Life Insurance
There was a client that I was working with when I sold auto insurance and I asked him who was his life insurance agent. The client responded that he didn’t believe in life insurance. I asked him why and he told me that he felt it was bad karma to bet on his own death. I told him that betting on ones death is a sure bet and that he could either bet the house and win big or pull all his chips off the table and try to beat the house. He said he would try to beat the house! This is a common misconception that people have when it comes to life insurance. They feel that they can beat the house when it comes to their own death, but when they lose that bet, they aren’t the biggest losers, the children and spouse that they leave without resources to live and take care of themselves are the ones that suffer the most.
Life insurance is a tricky subject to bring up with people. On one hand, you don’t want to scare people into thinking about their own mortality, but on the other hand, it’s exactly what needs to be done. None of us are guaranteed an opportunity to experience then next day, minute or hour and we need to be reminded of that every now and then. Along with that reminder, there needs to be a frank and serious discussion on what happens when we die. No, not what happens to us, but what happens to the family and the loved ones that we leave behind that depended on us for their care and well-being. This is where life insurance comes into play.
I’ve had some clients tell me that they have instructed their family to not pay the bills they leave behind when they die. “You can’t get cash out of a dead man,” is what they say to me. The unfortunate part is that is a very selfish way to look at life and death. What about if your creditors start coming after your co-signer on the loan that you left behind? Or if your kids and wife lose everything they had because they don’t have enough money to pay the bills that are left behind? Is that any way to leave a legacy? I think not and the bad part about it is that it’s totally preventable and easy to fix. All it takes is a view of life and death that takes you out of the picture and focuses on others in our lives.
Life insurance is not mandated to have, but I believe a serious discussion needs to take place as to why it should be. The reason I believe so is because there are too many families that have lost everything and ended up in a cycle of poverty because the main earner in the family died un expectantly and left no way for the family to live and prosper without falling into debt. Just think how many accidents claim the lives of people everyday? Now think about if only 30% of the victims had life insurance? That leaves 70% of families who are now possibly on the verge of losing everything they have because they now lost either 1/2 or the whole source of the family income. These are strong numbers to think about, but the reality is that it happens everyday. The question is, will you be ready and will your family be ready if it happens to you?
