At 68 and ½ years old I finally know
what I am worth......
Don’t know
if you have ever asked yourself what are you really worth? And no, it has
nothing to do with your fortune, properties, savings or net worth. But in the
eyes of insurability.
Let’s go
over some background information: According to The
New England Journal of Medicine published a study in 2018, reporting that
the most productive age in human life is between 60-70 years of age.
And the second
most productive group of human beings is from 70 to 80 years of age. Followed by
the third most productive the younger of the two aforementioned is 50 to 60
years of age.
Back to the subject,
insurability.... Yes, insurance tables and your worth have nothing to do with
your productivity, your work ethics, your dedication to all around you and all
those people and entities that rather ask you for help knowing how busy you
could be.
Benjamin Franklin once said: that "if you want something done, ask a
busy person." There's truth to that statement. After all, the busier
we are, the better we manage our time. Busy people are able to get more done in a day because they
don't waste time
And let’s get to
the meat of the subject. Insurability, how it is measured, and is it still
applicable? When societies are talking
about raising the retirement age, and we are living longer. Us Life expectancy
has gone from 68.14 years to 79.25 from 1950 to 2023 and still we consider that
your final days are more valuable, or devalued for the fear of paying you out.
At an early age
of 23, as a lieutenant in the Army, a retired US Army LTC sold me, my first
whole life insurance policy with as many riders as possible: double indemnity,
accidental death, insurance for an unborn child.... wow he made a killing on
commission. Needless to say, didn’t have a child until ten years later. But you
learned, and from my 33rd year of life it has been Term insurance
all the way, best bang for the buck but no cash value. I saw the industry
evolve to “Universal life, and other sporty names, but kept firm with my 10-15-year
terms until last year, when my provider sends me a letter saying this is the
end. And from there on convert to whole life or pay some ludicrous amount. That was they day I started questioning myself
what I was truly worth. But still it took one more year until yesterday, when I
had to make the decision and called them up to say, that it would not renew
that policy and to get me coverage for the same amount of money I have been
paying for the last 30 years and they did, And what it all ended up being was
that I could only get 1/5 of what I had a day ago. My $500,000-dollar policy became a $100,000
policy just like that.
So today I am
worth 1/5 of what I was worth yesterday, and the last 14 years of my life have
been the most active, the most involved, the most productive of my last 30
years or my entire life, but the fact is I am 68.5 years old is what matters to
the insurance world, so I have depreciated in one day more than a new car sold
taken out of the lot (13%) in my case 20%.
That is the way,
as the Mandalorian creed says... insurance measures your probabilities in the
later part of your life, fortunately my children are very well educated and my
wife will be taken care of. So, for the
next ten years I will leave behind only 1/5 of myself to whom shall ever
survive me.
So, do the
mental drill, invest in your future, leave behind educated children that can
earn a living by themselves. And hopefully
leave no debt for your survivors.
