EP# 173 - Ehren Frey on Financial Security and Elder Care
Jun 25, 2024Season 1Episode 173
"Cabo" Jim Schaller
Curious about how to safeguard your assets from the high costs of long-term care? Ehren Frey from Zacharia Brown joins us to reveal the strategies his law firm employs to help families preserve their wealth through estate planning, trust administration, and elder law. With a history rooted in Pennsylvania and new expansions into Florida, Ehren shares invaluable insights on the essential documents everyone should have and dispels common myths about estate planning. Whether you're wealthy or not, Ehren explains how proper planning can make Medicaid accessible without losing your life's savings.
Ehren's journey from the chilly climes of Pittsburgh to sunny Florida offers a fascinating backdrop to his career switch from finance to law. Driven by a desire to make a more significant impact, he now focuses on helping families protect their financial legacy and care for their loved ones. Tune in to learn why you don't need to be destitute to qualify for Medicaid and how a comprehensive estate plan can secure your family's future. This episode is packed with practical advice and eye-opening revelations that you won't want to miss.
Zacharia Brown Ehren Frey 26811 S Bay Dr #260 Bonita Springs, FL 34134 239-345-4545 efrey@zacbrownlaw.com WEBSITE
Curious about how to safeguard your assets from the high costs of long-term care? Ehren Frey from Zacharia Brown joins us to reveal the strategies his law firm employs to help families preserve their wealth through estate planning, trust administration, and elder law. With a history rooted in Pennsylvania and new expansions into Florida, Ehren shares invaluable insights on the essential documents everyone should have and dispels common myths about estate planning. Whether you're wealthy or not, Ehren explains how proper planning can make Medicaid accessible without losing your life's savings.
Ehren's journey from the chilly climes of Pittsburgh to sunny Florida offers a fascinating backdrop to his career switch from finance to law. Driven by a desire to make a more significant impact, he now focuses on helping families protect their financial legacy and care for their loved ones. Tune in to learn why you don't need to be destitute to qualify for Medicaid and how a comprehensive estate plan can secure your family's future. This episode is packed with practical advice and eye-opening revelations that you won't want to miss.
Zacharia Brown Ehren Frey 26811 S Bay Dr #260 Bonita Springs, FL 34134 239-345-4545 efrey@zacbrownlaw.com WEBSITE
Speaker 1:
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Cabo Jim.
Speaker 2:
Schaller. Welcome. Good Neighbors, episode number 173 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Ehren Frey from Zacharia Brown. Welcome.
Speaker 3:
Thanks, Jim. Thanks so much for having us.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely Pleasure to get to know people here in the community and what they do, and I guess, without further ado, let's jump right in and watch you share a little bit about what you do over at Zacharia Brown.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, of course. So we're a boutique law firm that's been around for about 30 years in Pennsylvania, more specifically, pittsburgh. We've been in Florida for about 10 years, with offices in Lakewood Ranch and Pompano Beach, and we were excited to open up our Bonita Springs office, which we did in the fall of 2023. So, while we're new to the area physically, we're not new to the area of law. We've got eight attorneys, some of which are duly licensed, in Pennsylvania and Florida, with a staff of about 19 additional people.
Speaker 3:
We specialize in estate planning, estate administration, trust administration, guardianships and elder law. So, while most of those areas of law may be familiar to most people, no one really understands what elder law is. It's helping families plan to protect their life savings from long-term care costs associated with assisted living and skilled nursing facilities. We specialize in protecting your hard-earned assets so that they go to your children and your beneficiaries or the charities of your choosing, and not to the CEO of a large company that owns multiple skilled nursing facilities. I'm a firm believer that your money should stay within your family, and there are many estate planning attorneys in Southwest Florida, but I think what differentiates us from traditional estate planning attorneys is our focus on the elder law piece. As elder law attorneys, we're assisting individuals and families with their estate planning and long-term care needs throughout all stages of their lives.
Speaker 2:
So are there any maybe myths or maybe misconceptions regarding what you do that we can maybe clear up for our listeners?
Speaker 3:
Gosh. Yeah, when do I even start? The biggest things I've seen are that you don't have to be rich to need an estate plan and you don't need to be poor.
Speaker 3:
To be on Medicaid, every person needs a last will and testament, a durable power of attorney, a healthcare surrogate and the living will and, depending on your financial and family dynamic, a trust may be necessary too. But what I can tell you is that all estate plans are not created equal. I've seen far too many times documents that don't properly protect a person's health or wealth. With 30 years of experience crafting comprehensive estate plans with long-term care and elder law focuses that protect you through all of the stages of your life, because it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. And just getting back to Medicaid for a minute, people think that in order to qualify for it, you have to be destitute or literally have nothing, but that's just not the case.
Speaker 3:
With proper planning, really anyone can get onto Medicaid, and they can get onto Medicaid if you're going to a trusted or experienced elder law attorney. There are so many ways that we can protect your assets and life savings from skilled nursing care, which, on average, can run anywhere from $11,000 to $12,000 a month. That can easily drain the wealth that you've built up over the course of your life. And what good is an estate plan if there's no estate left for when you pass?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. You got to think about the future and think about who you're leaving behind as well. So let's back up your story a little bit. How did you get involved in law?
Speaker 3:
Sure. So I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania. I graduated from a small school about 45 minutes south of Pittsburgh called Washington and Jefferson College and after I graduated I worked in finance and banking for a few years, but I just wasn't happy with it. So my now wife told me to go back to law school, because she knew that I always wanted to do it. So I decided that's what I was going to do, but I made sure that wherever I went to law school there was no chance of snow. I was tired of the cold and snow and gray skies in Pittsburgh, but that's what brought me to Ave Maria School of Law in Naples.
Speaker 3:
I've been down here for 10 years and I've been practicing law since I graduated Out of law school. I was doing litigation and eventually got involved in a lot of trust and probate litigation where I saw families fighting and it was hard to see and in some cases it could have even been avoided. Families were paying large chunks of money on attorney's fees for fighting and no one really was winning. Families were torn apart and never talked again in some cases. So that's when I decided I wanted to get into the planning aspect so I could try to help families avoid litigation by planning properly and drafting documents to really take any guesswork out.
Speaker 3:
Right around that time, when I was making that decision that I wanted to get involved in planning, carl had approached me, and Carl Zachariah that is I've known him for many, many years. He's a family friend of ours. He basically had said to me hey, aaron, I'm getting a lot of Florida work. We have offices in other states I'm sorry, in other cities of Florida and I want to open up an office in Naples. Will you run it for me? And I thought to myself what a great opportunity, it was the right timing. I said absolutely. And ever since then we have been trying to expand our footprint in the Southwest Florida area and I think in the short time that we've been around in Bonita, people are starting to recognize us and really trust us with a lot of their needs.
Speaker 2:
That's great. So you live in Southwest Florida now we moved down here. We both moved down here because of the weather, because we love it down here. What do you enjoy doing outside of work when you get a minute of free time?
Speaker 3:
I really like spending time with my family my daughter, isla She'll be four in July my wife, jackie. We like doing a lot of things that we moved down here for going to the beach, the pool. I really enjoy playing tennis and pickleball. I also really enjoy traveling. It's hard when you have a family and work, but anytime I can get away and travel, it's definitely something.
Speaker 2:
I enjoy, there you go, any favorite places.
Speaker 3:
I love Italy. We've been to Italy a few times. It's, in my mind, one of the most beautiful places on earth, so I really love going there.
Speaker 2:
And the food is great too. We got a lot.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, not many bad meals there.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, absolutely so. Is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about Zacharia Brown that maybe they're not familiar with?
Speaker 3:
The one thing I wish our listeners knew about our business is when to contact an estate planning outlaw firm. Like Zacharia Brown, a good rule of thumb is to contact us when one or more of the four D's occur. The four D's are diagnosis, death, divorce and disease. In addition, any changes in the financial or family background. Also, if someone's moving to Florida, it's highly recommended that they have their previous estate planning documents reviewed and possibly updated due to the nuances within Florida law compared to the state that they were previously in. The cost benefit of talking to an attorney when something happens will always be in your favor, and I also am a very honest, open person. If your plan is in good shape and I've reviewed it and nothing needs changed, I will tell you that I have no problem telling a client that they're in good shape. There's a lot to be said for talking to an attorney and having peace of mind.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. How would our listeners go about contacting you if they had questions concerns?
Speaker 3:
At our website, zachbrownlawcom that's Z-A-C-BrownLaw. com or they can call us on our office line at 239-345-4545 and ask to be connected to our intake coordinator, marie. She's one of the best. We also provide free educational events throughout Southwest Florida, so please check out our upcoming events on our website. As I just mentioned, we've done over 30 events since we opened up the office and we're continuing to do those events to help people learn about estate planning, estate administration, elder law. So feel free to come to one of our upcoming events and meet our attorneys to learn more about protecting your health, wealth and securing your legacy. We also post all of our upcoming events on our social media sites Facebook and.
Speaker 2:
Instagram. That's a great way to connect with the community. Any last words for our listeners or anything you wanted to touch on If you're interested in learning more about Zacharia Brown.
Speaker 3:
I would just encourage the listeners to come out to one of our events to meet us and just learn about this area of law, which can be very confusing and overwhelming, and we strive to make sure that it's not that way. We want to make sure that people understand things and the stresses are taken off of their shoulders.
Speaker 2:
Let's make it a good experience for everybody, and educational one on top of that, exactly. Well, very good, aaron, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor and I hope to see you out in the community soon.
Speaker 3:
Great. Thanks so much again for having us on Cabo.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpesterocom. That's gnpesterocom, or call 239-296-2621.