Legacy Lounge
More Than Insurable or Uninsurable: How Risk Really Gets Priced
6th July 2026
Penn Mutual Chief Underwriter Gretchen Dinucci joins the Legacy Lounge to explain why insurability is a spectrum, how underwriters really price risk, and how longevity and modern medicine are reshaping life insurance.
Equal Is Not Always Fair: How Families Define Fairness Before Wealth Transfers
22nd June 2026
The structures that equalize an estate can deliver almost any outcome. They cannot tell you which one is right. That decision belongs to the family, and it is best made out loud, while everyone is still at the table.
Estate Equalization: Treating Children Fairly When the Assets Won't Divide
22nd June 2026
A larger exemption lifted the estate tax off many families. It did nothing for the family whose wealth is a single asset only one child can use. That problem is mechanical, and there is a structure that solves it
Beyond the Barrel: Why Energy Investing Isn't Necessarily a Commodity Bet
19th May 2026
Mike France, Head of Investment Management at Intrepid Financial Partners, joins the Legacy Lounge to challenge the idea that energy investing is a commodity bet. He shares why capital discipline, contracted cash flows, and AI-driven natural gas demand are reshaping the lower middle-market energy infrastructure opportunity.
Deborah and Chelsea Stavis on the Invest in Her Podcast
9th April 2026
Deborah and Chelsea Stavis joined Catherine Gray on Invest in Her, a nationally recognized podcast featuring women founders, funders, and change makers, to discuss the forces reshaping how women build, transfer, and manage wealth.
Why Effectiveness > Efficiency
6th April 2026
Deborah Stavis and Samir Sinha mark one year building Stavis Wealth with a conversation that challenges the assumptions most wealth firms are built on. They expose the concentration risk hiding inside passive index funds; where a small number of mega-cap names now drives an outsized share of S&P 500 returns. They make the case that the largest advisory firms are quietly retreating from estate planning because it doesn't scale. They also pull back the curtain on The Texas Collective, Stavis Wealth's framework for private investment access in venture capital, private equity, and private credit, curated from the intellectual capital at the center of Houston's most dynamic sectors. In this candid year-in-review conversation, Deborah and Samir move from philosophy to practice: what true integration across planning, investments, and insurance actually looks like, and why effectiveness, not efficiency, is the only standard that matters for families building a legacy.
The Estate Plan That Looks Complete (And the Gaps It Quietly Leaves Behind)
2nd March 2026
Most estate plans have dangerous gaps that even excellent attorneys miss. Deborah Stavis, CFP® with 35 years of experience, explains how life insurance, properly structured, fills those gaps and ensures your wealth transfers intact.
Private Placement Life Insurance: A Sophisticated Planning Tool for Families with Taxable Estates
4th February 2026
Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) is one of the most misunderstood planning tools in wealth management. It sounds complex. The life insurance industry has not always helped by layering on jargon. And because PPLI is typically used by families with taxable estates and institutional investors, many advisors and families have limited firsthand exposure to it. What experience has shown us, however, is that PPLI is not inherently complicated, it is simply different. For certain families, particularly those holding tax-inefficient assets and planning across generations, it can be a highly effective structure when evaluated and implemented thoughtfully.