I’ve heard the excuses for not getting that life insurance bought, and I’ve had plenty of people not return calls because they know their excuses are lame.

I want to put it off until I lose a little more weight! I don’t want to apply until I’ve been a non smoker for a year! My cholesterol is really high right now and I want to wait until I get it under control! I don’t have time to take an exam!

Any agent that’s been around for a while has had a call from a widow that goes something like this….”Hi. I found your business card and some life insurance quotes on my husband’s desk. He passed away last week and I was wondering if he bought life insurance from you?” The answer is almost always no. If he had purchased life insurance that business card would likely have been attached to a policy. And guys being guys, if he had really followed through and done something right, well let’s be real, he would have told her all about it. After all, guys are rarely proactive and that would have been a braggable moment.

So what’s it really take to apply for life insurance? Are the excuses valid or are they, in the end, just excuses?

Applying for life insurance is amazingly simple. Using my office as an example it would go something like this. 10 minutes on the phone to nail down health history and the essential underwriting questions. I would email quote options out to you with my recommendation based on your needs and budget. You might take another 10 minutes to decide the direction you want to go. You fill out an online application request form that takes about 5 minutes. We email back an actual application and ask you to check it for accuracy and sign and fax or scan it back, another 10 minutes. We order an exam and they make an appointment to come out and do an exam at your convenience, say 20 minutes.

Then your work is done. Once the application is underwritten and approved we send out the policy and have you look that over, another 10-20 minutes. If everything meets with your satisfaction you sign a few documents and mail a check in to put the policy in force.

So, with just an hour or so of your time consumed over about a one month period, you have gone from thinking about it to actually being insured.

Are the excuses valid? Cholesterol? Weight? Smoking? Those are lame reasons to not take action when you should. Would it cost less if you accomplished your goal? Maybe, unless something else came up or, like most people that use those excuses, you really don’t follow through so you renew your excuse for another year.

Bottom line. The problem is, and we all know this because we all know someone who died way too young and very unexpectedly, we just don’t know when life insurance might be needed so the only prudent course of action is to GET ER DONE. Then, if you make some dramatic change that will improve your rate, replace the first policy with a new one at a better price. My personal opinion. It takes a real wimp to leave a family behind without life insurance to help them out.