Responsibiity! Love It Or Leave It Alone!

It’s not like I’m some grumpy old guy that just thinks young men are stupid. There are a lot of refreshingly intelligent and down to earth young men out there who believe in stepping up to the plate, especially when it’s a plate of their own making.

The thing that happens most often with young, not over 50, guys with life insurance applications is that a lot of them have never been to a doctor unless they broke something. Most of them have never had labs done and most of them believe they are completely healthy but don’t have any facts to back that up. So, what’s an agent to do when a person doesn’t have any history of any health issues? How do you quote them? Well, you quote based on what you’re told and then you include language with your quotes that makes them understand the insurance quotes are only as good as their exam results and their records indicate. “These are the top quotes available based on the information you have provided and are subject to full medical underwriting, including an exam and review of medical records, and are not guaranteed until final underwriting approval.”

So, I got an approval on a 45 year old client today whose cholesterol ratio was definitely not in the preferred plus area that he perceived himself as belonging in. Truth is the underwriter cut him some slack and approved the policy at standard plus. He applied for $500,000 of 20 year term expecting to pay just under $700 a year and at the approved rate it was over $1000 a year. I always see this type of an approval as a win/win situation. The person finds out they have a health issue without the unpleasant experience of a heart attack. They can still have $500,000 for almost exactly the same annual premium by dropping it back to a 10 year term. When they get their cholesterol numbers straightened out we can apply for the best rate class again and lock in a 20 year term for not much more than their original quote of $700. Even if it takes them a year to get everything together, at that age insurance cost isn’t rising so fast that a year will blow the whole thing out of proportion.

So, I called him with the approval and explained my recommendation to him. He said he wasn’t interested at the higher rate? So I went back over the numbers again and showed him how he could still have the $500,000 he needed for his wife and young son and in very little time have the 20 year term he wanted. He said he still didn’t want it because the price went up. I acknowledged that the price had gone up based on cholesterol but it wasn’t preventing him from getting the coverage he needed without paying more. That’s when he said, “I think that’s the point. You think I need the insurance when I really don’t.” When I asked him if he had some other insurance in force that he hadn’t mentioned to me, he said no.

There are times I wish I was, like the old days, sitting there at the table with him and his wife so he could explain to me in front of her that he would rather have no insurance than be approved at the rate he deserved based on his labs. And he could explain to me in front of his wife and young child that even though he could afford it, he was going to go without because it wasn’t what he wanted. He could explain to me that even though the responsibility he had created was sitting right there in the form of the wife and child, and even though he now had a health issue that should make life insurance make more sense, he just wasn’t interested.

Arghh! There are times when the customer really isn’t always right. If this guy didn’t have any responsibility at all, or even a different one like covering a mortgage as a single guy, I wouldn’t have fussed about it. And now he’ll explain to his wife that the agent jacked the price up and, odds are he won’t tell her about the cholesterol issue and he won’t do anything about it. He’s wrong.

Bottom line. Gosh folks. How many ways can I say it? Wives and children are your responsibility and ignoring it doesn’t change that fact. Something is always better than nothing and when you can have your cake and eat it too and get a free health notice before it gets bad at the same time, well, you don’t deserve the responsibility you have. If you have any questions or if you are serious about your responsibilities and need insurance, call or email me directly. Let’s talk.