I’ve never been seen smoking and I suspect that Dave Ramsey isn’t real big on the habit either, but after spending the last year and a half immersed in Dave Ramsey through his Financial Peace University, I am convinced that Dave Ramsey wouldn’t want to monetarily punish smokers for their choice.
I think it’s safe to say the Dave is the best known and most listened to debt reduction advocate out there today, far surpassing those who seem to kind of flit around the periphery like Suze Orman. Dave’s messages stay consistent. They are no nonsense and meaningful to me, they are sound from a biblical point of reference.
Dave has recommended a nationwide agency, Zander Insurance, for some time. Quoting him on Zander’s home page, “Four generations and 80 years experience, unparalleled commitment to service, the best products on the market, and a principled commitment to debt free strategies, are just a few reasons I trust, use and strongly recommend Zander Insurance.”
Having learned and taught Dave’s debt free strategies I find it more than a little troubling that, using myself as an example, if I were a smoker and took Dave’s advice to use Zander life insurance, I would pay nearly $1200 more per year for a $500,000, 20 year term insurance policy than I would through most other nation wide agencies out there. The Zander life insurance website quotes my best rate in this scenario as $6295 a year from Transamerica, while our website and many others I checked quote $5100 annually with Liberty Life. I believe that Dave might characterize that kind of unnecessary expense “a stupid tax”.
I emailed Dave on his radio show and also sent this email to his info@ address. ” I’m a life insurance agent and agree with your philosophy on term versus permanent insurance, actually have since well before I ever heard of you. Been through FPU and am facilitating FPU at my church right now. What a life changer. Not debt free yet, but well on our way.
My question is why Zander life insurance when they clearly don’t offer the best value in term insurance in many cases? If you bought from them and then found out you could get the same amount and term length for $1000+ a year less with a company they didn’t quote, would you be OK with that?” I really don’t expect a reply on his radio show, not because he wouldn’t want to talk about it but rather because there are who knows how many thousands of calls and emails to him daily. What are the chances?
I did receive a response from his customer care folks and was told “About your insurance questions, Dave has been working with Zander for many years now. They have been in business for several years as well. Four generations and 80 years of experience…they offer the best products on the market and have a commitment to debt free strategies (which is what Dave teaches). Dave strongly recommends them and personally gets his insurance through Jeff Zander. This is the only insurance company that we endorse and recommend not just because of their excellent commitment to service, but because they provide the most informative access that our customers and listeners need—when it comes to insurance. They are not only committed in providing excellent service to us (our team members) and families, but to our customers and listeners as well. This is who we recommend and endorse.”
I emailed back and thanked them for the response but suggested that my question really wasn’t answered. The question really went to whether Dave was aware of the fact that Zander had made an administrative decision to charge far more than necessary in some cases. The answer I received was to contact Zander if I had questions concerning their term insurance plans. Quoting Zander insurance from their website, “GREAT RATES AND GREAT SERVICE. A strong statement we know, but with Zander’s 80 years experience and our arsenal of term life insurance plans, we know we can deliver. We understand the importance that term life insurance provides to a family’s financial future. We also recognize that it is just one piece in your financial plan and needs to be the most cost effective option allowing you to focus on debt reduction and wealth accumulation strategies. It is the balance and commitment to these two principles that define our mission to help you succeed in your goal of financial peace and independence.”
Bottom line. I write all of this because there are so many agents and agencies that really do embrace Dave’s beliefs and really do more than lip service to “providing the most cost effective options”. I’m not suggesting that Dave endorse me or any one other than Zander life insurance, but I am suggesting that when a person has millions of followers they should stand ready to take those they endorse to task when they fly in the face of deeply held beliefs and philosophies.
My 20 years of experience give me the knowledge and leverage to find reasonably-priced life insurance for people who have been declined or are paying more than they need to.
Can you think of any reason why they wouldn’t offer Liberty’s product? Poor service, low commissions, underwriting based on credit, low ratings? Do you think you have the full story or are you waiting for Zander to chime in again?
All fair questions. Liberty is owned by the Royal Bank of Canada and is rated higher than a lot of our good old standby companies like Genworth. My experience is above average service, normal commissions, no credit underwriting. The last time we went around they said they didn’t use Western Reserve for administrative reasons and I assume that will be their stance on this issue as well.
Just curious if you were going to post my response to your comments. i also ran some rates and had some of our carriers just as competitive as Liberty. Their niche does appear to be the healthy smoker and thats it but i would certainly consider taking them on if they work with national providers. Many of the companies you mentioned in the past ,as I spoke about in our previous dialogue ,would not license agents that did not meet directly with the client. Each company has their own distribution guidelines …as you know.
I may owe you an apology since I saw my message post right away for this comment above. I did respond to your previous blog comments from last week regarding our tobacco use page and the error on US Financial (which has been corrected) but did ot see them post for three days. It may have been my error when I hit submit and I will try and pull the comments from my laptop and see if I can resend. I do think the rationale of your commentary that since we may not have the lowest rate on the older tobacco user you compared that somehow this means that all our rates are high and Dave’s judgement is somehow flawed ,is a very narrow and one sided interpretation. I also ran some rates and for a 35 yr old preferred smoker for $500,000 on a 20 year plan Liberty is $935 and Lincoln (our carrier) is $975. For a 40 yr old Liberty was $1435 while Lincoln was $1430. In the end these two comparisons don’t prove much of anything other than there are so many variables involved that staking your claim on one rate comparison to symbolize the efforts of our entire comapny, not to mention the credibility of dave Ramsey’s endorsement is not fair or realistic. The rates we ran are far more in line with the demographics of Dave’s listeners which is who we serve exclusively. And this does not take into account any of the other rate classes and carriers we have available. Cetainly not the huge discrepancy that you seem to imply about our overall operation. As a national provider we maintain the broadest array of companies and your assessment otherwise is flat out wrong. As a founding member of LIDMA (Life Insurance Direct Marketers Assoc). I am very aware of who the “big boys” use and they do not access the same amount of companies that we do which provide special nches for health related issues, pilots, ht/wt and alternate tobacco use. That doesn’t mean that if there is a good value for our clients out there we would not consider it as my actions have illustrated in the past. I hope you can view these comments and the one’s I will try again to post in their entirety. Obviously we have gotten on your bad side but we are proud of the products we offer and know that they are beneficial for all of our clients.
Jeff, Let me very clear that I am not questioning the credibility of Dave Ramsey or his endorsement. I suspect that Dave has enough irons in the fire that he feels he doesn’t need to follow you and ensure that you offer the best deal to his customers.
To assert that running rates within Dave’s demographics somehow negates the need to offer the best deal outside of those demographics isn’t flying with my current FPU class where the average age is 54. You say that you serve his radio listeners exclusively. Surely you know that he also touts you in his FPU dvd’s? Not the same demographics at least in my experience over 3 FPU’s.
Again, thank you for your response. Being on my bad side is no big deal so feel free to let that roll off. “Being proud of your products and knowing that they are beneficial for all of your clients” is another matter. If you truly mean that then you would truly live it. I’m not seeing that.
I didn’t cry foul over a huge discrepancy about your overall operation. I brought to light a situation that flies in the face of everything Dave believes in and I suspect that if you showed this situation to him he would be concerned with it.
The reason I post issues like this to my blog, and please know that you are not the only agency I have ever questioned, is that it is the readers of the blog that need to know that all is not right. You should already know that and I think that you do. Intentionally leaving out companies like Liberty Life and Western Reserve Life is, in many cases other than older age smokers, denying them a chance to get a quality policy for less. These aren’t companies that won’t do business with national agencies. They aren’t companies that require face to face client interviews. There is no valid reason to leave them out.
“Just curious if you were going to post my response to your comments.” Well sure. Did last time also. All of the companies I have presented as money saving viable alternatives to your recommendations work with national providers and don’t require face to face client contact. Jeff, I am a national provider. All 50 and DC. Not trying to have an apples and oranges discussion with anyone.
I have learned over the years that there are even learning experiences in life when they initially present themselves as incorrect or false assumptions by others. Assuming to have known my experiences and to question my motives and intentions because of what you think you know about me and my company is a judgement that is based in your ego and does not perpetuate the practices that you have spoken of in the past. I have tried to look past that and take the basic information regarding companies to heart, now and in the past. And as I said that if there was a benefit to our clients and i could access the program i would certainly make an effort. Because of your initial comments about Liberty Life and how competitive they were on older cigarette smokers I re-contacted a new company representative who was much more enthused by our approach and scope of work and we are now able to offer them to our clients. That I do thank you for and I hope it illustrates our desire to be a professional and honest provider of services to our clients without regard to the other judgements you desire to impose.
Jeff,
It may seem like I just come out of nowhere for no good reason, but it is ultimately the customers I care about. Whether they go to you or me doesn’t matter. That they get life insurance and get the best value does. God bless and please forgive me if I offended you in any way.