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The author will become the 11th president of Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society/Omaha Woodmen Life Insurance Society on October 1.
One in five Americans would rather have a root canal than investigate their life insurance needs.
That’s according to research commissioned last year by the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE). That statistic saddens me, but it doesn’t startle me.
Hard times have fallen on many Americans. People have to cut back on groceries to afford the drive to get them. Families are living, working and spending without a financial safety net. That makes life insurance more necessary than ever.
In the nearly 25 years that I have spent in the life insurance industry, I have met too many families whose breadwinners die – often before their time – uninsured. After the initial shock wears off and grief sets in, the bills begin to pile up. On top of coping with the loss of their loved ones, these now-single-parent families have to deal with surmounting debt, long work hours and radically different lifestyles.
For little more than the cost of a night at the movies per month, those families could have bought life insurance policies with death benefits that pay down debt, preserve their lifestyles and focus their attention on healing, instead of merely surviving, following unexpected loss.
Last year, LIMRA International, a leading industry research firm, reported that 68 million adult Americans have no life insurance. That’s sobering but even more so when you realize that three in four Americans say they consider life insurance a necessity.
September is Life Insurance Awareness Month, when heightened attention will be paid to life insurance awareness. I want to encourage families everywhere to visit LIFE’s Web site, where they can listen to the stories of real people who were thankful that they had life insurance when cruel circumstances redirected the course of their lives.
More than anything, I want to see uninsured families get the coverage they need. Purchasing life insurance before it’s needed is like going to the dentist for a routine teeth cleaning. If families begin to investigate their life insurance needs, I know they’ll see that preventative care is always more enjoyable than a root canal.
Also, the cost of term insurance can be much lower than expected.
The rates for term life insurance have decreased by 50% over the past 10 years. That means, a new term life policy may be less expensive than the current term lfie coverage you own.
It only takes minutes to compare rates for term life insurance online. Your family deserves the financial security that term life isnurance can provide.