Ed Hinerman On Life Insurance

Farm Bureau Should Take Ethics More Seriously!

I have often talked about the reality of buying life insurance through your local auto and homeowner’s agent, that reality being a high cost at best and absurdly conservative underwriting which doesn’t favor anyone with any kind of health issue.

Most of the big boys in auto and homeowner’s insurance also offer life insurance, but one look at their rates will tell you that they aren’t competing for that business. To them it’s just there so they can be an all purpose agency. Now don’t get me wrong. If Farmers, Farm Bureau, Allstate and State Farm could offer you competitive rates on all of their products, including life insurance, one stop shopping might make some sense.

Let me use a recent client as an example. A business owner who need to have $1.5 million worth of insurance in force. His only health issue was that he had a heart valve replacement at age 21 due to a congenital valve defect. They waited until he was 21, when his heart reached full size, to do the repair. The repair had been performing perfectly for 20+ years.

He went to his local Farm Bureau agent and was able to secure the $1.5 million of 20 year term insurance for a little over $12,000 annually. I shopped the case and we just placed it with West Coast Life for almost exactly 1/2 as much. To me the difference is a combination of a rate that is too high to start with combined with terrible underwriting.

The problem in the larger picture is that millions of people trust their local agent to have their best interests at heart when they make recommendations. And those agents that are captive with the companies I mentioned above don’t have a choice. They have to write the business through the company they work for, unlike an independent agent. But very few of them will tell their trusting client that there are better, much better deals to be had. And, unless they are completely ignorant of the industry they work in, they know the better deals are out there.

Bottom line. Trust is earned and it is earned so we can continue to serve our customers. When you bilk a trusting client for $6,000 you deserve to lose the business and the trust. Oh, by the way. All of us in the life insurance business have to complete continuing education requirements in ethics. It appears there are plenty who take the credits and throw out the knowledge.

Add comment May 12th, 2008

Health Fair Results!

I have often suggested going to local health fairs as a prudent step for those who either can’t afford a physical with a blood workup or, like so many, can’t seem to find the time in their busy lives to sit in a doctor’s office for an hour past the appointed appointment time, only to sit in an exam room for another half hour and finally to have a doctor come in and chat for a few minutes and announce that he would like you to go the local lab where they will get blood specimens. Back to another waiting room.

Health fairs are cool. You get up on a Saturday morning and go, usually, to a local school where it appears every nurse in the county has shown up to draw blood. You don’t get the friendly chat with a doctor, but you also don’t sit and wait. My experience has always been in, do the business, and out in half an hour at the most. A few weeks later they send your results.

Below is the result of this years labs. Note that they also provide a review of your last labs done through them so you have a baseline. Yes, I know I missed a year. My wife and I were on a 10th anniversary excursion in 2007.

my-latest-labs

While they is some really great news. My PSA remains low and has actually gone down slightly. My glucose is well within normal limits so it would appear I may not be crashing in on diabetes, and I once again beat my wife on total cholesterol. I didn’t win that category by much though and her good cholesterol, HDL, was higher so her ratio was lower than mine.

The bad news came for me right at the bottom. My TSH was elevated two years ago and is significantly higher now, nearing twice the normal limit. So, what I ask is a TSH? Quoting from the handy “What the heck it that quide” sent with my results, it said “TSH (Thyroid Simulating Hormone) is the pituitary hormone that controls thyroid function…..when the thyroid gland is underproducing…..TSH increases. They actually used the word “failed”, but underproducing made me feel better while I called my doctor and asked for the first open appointment.

So, from a life insurance standpoint I am still a pretty acceptable risk. Great liver functions. Great cholesterol and gluocse. My alkaline phosphatase that was high two years ago is now normal.

Bottom line. The whole reason I beat this health fair drum is that it is an easy, inexpensive way to get a checkup that could catch something serious, early.

Add comment May 12th, 2008