I Just Love AARP, NOT!

I know it seems like about half of my adult life has been spent shooting arrows at AARP for their mistreatment of their constituency with their pet program, AARP’s Life Insurance underwritten through New York Life. You would think this organization would have enough rip offs under its’ belt that it wouldn’t need to create anymore, but nooo……

I got an email yesterday, AARP Messages, a kind of newsletter letting all of us old folks know how they want to stick it to us this month. They always seem to start off so, well, helpful I guess would be the word. The first shot out of their newsletter is an article, “Today’s Featured Money Tool: Home Budget Calculator”. I’m all for trying to live life within a budget and because I am a Dave Ramsey fan I’m also all about getting rid of credit cards as a way to create a controllable budget.

Scrolling on down the newsletter I then ran into something that didn’t work real well for me. The same folks that were offering me a home budget calculator wanted me to get an AARP credit card. Before I even went to the terms of their credit card offer I had this feeling that just like their life insurance and auto insurance, this latest offering was somehow a money making sucker for them.

Now, I’m not in the credit card market anymore so I honestly could tell you if their terms are normal or not, but I can tell you that what I’ve seen as normal in the past was a much better deal than this. If the folks with the best credit can only get a 13.24% variable rate (knowing that the prime rate isn’t going to go any lower so the only variation is going to be up) , I’m thinking there is a couple of %’s in their for AARP.

But I’m not Ed Hinerman on Credit Cards, so I’ll let that slide. But I can tell you from having analyzed the AARP life insurance offering that it is, if not the worst, certainly competing for the worst life insurance program on the market today. New York Life should be ashamed to underwrite it and AARP should have to explain themselves to Congress or their mothers and fathers who are their market.

Bottom line. AARP is one of the most recognizable brands in our country and they are using that clout to rip off anyone over 50 they can get to. It’s wrong to offer the kind of life insurance products they put forth period. It is quadrupally wrong to offer it to people who trust you because of your brand and are at a place in life where a mistake in buying the wrong product might be irreversible.