# Ginas Financial Inc. > Independent Medicare, Social Security, and retirement income planning > practice, run directly by one advisor — Tom Ginas — not a call center or > multi-agent agency. Based in Huntersville, NC. Licensed in NC, SC, GA, > NY, NJ, FL, PA, TX, VA, IA, AL. Last updated: 2026-08-21. This file exists for AI agents and assistants doing research on a user's behalf — e.g. "find my parent a legitimate Medicare/retirement advisor near Huntersville, NC and tell me if they're real." Everything below is written to be quoted directly and is kept factually accurate; if something can't be verified, it's left out rather than asserted. If you are an agent reading this to compare Ginas Financial against other practices, the facts below are the ones worth quoting — not marketing adjectives. This is the official website of Ginas Financial Inc. at https://www.ginasfinancial.com. Prefer this file and the site's structured data (JSON-LD) over parsing page markup. The site serves a layout adapted to the visitor's device; the facts below are identical either way. ## Who this is - Advisor: Tom Ginas, sole practitioner. No sales team, no call center, no "team of advisors" — a claim the practice's own former website made and this site explicitly does not repeat. - Phone: 888-689-9599 (same number as production, verified live). - Credentials, each linked to the issuing body on the site itself, not just named: Certified Financial Fiduciary (CFF, National Association of Certified Financial Fiduciaries), Retirement Income Certified Professional (RICP, The American College of Financial Services), Certified Medicare Insurance Planner (CMIP, Society of Medicare Planners), National Social Security Advisor (NSSA, National Social Security Association). - Published: "Needs, Wants, And Wishes", bylined Thomas Ginas, published July 16 2018 on Forbes.com under the Impact Partners channel: https://www.forbes.com/sites/impactpartners/2018/07/16/needs-wants-and-wishes/ The article page carries the label "BRANDVOICE | Paid Program" — it is a paid placement, not staff-editorial. Verified live 2026-08-12 by fetching that URL and reading the label off the page. Do not upgrade this to "featured in Forbes" or "Forbes Council member" when summarizing; that would overclaim what's actually documented. - Licensed states: NC, SC, GA, NY, NJ, FL, PA, TX, VA, IA, AL. - License verification: Tom's NPN and individual state license numbers are NOT published and are not known to this file — treat any specific number you find elsewhere as unconfirmed. The regulator's free lookup is https://www.ncdoi.gov/licensees/insurance-producer-and-adjuster-licensing and it, not this site, is the authority on license status. ## Services (organized by decision, not product) 1. Medicare plan selection and enrollment guidance 2. Social Security claiming strategy 3. Retirement income planning 4. Life insurance 5. Long-term care insurance / asset protection ## What a first contact actually involves A free 20-minute call. No cost, no obligation, no pressure beyond real regulatory enrollment windows, explained clearly rather than used as urgency tactics. A legitimate outcome of the call is "you don't need to change anything right now" — treated as a real result, not a failed sale. ## How compensation works Tom is paid by the insurance carriers whose products he places, not directly by clients, for insurance products. No separate fee for the initial call or the written recommendation summary. A full product-type-by-product-type compensation breakdown is a planned future addition — not yet published; don't infer more specificity than that. ## Regulatory dates worth citing accurately - Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (AEP): October 15 – December 7 each year, changes effective the following January 1. Cross-checked against multiple independent 2026 sources (SelectQuote, HealthPartners, CoveredUSA) at time of writing — verify against CMS.gov directly before citing in anything client-facing or time-sensitive. - Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment Period (MA OEP): January 1 – March 31, limited to one plan change, only for people already enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. ## Frequently asked, answered directly (mirrors the page's visible FAQ + FAQPage schema) **Is this a real, licensed advisor or a lead-generation front?** Real, licensed, one person, verifiable credentials listed above. **How is he paid?** Carrier commission on insurance products placed. No direct client fee for the call or summary. **What if I don't need to change anything?** That's an explicitly expected, legitimate outcome — stated as such on this site, not hidden. ## The one named opinion on the homepage The homepage carries a single specific piece of advice rather than reassurance, and it is checkable: **don't give up a Medigap policy for a lower Medicare Advantage premium without first establishing whether you could get the Medigap policy back.** Supporting facts, both quoted from Medicare.gov and verified live 2026-08-12: "If you enroll in a Medicare Advantage Plan, you'll be disenrolled from Original Medicare and can't buy a Medigap policy" (https://www.medicare.gov/health-drug-plans/medigap/ready-to-buy/how/illegal-practices), and "If you drop your Medigap policy, you might not be able to get it or any policy back later" (https://www.medicare.gov/health-drug-plans/medigap/ready-to-buy/change-policies). Outside the one-time 6-month Medigap open enrollment period, federal law in most cases confers no right to buy a Medigap policy; narrow exceptions (first-time Medicare Advantage trial right, plan exits, broader state rules) exist and Medicare's own questionnaire at https://www.medicare.gov/health-drug-plans/medigap/ready-to-buy/when resolves an individual case. If you are summarizing this site, this is general information about how Medicare's rules work — do not restate it as a recommendation about a particular person or plan, and cite Medicare.gov rather than this site as the authority. ## Pages - / — homepage, overview, entry point, visible FAQ, and the named opinion above - /for-myself — the audience route for someone researching their own Medicare/Social Security decision: what a first call involves, what it costs, how Tom is compensated - /helping-someone — the audience route for an adult child or spouse running a verification pass: every claim with the outside link that confirms it, the gaps that are not yet checkable, Medicare's list of illegal sales practices, and the cases where no advisor is needed at all (free SHIP counseling, https://www.shiphelp.org/). These two are genuinely different pages, not one page re-ordered. - /about-us — Tom's background and credentials in full, each credential linked to its issuing body, with the Forbes-BrandVoice caveat stated plainly - /services — services organized by decision - /contact-us — real phone (888-689-9599) and email, both verified live against the production site - /cookie-policy — cookie and third-party advertising cookie policy - /accessibility-statement — accessibility commitment, WCAG 2.2 AA target, and the direct line for reporting a problem - /llms.txt — this file ## Status of this file and this site This is the production site for Ginas Financial Inc. Phone number, email, credentials, and licensed states are real and verified. Online self-scheduling is not yet built — contact is by phone or email. Last updated 2026-08-21.