The answer to that question would be….no cancer to underwrite! It seems that since cancer has been diagnosed and understood, there has been a constant supply of studies and advice on how to prevent cancer.
Prevention of cancer! How good would that be? Think of the economic and emotional devastation that cancer causes each time it strikes a family.
There are those that say the clean life is the way to win finish the race cancer free, but who hasn’t known someone who smoked and drank and ate wrong all the way into their 90’s and then just wore out. And, who doesn’t know someone who did every minute of life exactly the way science would recommend and died from cancer in their 40’s.
I guess all a person can do is pick a path and hope. I read an article today that had a long list of suggestions on food and supplements that might give you an edge. Then there is the green tea method. Like I said, no shortage of advice.
From a life insurance standpoint, there is no doubt that skipping cancer in your life, and in the long run, not having a family history of cancer, will save you and your children money. Even in the best case, a history of cancer is going to prevent almost any chance of ever seeing the best rates again. Just because your doctor says you have the cancer beat after 5 years or 10 years, doesn’t mean that insurance companies share that optimism.
Bottom line. Living a healthy lifestyle may not keep you from getting cancer, but it will help you feel better and will keep your life insurance rates lower (my post a few days ago on tobacco use).
October 23rd, 2007
I often use news stories to make a point about life insurance. Ran across a story today that I won’t use, but just want to pass along…..just on the off chance that you didn’t have any focus for your prayer today.
October 23rd, 2007
I have mentioned before that if we all knew the date and time and perhaps the reason for our death, well ahead of time, it might change the need for life insurance dramatically. With time to plan it is possible to put money somewhere other than life insurance and provide for those left behind.
Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t decide, usually on the advice of a financial planner, that rather than buying life insurance, they can put that same money away each month or each year in an investment. The idea, of course, is that when they get old, rather than having “thrown that money away” on life insurance, they will have this great nest egg to use.
There are several problems with this approach, the most obvious being that we really don’t know when we’re going to die. We can guess at our mortality by using averages. There were nearly 43,000 deaths in car wrecks in 2006. An additional 4500+ deaths happened on motorcycles. Pedestrian deaths topped 5000. 27,000 died from prostate cancer. 41,000 women died from breast cancer. This is just a small sample of the unexpected deaths in 2006.
If these people used the “put it away” rather than buy life insurance method, I suspect the majority may have fallen short of their plan’s goal.
Another downfall to the idea of putting an amount equal to the life insurance premium away in investments is, quite simply, that most don’t do it. While a person might be somewhat invested in keeping life insurance in force, diverting money from a potential investment to another use is a fairly common occurrence.
Bottom line. Life insurance is not an investment, and investments are a poor substitute for life insurance. Death is rarely an event that can be nailed down by long term planning and life insurance is the most economical way to deal with the financial impact of premature death.
October 23rd, 2007
