“Wait! What? How can everything I know about life insurance be wrong?” Those were the exact words of my friend after I finished telling him my story. And what was my story? Well, I guess we better cover that first before we answer my
My Story
You see, back in 2008, I decided to make a change in careers and go from being a cell-phone salesman to being a law-enforcement officer. I made it through the academy, graduating with honors and being asked to speak at our commencement. My career was amazing and I excelled at it! A supervisory position came soon and things were looking up for me and my family. Then 2012 happened.
Something is Wrong
Even though I was eating healthier than ever and weight/cardio training six days a week, I knew something was off with my body. An opportunity opened up with a different department and I applied to test there. Because I knew something was off with my body, I took 12 weeks of leave and began to focus solely on getting ready for the physical testing of this other department.
A week into my time off I visited my doctor to discuss my concerns. Some blood was taken, tests run, and two days later I got the news; “You’ve had a heart attack and you have stage two kidney failure. It’s chronic kidney disease. I’m sending you to see a specialist.”
Wow…that just came out of no-where! How did this happen? What did it mean? A week later I was sitting with my wife in the nephrologist’s office. He looked at my labs, did a thorough examination, asked a few questions, and then quietly looked over the data one last time. What came out of his mouth next was the biggest sucker punch to the gut I’d ever received.
“You will never work again.”
The words hung in the air like a foul stench. “You only have 70% kidney function. You have to choose today: continue working and die in a couple of years, or stop working and have 20 or 30 more years with your family.” This was the ultimatum I was being given at 30 years old. It wasn’t even a question for me or my wife, my family came first. Later that week I was in the admin office of my department signing my “medical retirement” papers and handing in my badge and equipment.
How did this happen? To someone who kept track of every calorie, every carb, every protein that went into their body! How could someone who exercised six days a week have this happen to them? I was only 30 years old! And I was being told that my career, my ability to support my family, was…poof! Gone!
It was a side effect of a medication I was taking because of having had testicular cancer three years earlier. There was a “one-in-a-million” chance that this side effect could even happen. Guess I was lucky number one-million! They told me it was probably due to the fact that I’d had Type 1 Diabetes since I was 11. Apparently, the combination of the two things didn’t mix well for my kidneys or heart.
What Did We Lose? What Did We Gain?
Overnight we lost 55% of our household income, half of our double coverage on our health insurance, and my $500,000 life insurance policy. What we gained was a $400 a month prescription bill, $200 a month in doctor co-pays, and a lot of stress, anger, frustration, and depression. Things became so tight that at times I wish I had died so that at least my family could have collected those half million dollars and not been so financially stressed. Please don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t suicidal. It was just that by living through my medical issues instead of dying I provided nothing to help us financially.
It was a struggle for a long time. Things were always tight and we even lived off the kindness of strangers from time to time. My wife made too much for public assistance, but not quite enough for us to really live on. During that time I was also diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson’s Disease. This was our life and our story. “You will never work again,” was the narrative I chose to believe. Until I didn’t.
And Here We Are
We’re now going to fast forward through my comeback, building two successful businesses and learning all about finances, because we still need to address my friend’s question. Remember that? Way back up at the top? Well, that’s what I’m really here to talk about today. So what does he (and 93% of Americans) have wrong about life insurance? Almost everything!
First of all, it should be called death insurance. Why? Because you have to die for someone to collect it! Remember what I said up above about wishing I had died instead of living through my medical issues? Death insurance does nothing for someone who doesn’t die. But life insurance does!
Huh?
What am I talking about? I’m talking about Living Benefits Life Insurance! This is life insurance that will pay you up to 75-90% of your death benefit in the event of a critical illness (think heart attack or stroke), chronic illness, or terminal illness. There are about 30 different “triggers” that would allow you to file a claim. And it comes to you TAX-FREE just like a death benefit! You can choose to have it in one lump sum, paid out monthly, take the whole amount available or just part. Take a small sum to get you through a few months of recovery, or take the whole thing and pay your mortgage off to free up that monthly amount. It’s up to you and it’s way faster to have a claim approved than waiting on Social Security Disability (trust me, I know how long that takes).
To give you an idea of how this works, let’s take a look at what would have happened to me had I had living benefits life insurance. Remember I said I had $500,000 of coverage? That same amount of coverage for living benefits life insurance would have cost me around $60 a month and would have provided from $375,000-$480,000 in one lump sum or $7,500-$9,000 a month for up to 50 months, TAX-FREE!
Live, Don’t Just Exist!
Can you already see what a difference that would have made to our family? We could have paid for better care for me. I wouldn’t have had months where I had to choose what medications I wasn’t going to fill so we could save money. We could have had some breathing room to adjust to our “new normal” without the added stress of wondering how we were going to pay all the bills. There would have been no need for church assistance or the kindness of strangers, or even the GoFundMe account we set up (which barely received any donations). We could have lived and not just existed.
When my wife and I found out about Living Benefits Life Insurance, we knew we had to tell as many people as we could about it! The handful of Life Insurance companies that are offering Living Benefits have revolutionized the industry and continue to do so. Americans are eight times more likely to have a negative life event that prevents them from working than dying. Because of that, 62% of people who experience what I did wind up in bankruptcy.
Now You Know About Life Insurance
Everything you USED to know about life insurance was wrong. Now you, like my friend, are part of the 7% who know about Living Benefits life insurance. For about the same rate you would pay for death benefit only life insurance, you could have a policy that will also pay you for living through something that should have killed you.
Feel free to schedule a FREE appointment to learn more about Living Benefits Life Insurance. Or you could attend one of our FREE online Financial Self-Reliance Workshops that teaches all about Living Benefits Life Insurance and more! Either way, don’t wait too long. You just never know when tragedy will strike. I never thought at 30 I would be told I wasn’t able to work. Those living benefits would have come in handy during the five years I believed and lived that story.
Stay tuned as we discuss Living Benefits further next week and take a look at some real-life examples of how they have helped save families. If you’re like me and can’t wait, check out these videos here. Please remember to subscribe for more great financial education and feel free to contact me if you’d like me to