Protecting the Plan: Why Black Wealth Requires More Than Income

At the latest Sarah Stevenson Tuesday Forum, the conversation centered on something many families avoid until it is too late: protection.

From Left to Right: Lorenzo McNulty of New York Life Insurance Company and Darks McClettie Sr. of State Farm

Under the theme “Protecting the Plan: How to Keep Your Income, Family, and Legacy Intact,” speakers Lorenzo McNulty of New York Life Insurance Company and Daks McClettie Sr. of State Farm challenged attendees to rethink wealth—not just as money earned, but as systems built to protect what happens after you are gone.

Because for many Black families, the problem is not ambition. It is infrastructure.

Wealth Is Not Just What You Make—It’s What You Protect

Lorenzo McNulty opened with a story about risk, faith, and leaving home.

Originally from Mississippi, he moved to Charlotte nearly 20 years ago “chasing a girl”—a joke that ended in marriage and a life built here. But before Charlotte, there was his first plane ride to MCRD, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, a moment he says changed everything.

“I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing,” he reflected, “but I was confident I was going to be successful.”

That confidence carried him from military discipline into engineering, technology, industrial hemp, and eventually elder care and financial planning. But one moment shifted his understanding of wealth permanently.

He remembers a woman named Miss Debbie walking into assisted living, skipping, and handing him a $6,000 check.

“The little kid in Mississippi asked, where did you get this money?”

That moment forced him to confront something deeper: very few people in senior care looked like him. It reminded him of his own grandmother’s passing, of watching his mother care for his father, and of how often Black families are introduced to financial planning only through grief.

That realization pushed him into life insurance, long-term care, and future planning—not as luxury services, but as survival tools.

The Black Spending Power Paradox

McNulty pointed to one of the most uncomfortable truths in Black economics:

Black Americans are approaching $1.9 trillion in spending power, yet many families remain structurally unprotected.

He shared that only about 52% of Black people are funded with insurance, while projections suggest the net worth of many Black households could continue to decline if legacy planning remains absent.

“We romanticize a lot of things,” he said, “but we never put numbers on them.”

Who can your beneficiaries call when you are the one who transitions? Or retires?

It is a sobering question—especially when the average funeral now costs between $15,000 and $25,000.

The CASH Formula for Protection

To make the conversation practical, McNulty introduced what he called the CASH exercise:

• C – Current LiabilitiesWhat do you owe today? Debt, obligations, and immediate expenses.

• A – Annual IncomeWhat income would disappear if you were no longer here?

• S – SchoolDo you have children headed to college or dependents who still need educational support?

• H – HousingWhat remains on the mortgage, rent obligations, or housing security?

  
  

The formula:

C + S + H – A = Your Coverage Need

And for families with children, the math becomes even bigger.

If your child has 15 years before graduation, your income must survive for 15 more years—even if you do not.

Insurance, he argued, is not just about burial. It is about income protection.

A Family Business Built on Protection

For Daks McClettie Sr., protection is personal.

A Charlotte native, raised in Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and a graduate of West Charlotte High School, McClettie’s journey into insurance began with community.

His parents did business with a man named Bob White, an Allstate agent who gave him his first opportunity to work inside an insurance office.

Later, while searching for stable work after marriage and fatherhood, McClettie found himself in an insurance call center. Bob saw his potential and hired him.

That was when he began to understand how foundational insurance really is.

“You can’t get a driver’s license, license plate, buy a car, or buy a house without someone like Bob or myself,” he explained.

“Our society is built on a requirement for everyone to have insurance.”

Learning Legacy from Those Before You

McClettie credits much of his professional development to Howard Johnson, the first African American State Farm agent in Charlotte.

Johnson not only taught him the business—he taught him what the position meant inside the Black community.

For over a decade, Johnson prepared him for leadership, walking him through the operational, relational, and community responsibilities of running an agency.

When Johnson retired in 2021, McClettie was chosen to take over the office.

By January 2022, he had opened his own family-run agency with his wife, son, and mother all working alongside him.

He calls them “The Protection Posse.”

Life Insurance Is Not Automatic

One of the biggest misconceptions McClettie addressed was simple: people assume life insurance is guaranteed if they can afford the payment.

It is not.

Coverage is often tied to health, age, smoking status, and lifestyle. Some providers even evaluate criminal history.

“If you are a smoker,” he explained, “that’s a risky lifestyle data point. Either the companies won’t give you coverage, or they will charge you an arm and a leg.”

He also highlighted newer guaranteed issue policies for adults between ages 45 and 80, offering $10,000 to $15,000 in coverage without automatic rejection—coverage that remains active up to age 121.

For many families who believe it is “too late,” that matters.

The Quiet Cost of Zip Codes

During audience Q&A, one attendee raised a familiar frustration: redlining may have changed forms, but discrimination still feels alive—especially when insurance rates vary by zip code.

McClettie acknowledged the concern.

Insurance companies, he explained, often justify rates through data: accident frequency, population density, and prior claims.

More people, more accidents, more risk.

That is why places like Gastonia or Concord often see lower auto insurance rates than Charlotte.

McNulty added that life insurance operates with similar logic through mortality and morbidity rates.

Gun violence, health outcomes, and environmental conditions all shape risk calculations.

In short: your zip code can still determine your cost of survival.

Stop Renting Your Future

Perhaps the clearest analogy of the morning came when someone asked how to explain insurance and investments to a younger person overwhelmed by financial jargon.

McNulty kept it simple.

He compared it to renting versus buying a home.

At the end of renting, what do you have?

Nothing.

At the end of ownership, you have equity.

Protection works the same way.

Consistency—not fantasy—is what builds wealth.

Not viral investment schemes. Not overnight success. Not pretending adulthood.

Just systems.

Protection. Planning. Legacy.

Because wealth is not proven by what you post.

It is proven by what your family still has when you are gone.