Zander Insurance Proves Dave Ramsey Wrong Again!

Gosh, you know it’s been a while since I’ve heard any real specific griping about why in the world Dave Ramsey would promote Zander Insurance with “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.” When a client trying to do all of the right things to get their financial house in order calls Zander, only to be told that they can’t help them get life insurance for at least 5 years because of a recent melanoma insitu, it makes one wonder how many years of experience you have to have before you have an understanding of impaired risk life insurance 101?

This woman is an RN and she knows that a stage 0 melanoma insitu is certainly an attention getter, but if taken care of (removed) and followed by regular visits to the dermatologist, is not a life threatening. If anything, because she will now be seeing a dermatologist regularly she has less chance than the general population of dying from melanoma. The client and her husband were sold whole life insurance policies and took Dave’s advice to get out of whole life and into term insurance. They also took his advice to call Zander where she got some unparalleled service of bad advice. The explanation of her not being able to get insurance for 5 years was so bad that when I shopped it I got no less than 10 offers at standard or better from the companies I represent. Now they’ve (Zander) explained to me before that they don’t work with all of the companies I do because some, like Prudential, are too hard to work with administratively. They do pay lower compensation than most companies, but when you can do the right thing for a client, compensation  and administrative differences are trumped by success. If you do the right thing clients don’t go looking for signs of intelligent life.

I always feel like I need to offer a disclaimer when I write about Dave and his advice. I believe in Dave’s financial, debt free advice. He put my own family on a path of success and we are forever grateful. I’ve taught his Financial Peace University classes in church and have witnessed family’s lives being changed. But Dave isn’t perfect, just like the rest of us, “no not one”. He seems to have a relationship with Zander that was born out of something other than facts and sound business practice. Dave readily admits he doesn’t know much about life insurance and when customer after customer has a Zander experience, either given bad advice, quoted with the wrong company because they don’t shop their cases, or being snubbed when they are asked to find out if another company can do better, well, I don’t get and neither do the former Zander clients who call me.

Bottom line. If the client described above had taken Zander Insurance at face value, as experts in their field, she would likely have dropped her far too expensive whole life policy and been without insurance, caught between the need to balance her budget and bad life insurance information. If you have questions or have had an experience in applying for life insurance that just defies logic, call or email me directly. My name is Ed Hinerman. Let’s talk.