The ADA continues to strike me as an incomplete advocate. Just try to find information on what it takes to get affordable life insurance if you have diabetes. Unbelievable! I called them this morning and then sent the following email in an attempt to break through to someone that cares.
“I have attempted in the past to share information about how diabetes impacts a person’s ability to get life insurance and what it takes and how a person can find affordable life insurance rates with a history of type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
I am struck by the lack of information provided by the ADA website on this challenge. Life insurance is mentioned more often in the context of planned giving to the ADA than it is as an everyday need for people and families dealing with diabetes.
The only page you have that goes into life insurance at all, is less than informative, and at least in the first few sentences, inaccurate and misleading. I suspect a lot of people, if they can even find that page, are turned off and don’t read the entire article. If they do read the entire article, they certainly don’t have a clue where to go from there.
I have been treated rudely and unprofessionally by your staff in my attempts to provide useful information in this arena in the past. I would like to believe that there is a way to get valuable information on to your website, information that positively impacts your member’s everyday lives.
Is it possible to speak to someone about how we might collaborate to provide real, insightful, valuable information to those that face the challenge of protecting their family and/or doing planned giving through life insurance when diabetes stands between them and doing those things affordably?”
Bottom line. I certainly haven’t hidden the fact that I have no love loss for “advocacy” groups that don’t deal with, or deal inappropriately with their member’s need for life insurance. What the ADA isn’t for those with diabetes is the same as what AARP isn’t to older people is the same as what AOPA isn’t to private pilots.
Sounds to me like you did share the information, Ed. Where in the ADA mission is marketing life insurance? Even if it were, no charity can ethically promote less than all the companies and agents. When it does it has registration and compliance issues which is why no credible charitable organization gets involved in what you propose. Your caustic comments are misplaced, ol’ hoss.
If you wanted to help any charity all you must do is send a note with each policy statment/invoice suggesting the owner consider naming charity as a second or last beneficiary, period.
Tom,
Thanks for your advice, but…I didn’t suggest that the ADA market life insurance. I did suggest that, as a non profit advocacy group, they should consider providing information that is valuable to the every day life and future of families dealing with diabetes.
My caustic comments, as you put it, were better received by the ADA. They admitted they have fallen short in some important areas and also admitted that they have been less than information friendly in the past. They agreed that the information I have attempted to share in the past was presented in an educational tone, not in the form of self marketing that I was accused of and verbally abused for.
In their response to me they invited me to “If you have suggestions please send them to me and we will most certainly entertain the changes”.
Do you want to defend AARP and AOPA now?