Archive for November 13th, 2007
I had a discussion with my Farmer’s Insurance agent the other day. I have my auto, homeowners and office insurance through him. He has great products and offers very good service. He called to ask me about life insurance prices.
You see, he is licensed to sell life insurance along with every other insurance product out there, but he openly admits to me that he knows very little about life insurance, and in this case, didn’t know if the price he was quoting a customer was competitive. This is true of all of the major auto and homeowners agencies such as Farmers, State Farm, Farm Bureau, American Family and, well, you know all of them I’m talking about.
The truth is that they all have life insurance products. The sad truth is that most of them know very little about the products and are therefore not in a position to give sound advice. And the sad frosting on the cake is that their products, almost without exception, are overpriced and poorly structured.
In the case of my Farmer’s agent, he had a client who is a 46 year old healthy client who is a smoker. He wanted $150,000 of 20 year term insurance and the Farmer’s product was going to be $107 per month. My Farmer’s agent had a feeling that was a bit steep and called for a second opinion. As an independent agent I was able to look through all of the companies and found the same product for $57 per month.
Bottom line. It pays to buy your insurance from an agent who specializes in the product you are buying. I would never attempt to sell auto and homeowners, even though for education purposes, I do carry the licenses for it. I don’t sell health insurance even though I am licensed to do that. For the sake of our clients I focus only on life insurance and work hard to be able to offer the best possible prices and service in that area.
November 13th, 2007
If you have parents in their 50’s through early 70’s and you don’t know what they have in place for life insurance, ask. Why that age group? They are generally still young enough to get affordable insurance, and they seem to be an age group that unfortunately listened to AARP and believes that final expenses really do cost $7000.
I would challenge you, if you’ve had a friend who has lost a parent recently, to have an earnest discussion about the true cost of final expenses. A casket and burial might be had for $7000, but I maintain that a reasonable final expense amount these days is $25,000 to $50,000. There are so many cost above and beyond the burial, and I hear the stories every week about a child who has had to take the extra cost out of their own pocket. Folks, that is what life insurance is for.
I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you can actually get larger policies outside of AARP, with better guarantees for less money. AARP, for all that they claim, are not your parent’s friends and most assuredly are not their advocate. The bad news. Your parents don’t know that and will not be inclined to believe it.
That is where an independent agent can be helpful. A knowledgeable agent will have two advantages in helping your parents. First, they will be closer in age and second, they will know how to explain the difference between what AARP offers through New York Life, a pathetic, overpriced product at best, and a fully guaranteed low cost universal life policy.
Bottom line. Have the talk. There is nothing harder on the family than finding out upon someone’s death that there wasn’t enough life insurance, if any.
November 13th, 2007
Type 1 diabetes is a disease that can potentially carry a lot of long term health baggage with it. One of the exacerbating issues is that it generally strikes young, usually children or teenagers, who then are faced with a lifetime of controlling their diabetes or facing mortality laced issues.
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh is currently doing a follow up study on the effect of oral insulin on delaying or preventing the onset of juvenile diabetes.
A previous study indicated that oral insulin, which has no known side effects, could delay onset of type 1 diabetes by up to four years in people who were at genetically high risk of developing the disease. Because of the long term collateral health issues of type 1 diabetes, any delay in onset could very well be delays in dealing with the other health issues. Prevention of type 1 diabetes would be an obvious home run.
In type 1 diabetes, a person’s own immune cells destroy the beta cells of the pancreas. Beta cells sense blood glucose and produce insulin, which regulates glucose and turns it into energy. When this whole system breaks down your quits producing insulin. “The belief is that insulin introduced via the digestive tract may induce tolerance, quieting the immune system’s attack on itself,” said Dr. Becker, also a professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Bottom line. Type 1 diabetes is a roller coaster ride for those who have it and seems to be the same for life insurance underwriters. While I am still working with several companies on the issue of underwriting children with type 1 diabetes, we continue to see progress in underwriting for adults with well controlled type 1.
November 13th, 2007
