Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
Women & Money: The Shit We Don't Talk About!
The Essential Business Insurance Every Woman-Owned Business Needs in 2026 with Carmen Alvarez
Business insurance isn’t exciting.
But losing everything you’ve worked for is a lot worse.
This week on Women & Money: The Shit We Don’t Talk About, we’re digging into business insurance without the jargon, the fear tactics, or the overwhelm.
We’re joined by Carmen Alvarez, owner of The Insurance Pros and a Purse Strings Approved Professional, who makes insurance make sense for women business owners. Carmen strips this topic down to what actually matters so you can protect your business without blowing your budget or your energy.
In this conversation, Carmen breaks down why general liability is non-negotiable, why being “too small” is actually the riskiest place to be, and how the right insurance gives you permission to think bigger without fear. We also talk about real life scenarios where missing coverage almost shut businesses down, why waiting until something goes wrong is the biggest mistake women make, and how to layer coverage intentionally instead of buying everything at once.
This episode is supported by Randall Franklin of Franklin Wealth Management, who works with female entrepreneurs and business owners to create personalized financial strategies that support their entire life journey, not just their business. Randall’s approach starts by understanding the full picture, both financial and non-financial, so your plan reflects what matters most to you. He helps women navigate the added pressure of balancing family, work, and major financial decisions with greater clarity and confidence. If you’re ready to gain clarity, see the big picture, and move forward with confidence, you can schedule a complimentary here 👈 Learn more at www.franklinwealthmanagement.com
Investment advice offered through OneAscent Financial Services, LLC, d/b/a Franklin Wealth Management, a Registered Investment Adviser with the United States Securi
Want to take this conversation one step further? Join us for our next Money Talks, a free 30 minute live session where we’ll dig into a question we hear all the time from women business owners: Budgeting for Businesses to Offer Benefits. Click here to register for FREE and bring your questions!
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Barb: [00:00:00] You know, Maggie, more and more women are opening their own businesses every day, which is so, so exciting for me because it's so empowering to have your own business and to really do what you love to do, especially if you have a passion for something that you love, that's what it's all about. And then comes all of the other things you need to do to run your business, right. All the icky, sticky wiki things that you're like, what? Yuck. But you gotta do the stuff, right?
Maggie: And one of those is business insurance. Do other countries have as much insurance like we do?
Barb: I don't know. But in this country we do.
Maggie: we gotta insure everything and everyone wants to take everything to court, and that's why we have insurance.
Barb: Yeah. And you know, it is something that many, many, of us put off lots of different reasons. you know, a lot of people are like, oh, insurance, this, that, you know, it's a money grab, whatever. But when you talk to people like our guest, Carmen, you really [00:01:00] understand why it is so, so important to have insurance. And the way that she put it that really struck for me was, you know, you work so hard for the work that you do and the passion that you have. You don't want one small little blip to pull the rug out from underneath you and everything is gone. Right, which could happen.
Maggie: And things could be like an honest mistake, but sometimes you can hire like one bad apple and you know, there it goes. You know, you wanna have the control and so you wanna be able to be the narrator and you gotta protect yourself. It's a crazy world out there.
Barb: Or just the protection that you know, it's okay if anything happens. I'm protected, right? That you can keep moving on and moving ahead and growing your business and you're protected. Especially if you have a broker like what Carmen is, that's the person who shops for you, right? Shops all the right insurance companies to make sure that you have a good, legit company that suits what your business is and has the best competitive both price, but also coverage for [00:02:00] you. You're not over-insured. Not under-insured. And she explains things really well, which I think is of course the best thing. It's not just transactional, but you really learn what it is that you're insuring. So as boring as business insurance sounds, I found it really, really interesting this conversation.
Maggie: It made me realize that, I mean, it's never something I would just go and try and figure out myself. That would be a waste of my time and it would still not be done right. You know what I mean? Like I, I would have to hire a broker to help me. I don't know why you wouldn't,
Barb: Right. Just like when you buy, you know, any other kind of insurance, auto insurance, homeowner's, insurance, whatever. This is just another line of insurance as a business owner. And one other thing is she's like, look, it makes you legit. You're a legit business owner. You're insured. And if you wanna grow and have contracts with other partners.
Maggie: When you grow, not if, but when.
Barb: When you grow and have contracts with other clients and partners, they're gonna be looking for that. So it's, you know, it's another one of those, put it on your [00:03:00] list of things you need to check off and do. Just like you need an attorney, just like you need to get licensed and you need, you know, there are things that you need to do to set up a business.
Barb: It's no small feat. So, as glorious and wonderful as having your own business is, there are many, many administrative tasks that you need to fund, and business insurance is one of them. I would put it right up there as one of the most important in order to protect yourself and your business and all of your very, very hard, hard work.
Maggie: And so let's listen to Carmen so we could figure out where the heck to get started.
Barb: You got it?
Maggie: Let's dive in.
Gloria Steinem once said, we will never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. Barbara Provost and Maggie Nielsen are the team at purse strings that will help you navigate the ins and outs of financial independence so that you can be financially [00:04:00] fearless. This is women in money, the shit we don't talk about.
Maggie: Today. We have a special guest on our podcast. We have Carmen Alvarez, who is one of our Purse Strings Approved Professionals, but also just an expert in business insurance, which I don't think we've talked about after like 120 plus episodes. So I'm so excited to finally get this covered. So, Carmen, before we dive into all of our questions, can you share a little bit about who you are and what you do with the audience?
Carmen: My name is Carmen Alvarez. I own the Insurance Pros. I do everybody's favorite boring thing, insurance. I've said this before and I always say this like when we were in fourth grade, at least when I was in fourth grade, they used to do this career day where they would bring all, you know, parents in from different careers and they would have little tables and talk to us about what they do and nobody in fourth grade was like, I wanna be an insurance agent. That's not a thing. This is one [00:05:00] of those fields that you fall in, like out of necessity or because maybe it's in the family. And so, yeah, I didn't think this is where my life was gonna take me, but it did and yeah, I enjoy it. I will say that this year in particular was hard with all of the hoopla politically 'cause it did greatly impact health insurance in particular.
Maggie: So do you do all types of insurance or what insurance do you do? You do. I guess there's a thousand types.
Carmen: So it is a full service brokerage firm, which means all of the things but I always say this, and as business owners, especially women, we are used to doing all of the things all of the time, but that's not feasible, right? And so I have a great team. So as a firm, we handle business liability, employee benefits, which is really my main focus as well as home and auto.
Carmen: But again, my personal focus is the employee benefits side of the business.
Maggie: Awesome. And so [00:06:00] we know business owners like avoid insurance until typically it's too late and then you're like, oh, I kind of wish I had that, you know, something went wrong. So what's the real risk of waiting too long to get that kind of insurance?
Carmen: You know, insurance is not like Amazon prime. You can't click it on after the problem shows up. You know what I mean? And so once there's a claim, a lawsuit, a diagnosis, or even a hint of risk carriers will exclude or decline you altogether. And that's the risk, the biggest risk. It's not the loss, it's being uninsurable when you know you finally care or when something arises.
Barb: Yeah. And you know, sometimes business owners don't know what they don't know about business insurance. So let's dive into that a little bit. So, when women have a business, like how do they know what kind of business insurance they're gonna need and kind of what kind of costs are involved and things like that, how do you determine what kind of insurance you're gonna need?
Carmen: [00:07:00] When anybody starts a business, the first thing liability insurance, always. Like you don't want to, that's not something you wanna skip. It protects your business from other people's problems, clients, vendors, the public. It's usually very, very affordable and it allows you to sign contracts, you know, it allows you to sign lease space.
Carmen: 99.9% of if you wanna open up a brick and mortar or just even like an office space, anywhere, they're gonna wanna see your general liability. And it allows you to partner with larger companies as well. And I always tell people like, anything else, the foundation is important. It doesn't mean you buy everything, but it does mean you need to build the floor before you decorate your house.
Carmen: Like you can't, you know what I mean? You can't walk around right with all of the bells and whistles and like not the main thing. And that the general liability piece is the most important [00:08:00] for sure
Barb: So when you're talking about general liability, and I'm thinking small business now, you might have some women out there who own a nail salon. You might have some women who do consulting. You might have women who do yoga shops. You might have some women who do something out of their home.
Barb: So it's quite different versus if you're doing something out of your home versus if you have a brick and mortar versus if you have, there's so many different types of insurance,
Barb: where do you start?
Carmen: Again, the general liability piece is the primary piece. If your business interacts with humans in any way, you need liability coverage.
Carmen: Got it. Okay.
Carmen: Now, there's conversation to be had where some people might need that plus something called professional liability. So accountants, insurance brokers, you know.
Carmen: An insurance broker, they won't even give us a contract without a professional liability in place. So if we don't have a contract, we can't talk about that product. We can't sell it. So there are certain industries that are very specific in regards to what [00:09:00] liability coverage is needed first and foremost and usually that's either that PL, the professional liability versus the general liability. But the minute you have an office space that is outside of your home, that general liability needs to typically also be in place.
Maggie: And so for that, not the general liability, but the, the first one you said, how much is that like a month? Like like $20 a month, 200, 2000. Like what are we kind of talking in a range for? Because I know as when you start a business, it's just like every bill is being slapped at you, from registration and websites and everything else.
Maggie: So what is kind of the cost? I know of course it's a range, what are we kind of looking at?
Carmen: So general liability can typically cost from the lowest I've ever seen is like 300. A lot of carriers have this minimum premium, like, it could have cost a hundred, but we're not charging less than 300 type of thing. I think that number's moved up to 500 for the [00:10:00] year. Professional liability is going to depend on what you do and how much you make.
Carmen: For instance, and I'm gonna talk about insurance, professional liability 'cause insurance broker. They're gonna ask questions like, how is your business broken up? Like, how much of your businesses and employee benefits versus property and casualty under that umbrella falls like general liability, workman's comp, home, and like they ask you these questions and they want you to break it up.
Carmen: And then how much do you think you are going to make for the year? Liability Insurance Premium is going to be tied to what you do and how much exposure there is and the best way for an insurance company to understand the risk is to understand how exposed you are, and that's typically through the amount of dollars you're projecting to make for the year. A company that makes a hundred thousand dollars a year is not going to pay the same amount in insurance than a company that brings in a million, right? Because that billion dollar [00:11:00] company is obviously exposed a whole lot more.
Maggie: And so how does having kind of the right insurance actually make a small business more competitive when it comes to like hiring or partnerships or growth?
Carmen: So different things for different reasons. Employee benefits is going to give you an edge because not only does it give you credibility with those that you wanna hire. But the people that you do hire, you retain them so they stay longer when they feel protected. . And that's a big sticking point right now with people, especially with all of the things going on around the conversations of health insurance in general at large.
Carmen: I often have these conversations with people where they're like, man, I just need to get a part-time job that offers health insurance at this point because it's so expensive on the individual market unless you qualify for a subsidy, right? In regards to liability and workman's comp and [00:12:00] all of the other things that cover your business partnerships, corporations won't touch uninsured vendors. Insurance gives permission to the owners to think bigger without as much fear.
Barb: That's interesting when you look at it from that perspective as well.
Carmen: It's a confidence happen.
Carmen: You know what I mean?
Barb: And it says you're a legit, you know? For sure.
Let's take a quick pause to hear from this week's episode sponsor. Lemme ask you something, you've built a successful business, but does your financial plan actually support your whole life beyond just your work? Hi, I'm Randall Franklin with Franklin Wealth Management in Madisonville, Kentucky. I work with female entrepreneurs in business owners like you to create personalized strategies that support your entire life.
Not just your business. Women often face added pressure to balance family work and major financial decisions without clear guidance. Too often it feels like you're expected to choose between your career and your life. My [00:13:00] approach starts by understanding your full picture, both financial and non-financial, so it's your plan actually works for you.
If you're ready to take a step back, see the big picture, and get clear on what matters most, let's start there. You can find the link to schedule a call with me in the show notes. And I would love to help you take that next step with confidence. Now back to our show.
Barb: So what's the biggest insurance myth you hear from women business owners that you wish you could just retire immediately?
Carmen: Too small to need insurance.
Barb: Can you expand on that a bit?
Carmen: For sure. When I talk to people and maybe they're talking about health insurance or their home and auto, and I know they're a business owner, they're like, oh, I just work from home and I just do this on the side, or whatever.
Carmen: And the truth is, the small businesses are the most exposed, they really are because if you make an error or something happens, people, and we are just in such a litigious state, right? You hear it all the time for all of the things. Some valid, some [00:14:00] not, and it just doesn't matter.
Carmen: Once that lawsuit hits, you're not protected if you don't have certain things in place. You're gonna lose it a lot faster than a larger company who has the means to fight and argue and, you know, place their bets on their position. So yeah, being small doesn't make you invincible. It makes you vulnerable.
Barb: Mm-hmm. Got it.
Maggie: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And so do you also offer you know, the big thing is cybersecurity. Then also, you know, we're all on our computers and all the cybersecurity. Do you offer cybersecurity insurance as well?
Carmen: yes. So cyber insurance has definitely just really grown in the space these last few years, and I encourage everyone to make sure a lot of these general liability or BOP policies. BOP stands for Business Owner Policy where it's kind of like a, I don't wanna call it a hybrid. It's like a package [00:15:00] deal.
Carmen: It includes the general liability and it includes ensuring, your computer and like your business property. Some of it includes maybe product, maybe you sell, maybe you make candles, you know, outta your home even. And it'll include like the inventory. And a lot of these box are now including you know, a nominal cyber package as well, like 25,000.
Carmen: And that's small potatoes. If you ever are in a situation where there's a cyber breach and somebody can actually like, connect the dots that their information was taken and used and abused because of the cyber breach that happened through your company. That's huge. That's a huge, huge risk right now.
Carmen: You know, anybody who stores information, who, any of those things, your, your, you know, leaving yourself open to some [00:16:00] major issues financial and legal. I'm sure everybody gets those notices. I get one of those notices like once a month where, hey, we had a data breach and we just need to let you know, and it doesn't look like, you know, anything's happened, but we see that your information could have been compromised and here's a free, you know, check your credit score for a year.
Carmen: Those cost money. Think about the mail. Think about the fact that you're paying for that free check-in or whatever. That's not gonna cost 25,000. You know what I mean? Like, so you have to really understand, you know, what it is that you do, how you're doing it. Everybody's doing everything digitally now. You know, and so just kind of really take the steps for making sure that you've closed the gap on that exposure, for sure.
Maggie: Yeah, I know. I just hear so, I mean, we hear it all the time on the news or whatever about all these data breaches and all these things, and I know [00:17:00] there's so much, you know, cybersecurity you can do on your computer and things like that. But when your focus is making candles, it's a lot to manage. I mean, it's another world or you know, and so it is, I'm glad there's some coverage on that as well because it's a lot, it's overwhelming and you don't know what you don't know half the time.
Barb: Yeah, that's exactly it. That's it, right? Yeah.
Barb: Can you give us a real example of, you know, where insurance protected a woman owned business from something that could have shut her down.
Carmen: I have a perfect example. This one falls into EPLI, which is employment liability insurance, and that's a different insurance policy that you wanna have in place if indeed you have employees, right? And in this scenario, I had a client who, we went through the whole package.
Carmen: My job is to research what you have, review it, compare it to what the other things are that are available, and read through the [00:18:00] documentation to see if there's any gaps. And when I went back to her, I was like, you're over-insured here. 'cause that's a thing too. You don't need to be over-insured.
Carmen: You know, you're underinsured here. And by the way, you have a staff of like nine people you might wanna put in EPLI. And she's like, I don't think I need that. Okay. by the way, this is a photography studio. About six months later, she calls me in a panic and she's a really good friend of mine and she's like, I need to talk to you.
Carmen: Did we ever move forward with that EPL? I'm like, no. And I forwarded her the email because I always recap my meetings like, and I said, no, you said that we would touch base on it the next year. And she said, I have a problem. And I said, what happened? And you know, this photography studio was doing boudoir photos.
Carmen: They were opening that up, which is, I don't know if you've ever, if you know what that is. It's like sexy photos. You [00:19:00] know, I don't wanna say scantily cla, it's not, it's just like, you know, you take pictures, tasteful pictures in lingerie, whatever, and they had this person from, I think Canada come in that was a specialist in that field and basically was doing mockups and like, they had like a whole training session of like two days or whatever.
Carmen: Anyway, there was one employee who stated that she felt that the entire training session was inappropriate and likened it to sexual harassment, you know, because it, it's, we're talking about boudoir, like some of them, sometimes you're naked, and there was a whole thing around that and she was adamant that she felt like this was inappropriate and you know, and so we walked through that and talked through that and it didn't go anywhere, but it could have, and that's the thing that would've [00:20:00] protected her for that.
Carmen: General liability's not gonna protect you for that. You know, workman's comp doesn't protect you for that. And so the EPLI had it been in place, if it would've moved forward, would've protected her. Now, thankfully, they were able to come to an agreement. She had to, you know, the lady quit and she gave her severance.
Carmen: Like, she just kind of like paid it out to be like, okay, here you go. Thanks, you know, for your service. But it's things like that that can arise. And, you know, she put better things in place like when you hire people, if you're gonna hire somebody for that department, make sure you have like an ironclad business, you know, contract for them understanding what it is that they're doing, signing off on it, all of the things.
Carmen: I introduced her to a, one of my best friends who happens to be a business attorney, and she was able to put together documentation for her that, you know. Like employee contracts that were [00:21:00] specific to that department of her company.
Maggie: it sounds overwhelming and you hate when it's like, it's always six months after you talked about it, you know? And we'll come back to it in six months and it's a thing is you don't think you need it and then it's like, shit, I need it, you know?
Carmen: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I'll give you another quick example. And this is real. and it's. Close to my heart because I just went through something. This last quarter I was at a health scare and, you know, it could have been the Big C and it wasn't.
Carmen: And I'm thankful and grateful. But another friend of mine who also owns a business who I do all of their insurance or, you know, I talked about short term disability. And I was like, why don't you, you know, provide this, we can do a carve out for, the management company where it's employer of paid and everybody else can do voluntary, and she basically was like, you know, I will check on that later, not right now. Then she decided, okay, let's do it. [00:22:00] And we did all the paperwork, which she was traveling and doing all these kinds of things and she never solidified the contract. And right now my very good friend was indeed diagnosed with cancer and is going through radiation treatment.
Carmen: And the first thing she did was say, did we ever solidify that short-term disability? The answer was
Barb: I am sure you hate giving that answer.
Carmen: Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. It happened the most during COVID, you know, employers came to me and said, did we ever finally do this? Or, you know, whether it was sometimes life, like it's so inexpensive to put together an employer paid life policy for your employees. It's like three, five bucks a month per employee when you're doing it in a group.
Carmen: Yeah, you're getting 25,000, but it's something, right. And the answer has [00:23:00] been, you know, was no. And so now, or not now. 'cause I always present it. I always bring it up. But I am a little bit more, not pushy, but I definitely talk about these things and just make it clear like this is a really inexpensive way to protect yourself, your employees and so I definitely bring it up a lot more often and during my check-ins, not just at Regal because it feels terrible to say to someone, no, you know, I, I reached out to you, but you were here.
Carmen: You were there, and it's just such a terrible thing. And so now, my good friend is going through these therapies and, and radiation treatments, but also working. I saw her postli. She was at a networking event and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, you know?
Barb: Yeah, it's tough. It's tough.
Maggie: It's tough and it, it's just, you know, no one has the goggles to see the future. And so it's always like, is Carmen upselling me or do I really need this? You know, as a small [00:24:00] business owner, every expense is really important. So you don't wanna overpay, but you don't wanna underpay. Like it's always teetering these fine lines.
Maggie: And even your example of the women who started talking about it and. Started the paperwork but just never locked it down. I mean, we hear a lot about that with estate plans as well, you know, where we're so close to the finish line and it needs that one more signature or, you know, notarization and it's, and we kind of just push it off even though we're, we're 90% there, you know?
Maggie: And so it's just, it's so hard 'cause you just never know when something will happen. No one has those future goggles. And if you do send me a pair, I'll send you my address like.
Carmen: And in this environment where everything just feels like financial pressure, right? Like all the things are so expensive. I always tell people, insurance isn't gonna make you money, but it can save your business.
Carmen: We put so much into our businesses. It's like birthing a child, right?
Carmen: It's a constant thing. It's running in the [00:25:00] back of our head, even when we're trying to zone out or veg out or bed, whatever, it doesn't matter. And then for just one thing that could have been handled by a policy, it's just, it's devastating. And so. Does it make you money? No. It's gonna cost you a little bit of the money that you make, but it can definitely save business.
Maggie: And so for those business owners, you know, listening who feel overwhelmed or behind, you know, what is the smartest kind of first step that they can take this month to get covered without, blowing the budget, without being overwhelmed, all the different things.
Carmen: Yeah. I would tell people to stop Googling get a coverage audit, audit a broker and start small layer intentionally. Nobody starts a business to keep it small, right? Like we have goals and we have, you know, a vision layer intentionally, you know, get the checklist and make it a part of [00:26:00] your business strategy.
Carmen: If you just opened up, get that general liability in place maybe professional liability, depending again on what you do. Sometimes that is, it's, it's not optional, right? You can't move forward without it. But then as things come in, make sure that you start checking off that list. Make sure you find the broker that you feel comfortable checking in with on a quarterly basis.
Carmen: Or set it up on your, calendar to do so. You don't need all of the things. You just need the first right thing, and we go from there. As they say, progress beats perfection, right?
Barb: So I know with homeowners you pay every six months or monthly or whatever every year.
Carmen: Every year is a renewal, but you should pay, usually
Barb: through your loan payment or whatever, but, and then autos every six months. What, how do you pay for your homeowner or for your business insurance?
Carmen: Same. You can either do it on an annual basis, you can do it on a quarterly basis, you can do it on a monthly basis. And [00:27:00] just like home and auto, sometimes there's fees. If you do it on a monthly basis, sometimes there's higher fees. If you're using a credit card versus a checking account, that's gonna depend on the carrier you use and what like payment system that they're using.
Carmen: You know what I mean? So,
Barb: So you have options there.
Maggie: Then how often should people like check back in with you and reassess their coverage or see if they need to add more? Is that quarterly? A six months? Every year, every five years.
Carmen: So I tell people when we, when I do an intake, and let's say you move forward with me, you know, one of the questions that I'm gonna ask right away is, you know, what did you make last year? What's your projected gross income. And I always tell people if you land a whale right?
Carmen: And that projected income doubles or just goes up. Anything I think above 15, 20% of what you thought was gonna be check in with your broker [00:28:00] and let them know that so that they can edit your policy, okay? At renewal, of course, there's your, your broker should be checking with you prior to see if there's something better out there.
Carmen: Now, when I say this, you know, sometimes people are just always price chasing. That's a red flag for carriers. So you wanna be careful if you're gonna save $2, that's not worth it if you are going to save a huge amount of money. I'm not in anybody's pocket. I don't know what a huge amount of money is.
Carmen: It could be different for everybody else, right? Like for some people it's like, even if a hundred dollars would, would be helpful right now. But you have to be cognizant of, you know, al also having a good. I don't know if rapport is the right word, but like a good track record, right? With your, with your carrier.
Carmen: 'cause they do pay attention to those things and rate you accordingly. But yeah, you wanna make sure that is this the best price and that's important in [00:29:00] the liability space or in the business insurance space because different companies change their appetites often. You know, this carrier might love this industry for now, and then all of a sudden they don't want that industry. Maybe too many claims came in for them specifically, not because of you, but maybe others, or they know something that we don't in regards to that specific industry. And so they jack up the rates really high. And that's their way of pushing you off.
Maggie: Very sly.
Carmen: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And so that's kind of what. You know, a broker should be paying attention to, because we get those clues throughout the year. We can see like carriers communicate to us what their desired risks are and when we see that, that means that they're giving prime premiums to that specific industry.
Carmen: I'm seeing that happen a lot right now with manufacturing. Last year I saw it a lot with [00:30:00] auto shops, auto body shops. Every single one of my auto body shops, I had to move from one particular carrier that was really favorable to another, that became extremely favorable, and the one that they were on all of a sudden just really jacked up rates.
Carmen: They just didn't want the business anymore for whatever. They don't tell you why.
Barb: Interesting. Is there, like, do you have to wait to move or can you move your policy at any time?
Carmen: You move it at any time. You can move it at any time and you will get a refund prorated just like, just like anything home and auto. However, there are some carriers that will charge it's called a minimum premium. So if you move within, 30, 60 days, they might charge you a portion of that premium, but for the most part that's usually like in specialty lines for the most part. If you move, they'll give you your refund back and you forward with another carrier.
Barb: Okay. Got it.
Maggie: This has been a [00:31:00] lot of of great information, you know, really gets just the conversation started, I feel like, 'cause you know, then you have to go into your business and what your focus is and those different things.
Carmen: Yeah, we talk a lot about why we start our businesses or why especially women. Especially women. And for us it's, it's a few things. I mean, for me it's a lot of things, but typically it falls under the camp of I want financial freedom. I want to be able to go to my kids' soccer game, you, you know, and not have to ask permission.
Carmen: I don't want a ceiling to my income. As we know, women are still underpaid. And you know, when we compare ourselves to men in corporate America, period, full stop. And so what is your definition of financial freedom, right? It that differ between us, for some people, it's a yacht. That's not [00:32:00] it for me.
Carmen: But, you know, and I'm not judging. It's not panicking when things happen in life and things happen in life all the time. It's just knowing one unexpected moment won't undo everything we've worked for. And for me specifically, earlier I talked about fourth grade career class day or whatever, when we are, you know, looking at these people who come in and talk to us about their careers and how nobody like ran to the insurance broker to see what, what is it that you do?
Carmen: I wanna do that. You know, for me, financial freedom was taught to me by watching my mom not have it. And it wasn't because she wasn't a hard worker. It was, you know, there were all of these things that, and it's why I took the path that I took. I'll never forget my mom after working almost 30 years, you know, and asking me to go with her to this meeting where they [00:33:00] were gonna explain like the retirement route for them and she worked at UIC hospital.
Carmen: And at UIC hospital, I don't know if anybody is familiar, like it's half publicly funded, half privately funded. They don't get social security, they get a pension or that's, you know, that's what they were paying into. And you know, I went with her and we talked, they talked about the. Pension and the this and the that and Medicare.
Carmen: And I'll never forget saying like, Hey mom, we need to go to the 401k meeting. The meeting's not over because she was ready to break for lunch. And she was like, I didn't participate in that. And I was so stunned because I almost 30 years you a match of like, I think it was like six or 7%. What do you mean?
Carmen: And her response was, I didn't understand it and I didn't wanna like let go of any more money. I was a single mom and it just angered me so much. And I sat down and explained the compound interest. The fact that they were matching the fact that she [00:34:00] probably wouldn't have noticed, you know, even she would've put in two or 3%, you know, and she was like, nobody broke that down to me, the way you're breaking it down.
Carmen: Nobody said that. And I have had that same conversation. Nevermind that my mom was an immigrant and her first language was Spanish, and that in itself, right? These people come from other countries where there aren't regulations on insurance. That's not really a thing. Like they literally put their money in jars, mason jars, and under the mattress, they don't trust government.
Carmen: I mean, apparently we shouldn't be either, but that's a whole other conversation. but I've had this, that same conversation with regular Americans who have been here for generations. I have sat down with them when I talked to 'em about life insurance and other things, and they're like, yeah, we don't have any of that.
Carmen: What, like, I, it's just shocking to me. And it's not because they're dumb, it's not because they're lazy, it's not because they're cheap. It's because they didn't [00:35:00] have all of the information. And I'm not a gatekeeper. Like, this is not something that should be kept. and it just, it's heartbreaking for me.
Carmen: And so financial freedom for me is knowing all of the things and making decisions accordingly. That's going to fit my narrative. And, you know, help me and my family. You know, when we talk about wealth gaps, generational wealth gaps, this is one of the biggest reasons that they exist.
Maggie: I almost don't think I could tell your mom how it works. I'd feel so bad for explaining all the interest lost and everything else. I just would just be like, nevermind. We'll talk about that.
Barb: And that's why we started Purse Strings for exactly that reason. No one's giving this information and explaining. Why they need to get started on some of these things and why they should come first. And you know, more women, like you said, are opening their own businesses every day. And so no one's really talking to them about business insurance and how it works and what you need to get started with and what it [00:36:00] typically costs and how you pay for it.
Barb: That's what we're here for. You know, let's start. Asking the questions, talk to Carmen. Let's ask us. You know, we'll get you in front of the right people. But you go into business 'cause you have a passion for something you love and it's, sorry, Carmen, not typically insurance, but thank God Carmen knows all the answers.
Barb: We can go to you to get the answers right, but yeah, it's women helping women understand all that you need to know when you are starting your business.
Carmen: And to be clear, my mom is fine. She was very frugal. I will say that things that we were able to do 30 years ago, 15 years ago, we're not able to frugal our way into wealth now, right. Like, she was able to do some things. She was able to buy a house on her own and she ended up retiring.
Carmen: I think she stayed on for, 'cause we did the math about the pension and at some point. If you stay too long, it's like nothing or like, you know, so I was like, okay, if you do two more [00:37:00] years, you'll get this much more. And I tried to like, you know, adjust it to cola, the, you know, inflation and like lot, you know, the presumed cost of living adjustment, which, who would've thunk we would be in the situation we're in today, right?
Carmen: So she was able to put squirrel away some things and, and do what she needed to do, which is even more infuriating 'cause I know that she would've been able to do so much more had she participated in that. So to your point, I just think that, people don't become fearless by avoiding fear.
Carmen: You gotta get through it. You gotta understand risk. But if you don't have somebody who is going to explain it to you with not with the jargon and all of the acronyms and like stop, like none of that is necessary just in layman's terms. Not because people are slow or not, it's just, it's not what you do.
Carmen: And so, [00:38:00] you know, that's another pet peeve of mine when I hear sometimes, you know, insurance speak and it's like, why? Like they don't, they don't know what that is. Like, just tell them what it is. Like, you know, you needed the source and a dictionary and a, you know, and chat PT on the side to be like, that's wild.
Maggie: Well then on your answer, you kind of already leaned into our last question of, you know, what is your own definition of financial freedom? Do you wanna add any more to that? You were, you're doing a great ex explanation earlier.
Carmen: No, I just, for me, it's understanding risk. It's making sure that for me, financial freedom is, choice is having, choice is being able to say yes or no to things. We have to build to that, right? If when you're starting a new business, there is no financial freedom, you are a slave to your business for the first couple of years.
Carmen: But if what you have in mind is being able to breathe and not [00:39:00] have to work every single hour, unless that's your jam, right? But like every single hour of every single day, because if you don't, there is famine, you know, that's not it, right? And so if you don't have the protections in place, and that is the life that you're living, and then something happens, you're gonna start from zero.
Carmen: You're gonna just throw it out, out and just like, forget it. I'm just gonna go get a job. Like, you know what I mean? And so thinking about those things and having those protections in place first and foremost will assist you to have whatever version of financial freedom it is that you have. For me, it's not having red bottoms or, and Maybach, although I don't know, I think they're kind of ugly at all that, but that's not what it is for me.
Carmen: It's just being able to take a day, like after this podcast, I am taking my kid to the shed aquarium. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I [00:40:00] just wanna hang out with her and like, I can do that. If I was working a regular nine to five, I probably wouldn't be able to, I will have my phone unless somebody is literally on fire.
Carmen: It's not that, you know, like it'll be fine. I'll take care of it, but I can do that.
Maggie: I love it and I'm so jealous you're going into the she say hello to the penguins for me.
Barb: I love that she wants to go the shed with you. That's fabulous.
Carmen: Yeah. Well, she's going to school to be a vet, so it doesn't surprise me. 'cause I, she knows I'm, the zoo is not happening. Like, it'll have to be an indoor, although today is seemingly nice, but it's supposed to rain and I just off my hair, we're not doing right.
Barb: You look fabulous.
Maggie: Well, thank you Carmen, so much for coming, sharing your expertise, opening this conversation as it's so essential for business owners. Like you said. I mean, our businesses are babies and so we don't want anything to happen. So knowing that we can just purchase some protection, have it in place, have you on our team is essential.
Maggie: So encourage any listeners, you know, reach out to Carmen, just [00:41:00] get the conversation started. You know, do that assessment and see where you stand and just. Like you said, take that first step. Don't you know, not all at once, just one step at a time and, and we'll make it through. So thank you so much, Carmen.
Maggie: We appreciate you and your time.
Maggie: All right, talk to everyone soon. Bye.
Outro: You've been listening to Women Money, the shit we don't talk about. Now it's time to take what you've learned and make bold moves towards financial independence. Stay in the know by joining our newsletter for exclusive tools, resources, and updates that keep you financially fearless. Head to PurseStrings. co and sign up today. Need a financial professional who gets it? Turn to PurseStrings Curated Directory, your go to resource for financial experts who know how to put you first. Love this episode? Leave us a review and help us empower even more women to own their financial power. Until next time, be financially fearless.
