughter, sister.
Friend.
We also have lots of worth.
You have emotional worth, spiritual worth, but what is your financial worth?
Do you know your financial worth?
Most women need to understand that.
Now, Royal Neighbors has lots of financial tools and calculators that can help you understand
what you need to make sure your family is protected.
Now, another statistic I was reading here, and this one shocked me too, Cynthia.
90% of women will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their lives.
90 percent!
This is huge.
Huge!
Many women don't know what is going on in their family income until either their spouse
dies or they wind up divorced.
Women need to know very specific things.
They need to know their net worth.
They need to know what their budget is.
They need to know their opportunities to save.
Then, they need to do three specific things, once they have that under control.
They need to set their goals.
And their goals need to be specific so that they can visualize what those are.
Then they need to set a plan.
How are you going to make these goals come to life?
Are you going to save more, are you going to spend less?
Are you, how are you going to make all this work.
And if I could tell your viewers anything today, because a lot of times women know these
things but they don't take action today.
Take action on your financial future.
Save a hundred dollars more a month.
Put more money in your 401K.
Buy that life insurance policy because life insurance will protect everything that is
valuable to you.
And this morning we are taking action.
I want you to stay right there because when we come back we are going to focus and reveal
how working moms, even stay at home moms can better secure and improve their financial
futures.
Taking action this morning on The Balancing Act.
We'll be right back.
(Music) We're back and speaking with Cynthia Tidwell,
President and CEO of Royal Neighbors of America an insurer providing, life insurance and financial
empowerment for women since 1895.
Alright Cynthia, great information when we first started.
Let me ask you this: the age group, let's say between 25 and 54, which I think is probably
the most important age group there, are they insured?
Well, in that group you've got singles moms, you've got stay at home moms, you've got working
moms.
They all have different needs, they all have different issues and the majority of them
are all under insured.
Really?
Women only have 69% of the coverage that men have for the same type of exposure.
We need to fill that gap.
And what is your company doing to change that?
We have plans that are affordable for every budget, every life style, every life stage
because every life stage is different.
We know women better than everyone else.
I started thinking of life insurance when I had children.
Ok?
So here's my question.
When is the good age to start?
20's, 30's or when you're getting older?
50, 60's?
Everybody's situation is different.
But the younger you get life insurance, the less expensive it is.
Exactly.
And you're healthy.
Something could happen across your life time where you could become with an illness and
you maybe precluded from getting life insurance coverage at all.
Cynthia, let me ask you this.
As a not for profit, does Royal Neighbors of America give back to the community?
We like to call ourselves insurance with a difference.
We do things that other insurance companies don't do.
We are a socially conscience organization which means we give part of our earnings back
into our communities to do good.
That's awesome.
We have 200 chapter across the country of people who volunteer to do good and in 2013
we impacted 50,000 lives by doing that.
We also provide member benefits.
Legal services, Oh wow.
Health care discounts, disaster aid, scholarships.
And then finally we have our signature program called Nation of Neighbors.
This is an empowerment program for women to help them be the best they can be.
We've given over 1.7 million dollars in grants to women to get to a better place and we've
impacted about 1200 families or women.
Now, what's meant by living benefits?
Can you explain that to me?
Many people think that the only time you can use life insurance is when you actually die.
Right.
But there are many types of policies that you can use the benefits while you're still
alive.
A cash value policy for example, you can fund retirement or you can fund college.
But there's also policies is you have a chronic terminal or critical illness you can tap into
those policy proceeds when you're going through really a devastating time and you may need
that money for expenses.
And one thing I just want to ask you as a women who knows a lot of friends that getting
unfortunately divorced or starting over.
And they are taking that action but they are very scared to maybe reach out to someone
they don't know.
What I like about you and your company, it's very one on one.
Very personal and easy to understand.
We try to keep easy to understand policy, issues, not a lot of insurance jargon.
And we have a segment on our website specifically for women on their own.
Give me the name of the website so anyone out there that would like to just start taking
that action.
It's RoyalNeighbors.org org on the end.
Not .com Really making a difference.
Thank you so much Cynthia.
Appreciate it.
Come back anytime ok?
And if you'd like to learn more about that advantages of life insurance in your life
and the many ways you can benefit and truly it can be done.
You can visit us also at Thebalancingact.com
or get social, logon to Facebook/thebalancingactfans.
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