What we do. How we do it.
We start with a personal meeting where we get to know each other, explore your goals, and determine how we can help you achieve those goals.
Financial product research
Everyday we receive new information on financial products offered by various companies. We review this information to see if these products can help reach your goals.
Company Research
We only work with companies that are highly rated by independent rating services. We also consider their history of service to customers and agents.
Personal retirement income plan
Using the information we have gathered, we then start building a retirement income plan focused on your retirement journey.
Meet Our Team
Donald Wales
Founder and President
Protecting Your Retirement, LLC founder Donald Wales has over 40 years of experience in the financial services industry as a tax accountant, marketing director of a Fortune 500 Company and since 1986, owner of Wales Financial Services and Protecting Your Retirement. Don was born and grew up on Long Island, New York, served in the Air Force and is a graduate of Illinois State University. Since 1988, Donald Wales has been a licensed insurance professional and since 1991, has been an independent agent specializing in the field of fixed annuities.
Don has a passion for helping his clients find stable strategies that allow them to accumulate, grow and then enjoy the money they will want and need during their retirement years. He takes great pride in knowing and sharing that his clients are using strategies that protect against market risk even during periods of uncertainty in the stock markets. Don proudly uses the same financial products he recommends to his clients for his own retirement funds and often shares his personal results with his clients.
Professionally, Don ranked number 33 out of over 101,000 appointed agents in total premium deposits into fixed annuities for one of the largest issuers of fixed annuities*. Don is known and respected by his peers nationwide and is often consulted by other annuity professionals as they contemplate their own business strategies.
Personally, Don spends some of his out-of-office time volunteering on a Disaster Response Team and has been an instructor for those seeking to be certified as Early Response Team Members responding to natural disasters. Don is blessed to be dad to three grown, married and stable young people who have given him 10 grandchildren. Don and his family and friends spend every available day enjoying boating, water sports and relaxing at his weekend home on Table Rock Lake.
Tune in and hear Don Wales, host of Protecting Your Retirement Radio, every Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. on KCMO Talk Radio 710 AM and 103.7 FM.
* Ranked in 2010 by Allianz Life
Joy Peterson
Director of Client Services
Joy Peterson started her radio broadcast career in 1992 and has been heard on WDAF-AM, KFKF, WKKG and WWWY. She is currently the co-host of Protecting Your Retirement Radio with Don Wales heard on KCMO 710 Am and KCMO 103.7 FM on Saturday afternoons at 1:00 PM.
Having spent serval years learning about retirement planning through the radio show, Joy enthusiastically joined the Protecting Your Retirement team full-time in March of 2018. She is a fully licensed annuity, long term care, and life insurance agent in the state of Kansas.
Outside of work, Joy spends her time volunteering with her kid’s 4-H club and is a founding member of the Kansas City Junction Drama club. She continues to pursue her love for radio and theater, working part time in both.
Joy lives in Kansas City, Kansas with her husband and two children.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS
INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIPS
Don Wales has several times qualified for membership in Million Dollar Round Table, The Premier Association of Financial Professionals and has attained both Court of the Table and Top of the Table the two highest levels of MDRT.
National Association for Fixed Annuities
Don Wales is a member of the National Association of Fixed Annuities and has participated in educating members of The House of Representatives and United States Senate in Washington D. C.
National Ethics Association
Don Wales and Joy Peterson are both members of The National Ethics Association. National Ethics Association conducts background checks on all applicants for membership.
PROTECTING YOUR RETIREMENT AFFILIATIONS
Better Business Bureau
Protecting Your Retirement has attained the A+ rating, the highest rating of the Better Business Bureau.
Insured Retirement Institute
The Insured Retirement Institute is an organization promoting financial choices for retirement that are insured by large life insurance companies. The institute distributes well researched articles and publications that share how the choice of safe financial products enhances consumers guaranteed lifetime income. The Insured Retirement Institute has academic as well as industry members.
Alliance for Lifetime
The Alliance for Lifetime Income is an organization involved in providing consumer and industry education and support on the benefits of selecting financial choices that are designed to provide lifetime income for retirees. Several of the Insurance companies and marketing organizations that we work with are founding members of the Alliance for Lifetime Income.