When I started in the insurance business in 1978, I represented MONY (Mutual of New York). Initially I was trained in life insurance. I really knew nothing about this financial tool before then. It was not a topic that came up at the dinner table when my parents and the 7 children sat down.
In my early 20’s my only insurance experience had been paying for car insurance and I had never had a claim. We did not have health insurance nor were we covered by any social insurance programs. We made payments of $25 per month for two years to pay off the total cost of the birth of our son.
Life insurance was rather simple then and it made sense to me. In fact we could make the presentation on a yellow pad, showing simply your premium, the death benefit, the guaranteed cash value and the estimated value including dividends. While it wasn’t sold as a savings plan, I liked the concept of actually having cash value available for an emergency or opportunity. I understood how that cash value could be used to provide a “paid up” life insurance policy.
As I learned more about the unique tax advantages of the product and the more sophisticated applications for estate liquidity and deferred compensation plans, the math made even more sense to me.
What I didn’t really understand was the emotional importance of the product. My manager, Don Duff assured me that when the time came that I had a friend die, I would understand this better. “When everyone else is bringing casseroles and cards,” he said, “if you have done our job, you will deliver the check that will allow the survivors to continue living in their own world.”
The first death claim I paid was on an “orphan” policyholder in Red Bluff. An orphan is someone’s whose agent was no longer in the business and we were required to provide service to those clients in hopes of expanding the relationship.
This was a small policy that would cover final expenses and a bit more for an elderly man. When I arrived with the check, the family invited me in to hear them all share stories about their Dad. I felt a special honor to be a part of such an intimate time in their family. After all, I really didn’t know them. But they wanted me to know about their Dad. They were grateful that they didn’t have to worry how they were going to pay the final expenses. They could take their time winding up his affairs because they had the cash they needed.
It wasn’t a dramatic event, but it did give me a taste of the emotional end of this transaction.
In 1981 I wrote life insurance for my brother-in-law and his wife. They were buying a new home. While he had survived polio as a child, there was no current health issues and my sister in law was an avid runner and a successful columnist and reporter in the Bay Area. After 9 years they finally had their first and only child.
In late summer of 1994, they came up to visit us and we rented a patio boat. My sister-in-law shared that she had been having some neck pain that couldn’t be resolved. She had seen her doctor who recommend analgesics, but she still wasn’t getting relief. She decided it was time to try a chiropractor. When she returned home, she did just that.
A thorough practitioner, he ordered x-rays. He was disturbed to see a mass in her neck that he could not identify and sent her back to her MD. The end result was the neck pain was caused by a tumor that was secondary to kidney cancer. She died in early December, 8 weeks after her diagnosis and just before her daughter’s 5th birthday.
My brother in law was devastated and in shock. Their 5 year old daughter would never really know her Mom who had cherished her and had waited for so long for this baby. Like most of us, he got through the days immediately following in that fog of having to function for final arrangements.
I had delivered other death claims, but this was one, I had not expected to deliver quite so soon. This was the time that I really understood what Don meant. When I delivered that check to my brother-in-law, I knew that he had the money to allow him to take time off work if he so needed. He had money to fund his daughter’s education or pay off the house. I knew I felt a whole lot better than if I had never talked to them about life insurance and merely brought a casserole.
