Andrew Smidt: Crafting Secure Financial Futures for Families with Autism – Navigating Benefits, ABLE Plans, and Special Needs Trusts

Welcome to Why Not Me the World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life
people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantur. Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Today we are joined by Andrew Smith. He's a skilled
financial plan with a focus on aiding families of autistic
individuals and those with special needs. His wealth of information
and commitment to improving the financial stability of these families
make him a valuable resource and I'm pleased to have
him as part of our conversation. So thanks for coming on. So,
I guess my first question is how did you find
yourself getting into this line of work.
Yeah. So, some of the first clients that I had
were some good friends of mine. They have a daughter
who has autism. She's not about middle of the road
of the spectrum, you know. Obviously the younger you are,
the harder it is to tell where we're really at
so when we met man she must have been about four.
I think she's two years older than my oldest. And
then I have some other friends too their son is
or medically complex significantly. And so those two being some
of the first clients that I had working in the
financial advising space, I sought out somebody who had experience
working with families who have special needs disabilities. I found
that the training that we go through, all of the
licensing exams, all the studying and training we have to
go through, I found that doesn't really prepare us for
working with all the intricacies that families who are figuring
in SSI, SSDI, medicaid, you know, some of the HCBS waivers,
just all kinds of things. And then adding on top
of that all the all the difference of hey, we're
planning for different medical expenses and travel expenses just to
and from the doctor. I mean, you name it. All
of a sudden, there's all these different factors that are
very different than just a neurotypical family.
Okay, so do you do more on the insurances or
financial planning or do you do both to help?
Yeah, so at the core, I am full like financial
planning any goal you're working towards. I mean, retirements obviously
a big one. Most people have any financial goal. My
goal is to help you your family become well positioned
to achieve your goals and have financial security in life
now and in the future. We look at the spectrum,
you know, on everything and look at all the tools
and strategies out there to be able to help you
accomplish that. No family, whether you have special needs or
disability considerations or not. No two families really have the
same plan. You know, there's not a one SiZ school
at all.
Okay, so when you get into financial planning, I find
that it's tough just for the neurotypical world. It is.
They're trying to just make a day to day paying
their car bills, mortgages, food, just the everyday living. So
after they pay all their bills, get everything taken care of,
they look at what they've got. There's not a lot
of disposable income there. And this is just for normal,
everyday regular people that do not have any autistic or
special needs. So how do you bridge that gap so
that these people with the special needs can still move
forward to their future?
Yeah, I mean that's a great question. Again, like everybody's different, right,
and so incomes and what like you said, disposable income
that's different for everybody. What we've realized and probably doesn't
take a whole lot of digging to realize it is
you might have a family, you know, as I call them, like,
they fall into the gap where they don't qualify for
benefits because they make too much. But because of the
added expenses, there's a lot in this planning space that
we do a lot of work where there's not really
any money changing hands or anything that we're getting paid for.
So it ends up being a lot of pro bono work.
And that's fine, right, So you have paid bills. I
have a family as well, three little ones. But my goal,
in my belief is that if I am helping people
the best of my ability, God takes care of me. Right.
As we start to plan for families, like you said,
have these other expenses, have the other considerations of hey,
maybe looking at Social Security SSI or medicaid, and then
we have a cycle almost that the government puts you
into because you can't start to accumulate assets even if
you have the ability to right or then lose the
benefit and then you're in that gap, and so that's
a lot of what we do planning is saying, how
do we protect your government benefits without skirting the law,
but using things that are in place that many people
just don't know about. With that, how do we also
help you prepare to potentially, depending upon your child's needs
or disability, to potentially have a dependent for the rest
of your life that needs some form of financial or
physical care from you, not maybe just for the parents' life,
but beyond their life. Right today, especially in the autism
on the autism spectrum and modern medicine as it is,
many with special needs or disabilities are living close to
that of typical life spans.
Okay, So do you work for yourself or do you
work for another company?
Yeah? So in this world, the financial advising financial planning world,
kind of a little bit of both. So I have
my own practice, but I am in association with Northwestern
Mutual okay, but also at least when it comes to
the insurance side of things, also an independent broker, and
so we have all of the tools essentially out there
at our disposal to meet our clients' needs.
Okay. So you work with multiple companies yep, and you
can pick and choose. This way you get the best fit.
Yep, exactly.
Okay, so you brought up the government. How does the
government play in for the financial part of the future
or how do they fit in for those people that
need it at the moment that have autistic children or
special needs.
Yeah, another great question. So there's kind of a couple
of phases in a child's life right when they're a child.
If we're looking at government benefits, the biggest ones that
are of question, right are the means tested programs, the
ones that income and asset eligibility limits, and so that
would be something like Supplemental Security Income SSI and Medicaid
for those two when a child is under eighteen, so
when they're still legally a child, right, everything is figured
off of the parents' income and assets.
Okay.
Now there isn't just a straight here's the number for income,
but there is for assets. For assets, it's a two
thousand dollars limit, So if you have more than two
thousand dollars in a savings account or among a savings
and a checking account, you.
Don't qualify, okay.
But when it comes to income it gets a little
bit more complicated, and because it's based on the parent's
income and their household size. And so a couple that
has one child, their income would be different to make
them qualify, to allow them to qualify than a couple
who has five children at the same income level. So
as we're looking at that, we talk about families that
are in the gap. We have families that are on extremes, right,
and then we have a large majority of there in
that gap where when it's based off of their income
and assets, they might not qualify. Okay, but there's the
flip of a switch when the child turns eighteen and
legal becomes an adult. Then everything shifts to that child
who is now legally an adult. It shifts to their
income and assets. And so there's two different kind of
phases that you have to plan for and then all right,
what are we able to do in either one of
those phases. Typically we're helping families prepare if their children
are younger. Let's help you start preparing for that time
when they could be eligible if they're not now based
on your income, right, because a number of things could
change that could suddenly make your child eligible. Your income
could change, the laws, the income and the asset limits
could change. The income limits regularly do change to keep
up with the national poverty level, but the asset limit
hasn't changed for a while, but they're working on changing that.
Okay, So to get this straight, the assets, which is
money in the bank, if they have anything over two
thousand dollars, yeah, that will kick them out.
Yeah. So basically, I mean it mostly figures like money
in the bank or anything that's liquid form. You know,
they don't have one home and like one vehicle per
adult against them.
Okay, So if a person has two thousand dollars, if
they have nineteen ninety nine, they're good. If they have
two thousand and one, they're out. Yeah. So to clarify this,
when you say eligible, if they have nineteen ninety nine,
they are. If they have over two thousand, they're not.
So what is this eligibility actually get them?
So again, that's a little bit based on the family.
I mean, there are some standard numbers. I am not
a Social Security expert, so I don't really want to
throw out any numbers, but you know, it can be
a few hundred bucks. Kind of just depends on the circumstances,
and there's different qualifying factors that they take into account.
There's also outside of those two things. Are you familiar
with home and community based services?
Yeah, I've heard of them from state.
To state because those are largely, like we're talking about
largely state run programs, right like Medicaid is state run.
Some it varies from state to state. Hcbs or home
and community based services waivers, they might have different names
in different states a little bit too, but essentially that
waiver it waves that income asset limit eligibility requirements. And
so for some of those families that do fall into
the gap where they're not eligible for SSI, you know,
or Medicaid, they could potentially qualify for these services. And
so some of what we do is just helping people
know that those are out there and point out to
the people who can help them see if they qualify.
Aside from the actual financial piece that we do with people,
you know, a lot of times we're kind of like
a first stop for individuals like do you have a
case manager? Yet there's a great resource for you, you know.
So we asked a number of questions that aren't necessarily
directly but kind of indirectly related to their overall financial security.
Okay, so what state are you in.
So I'm based out of Wichita, Chansas.
Can you help people that are outside of Kansas or
do you have to stay within the state or do
you have people across the country.
No, we work with people all over the country. Okay,
if it's a state that I'm not licensed in a
certain insurance product or if I'm not investment licensed in
that state already, right, it's pretty quick and easy for
me to take that up. So right now I'm not
serving people in all fifty states, right, but a number
of them. And so, yeah, that's something that it's really
just a matter of applying for and sometimes a little
bit of you know, maybe a training that you have
to do to complete a license.
So what can parents do to really help themselves so
they are really protecting themselves so they will be eligible
for some of the services is that you carry and
allow them to take care of their autistic child at
the same time.
Yeah, So there's lots of different tools and strategies out
there that are designed to help parents supplement those benefits,
right without affecting their eligibility. One of those maybe you've
heard of, maybe you haven't. In the grand scheme of things,
is still relatively new, and although in twenty fourteen I
believe it was the national law was passed to enact this,
it kind of rolled out to different states of them
passing the bill for it at different times. So, for instance,
Kansas was twenty seventeen when these Achieving a Better Life
Experience Plan or as you'd maybe heard it called an
ABLE plan or a five point.
Twenty nine A okay.
These came out to help individuals who have a qualifying
disability or special need or family members of parents, grandparents, whoever,
to be able to supplement a above and beyond what
the government benefits provide. Are you familiar with those at
all yet?
I've heard of it, but I'm not really familiar. My
podcast focuses on people and how they're living with their autism,
or how they're dealing with their kids that have autism,
or just how they're surviving day to day. With that said,
this is the first time that I've delved into anything
that's on the financial part of it, giving people hopes
for the future. With all these different programs that you offer,
the tough part is they're struggling on a day to
day basis, trying to take care of their kids trying
to take care of their family, and it's really very,
very tough. So when they're trying to move forward, it's
a really really tough balancing act to take care of
themselves the financial aspect, and then still deal with all
the doctors.
It is.
If you're standing in front of a group of people,
they've got autistic children, they just found out they have
autistic children, or they're autistic themselves. Can you help them? Yeah,
what's the first step that you would take to help
guide them to a better future?
Yeah, So if they've just had a diagnosis, that's pretty
emotional state typically for parents. And so the biggest thing
that I start with is like, you're about to be overwhelmed.
If you aren't already with a ton of information from
all over the place. We can help you just one
step at a time, Right, you don't have to accomplish
everything overnight, and so just one step at a time.
Sometimes that's just take a little time to process, right,
let's touch base maybe in a few weeks or something
like that. If they're really fresh, then it comes into
okay and the parents are ready, what do we need
to do first? You know, Typically I'm like, hey, if
you don't have case management yet, someone who's going to
be in your corner pointing you in the right direction
for any therapies that might help whatever. Right, let's get
you connected, so someone locally there. But then as we're
talking about obviously what I specialize in the financial part,
what benefits are you receiving or are you eligible for
or might be eligible for at some point in time,
And then how do we make sure that we protect
that ability, that eligibility for the rest of your child's life.
And so that able plan that I mentioned, that's a
tool that allows parents and or both actually and the
child themselves, whether they're a child or an adult, to
start saving beyond that two thousand dollars limit. It's got
limits itself, but this was something created by the government
to help them save, just like a neurotypical child can save.
And so there's an overall balance limit of what's protected
from that two thousand dollars asset limit. So anything right
now in the year twenty twenty four up to one
hundred thousand dollars they could have in that account. Now
some people or you know, going wow, I'd probably never
have that, but you can imagine saving over decades, you know,
you might end up getting closer and closer to that.
And so you can have up to one hundred thousand
dollars whether it's from Grandma, on uncles, friends, birthday money,
Christmas money, you name it right, going into this for
your child.
Yeah, it's all possible.
Even when the child starts working, they could start putting
some of their income into this as well, up to
that limit of one hundred thousand dollars won't out against
the two thousand dollars limit.
So that one hundred thousand dollars, that's not like a
savings account. That's more like an investment for one kira, So.
It has the flexibility to do any of those you
couldn You could have it just be set on like
a savings account, very safe, no negative numbers, right, just
kind of safe but low interest. Or you could do
it more like an aggressive investment account. So it gives
you that flexibility there.
Okay, so if they've got one thousand dollars sitting there
in investments, how does that not affect their two thousand
dollars cap that they'd be concerned.
About, because that's what that plan was created for.
So it's completely separate from the two thousand dollars then.
Yeah, So if you had two thousand, let's say one
nine ninety nine in a savings account, you got no
checking account or whatever, no cash anywhere else, you could
have one hundred thousand dollars in this account if you've
had no money anywhere else, as many people will often
you know, maybe even use this because you can get
a debit card or even a checkbook with this. They
might say, hey, let's not have anything else, right, So
you could technically have up to one hundred and two
thousand before you let eligibility before you go over the limit.
Okay, but do they have to be separate accounts?
Yeah, so this would be a separate account. So, like,
are you familiar with like a five to twenty nine
college plan?
Yeah?
Sure, Yeah, this is a five to twenty nine A.
Those are a five to twenty nine C. And so
it's a separate account that you create and you don't
even do it through a financial advisor like myself. You
do it right through the state website.
Okay, and you are able.
To go like if you live, you know, in Tennessee,
but you want to get one in Kansas because you
like there's better. Most states, or at least many of them,
offer a non resident to get one in their state.
You kind of got to look because every state has
a little bit different rules on it. One of the
biggest things that I encourage people to look at is
how Medicaid treats the account in their state. Right when
the beneficiary of the account or the hold of the account,
so this would be in this case, it would be
the disabled or child who has a special need when
they pass away, how does medicaid handle that. So in
most of the states, Medicaid handles that like they do
any other whether it be for an elderly or someone disabled,
or someone below the poverty line who's receiving medicaid. If
there's any money or assets left, Medicaid will do up
to a five year look back for any expenses they've paid,
and they could flaw back as we call it. They
could keep money back from what's left over.
Right, Okay, most.
States Medicaid will do that with an able account. But
there's about I think six now who've passed laws, Kansas
being one of them. They've passed the law that says
Medicaid can't do that if it's a Kansas able plan. Okay,
so those are some things to just like look at
call the you know, state treasurer who runs these programs, right,
and ask them these questions.
Okay, So now way you get into this insurance and
of course some of these other products that you might sell.
So one of the biggest concerns that I hear from
most all the parents I speak with is what happens
to my child if I'm not here?
Right?
So what can you do to help them? Because unfortunately,
when they're talking about this, we have to look at
the ultimate worst case scenario. Yeah, So in this case,
we're looking at an autistic child that if their parents
are gone, they don't know what to do. They can't
live by themselves like some can. So this is the
ultimate worst case scenario. The child may be left by themselves,
not have any family they can step up and help them,
or no family at all. They don't want their child
going into a state facility. They don't want their child
going into a place that's just not good for them.
So it's a really valid concern that they have. So
their main concern is having something in place so their
child can live a good life, and that's scary to them. Right,
So do you have something that you can do that
can help them with that?
Yeah, no, that's a great question. We see the same thing. Right,
That's the number one fear that we hear from pengans
is what do you do?
Right?
So you know, an able plan can help with some
of that. Right, you're gone, You've saved up a little bit.
Okay, it has.
Limits and the grand scheme of things especially we're looking,
you know, down the road. Hopefully that limit of one
hundred thousand dollars will continue to go up with inflation potentially, sure,
but if it doesn't. Twenty years down the road, one
hundred thousand is like fifty thousand. How long will that get? Yeah,
we pass away today and our child lives another fifty
years or more. Doesn't last very long, right, even if
invested properly.
Right.
But a lot of times we're looking to another tool
that can help provide a place for assets to go,
and that would be maybe you've heard of third party
special needs trust. That's something that you've heard a little
bit about before.
Yeah, I'm a little familiar with some trusts.
Yeah, just like any trust, third party special needs trust
or you might hear them call their formal name is
a third party supplemental trust. Okay, because they're typically used
and exactly what we're talking about, they've just more commonly
been called a third party special needs trust.
Yeah, okay.
What this does. It functions like many trusts do, where
it provides a place to receive assets that can be
used exactly how you want them to be. Right, you
work with a qualified attorney, particularly for this, you want
to work with an attorney who has experience with these trusts,
not just any attorney.
So is it like a revocable living will trust?
Yeah, very similar.
It can change until you're not there.
Yeah, yeah. And so with these the idea is protect
those government benefits, right because the parents, gone, right, they
really need the benefits now. If they didn't already need them,
now they really need them. But usually that benefit's going
to provide the bare minimum. Every parent I've ever met,
whether their child is neurotypical or not, wants their child
to have above the bare minimum life. And so how
do we protect that. Well, if you have any assets
at all you can have you can create a special
needs trust with a qualified attorney. That's where everything goes, right,
So protect protecting those benefits means protecting. You can't have
your child they if they need to receive benefits, be
the beneficiary of anything anymore, right unless your insurance policy
on your life is under two thousand dollars, which isn't
going to do much for them anyways. So it's very
common for parents to have two hundred and fifty thousand
of life insurance, five hundred thousand life insurance, a million
of life insurance, right right, an able account can't receive
that because the able account can't be a beneficiary on anything.
And if you leave, you know, if you name your
child as the beneficiary, that disqualifies them for the government benefits. Well,
special needs trust you create that now that can be
the beneficiary on your life insurance or one of the
beneficiaries of your life insurance. It can be the beneficiary
of your four to one K, your IRA. You can
assign the deed at your death to transfer to that
special needs trust for your home, for your car, what
you know, you name it. Because the special needs Trust
can carry its own tax id number. It basically becomes
the child if you will, that receives everything, the beneficiary
of everything. And so although it can be used and
will be used according to your wishes. How you've designed
it in that will or in that trust with the attorney,
it won't actually be in that child's name.
Okay, So the trust gets some money. Let's say that
trust gets half a million dollars. Can that trust be
put into like a CD or a bank or anything
along that line. That's a little bit safer, So that
way they always have it there when they need it.
Yep.
They gain interest on it, so it's not at risk
at all as it's scanning money and growing. How does
that work so they can use it for their benefit
but yet still have it so that it doesn't kick
them out of the government program that they've been in.
Yeah, great question. So I mean it takes being very intentional. Right,
you're not just popping out thousands of dollars, but the
trust can now become the payer of housing, right, the
payer of different things, whatever might be the normal expenses. Right,
the trust is now paying these things, and so it's
never actually going to the child before goes out.
Okay, So basically you're making sure that that child never
receives any money, but yet the bills get paid. Right,
So basically, as long as a child doesn't get any money, it's.
Okay, right, It's like the parent is still there providing
them a home, right, the parents still taking care of
and managing things even after they're not around, and that's
all carried out through a trustee that the parent names.
You know, often we recommend a name of a professional trustee,
like they have those banks, you know, a corporate trustee,
someone that has no skin in the game. I mean,
you're going to pay for that, but the trust can
pay that, right, and so you write that into the trust. Right.
So if you're making decent money off the interest, yeah,
because every state is different on what a trustee gets paid.
A lot of states are just basically so much an
hour for the time that they put in they get paid, right,
So it's not high end money where they're getting thousands
and thousands of dollars taken out of the trust.
Yeah, and then you get to avoid the I mean, man,
if someone passes away, emotions are high. We know how
families are just in general, right, you avoid that conflict
of why didn't you pick me? Obviously, funds can always
be mismanaged, even you know, the money could be gone
before someone catches on that it's being mismanaged by the
wrong person. It helps avoid it, you know.
So is it trust set up like it's only going
to take care of that child. So let's say a
parent should happen to have two children in the family. Yeah,
one's neurotypical and one's autistic. Would they have to set
up two different trusts. Let's say they have a million
dollars they want half to go to one, half to
the other. Would they have to have two trusts? Or
they could set that up within a will, within that
same trust so that it all works out.
You know. It kind of depends on the complexity and
the assets they have. There are still some circumstances again,
you know, not being an attorney myself, there are some
circumstances where wills still accomplish what you might want it to.
But these days wills just seem to accomplish a lot less,
or they get things tied up in probate for a
long time, then you might want to avoid. So it
is common for many families that we work with, if
they have a neurotypical child or children and a child
with special needs that we need the special needs trust for.
It's common for them to create in a state trust
that might be the beneficiary of everything, and then from
that estate trust that catches everything, the language is created
that a third or a half or whatever they decide
goes to the special needs trust upon the parents passing.
Okay, so in that scenario, it would probably be better
for them to have two separate trusts, one for the
one that's autistic, one for the other child. Some trust
now are set up so that they have a will
within the trust, and if anyone challenges that will, they
lose everything they would have gotten.
You're trying to avoid people fighting about stuff exactly.
That's why it's set up that way, so that people
don't fight about it. If they do, then they lose
what they would have gotten. Yeah, So is this something
that could be set up within that type of trust
so that it would help both a neurotypical and the
autistic child so they could both move on with their
life theoretically?
Yeah. Right, Like when you're working with a good attorney,
the sky's the limit, you know. That's where having the
right team is so imperative. Right. We're just one piece
of the puzzle, you know. We help connect people with
people we know are qualified, who've done this. You don't
want to be the first special needs trust that an
attorney's working on unless they're working with someone who's done
twenty forty one hundred dollars, you know, and then we
help figure out, hey, how to fund the special needs trust.
So far, we've kind of talked about what if they
pass away. Then there's another spectrum of families who were saying, hey,
you know, we make good money, but we still like
we want to protect everything, right, and so how do
we supplement We've maxed out the able account, our kids
still young whatever, right, so in that case they might
move into in their lifetime, we're opening up accounts that
the that the trust owns could be used for their
benefit or something. You know. So I mean again, guys,
the limit to a point on how these could be
used and how you set them up, and you're going
to work, you know, parents are going to work with
their attorney to create it to do exactly what they
wanted to do.
Yeah, yeah, that's good. So how do people get in
touch with you if they've got questions?
Yeah, my number is three one six two six six
five zero seven six, or they can email me at
Andrew dot SMIT, which is Smidt at n M and
is in Nancy M is in Mary dot com or
I bet you can connect with Tony and he could
connect us from there.
That's right, exactly. Well, I really appreciate you coming on.
This is a great amount of information.
Yeah, I'm happy to do it. I think unfortunately my
time in the industry, like I said, there's just not
enough advisors out there know how to plan them this
way right, and we run into so many circumstances where
for lack of experience and knowledge in that area, they've
been given some advice. Yeah, that's sad, and we're having
to start behind the eight ball or play some ketchup
or undo some things that were done incorrectly. If we're
able to help people out, whether or not they become
clients of mine, at the end of the day, if
we can help people, even advisors, to learn more about
this space to better serve, it's a win for.
Me, absolutely a win for everyone. So thanks again, thanks
for taking the time out of your busy schedule to
listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed
it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
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