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There’s a price on my head |
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When you own your
own business, it seems everyone wants to take out an insurance policy on
your life. Partners, investors, wife, ex-wife, children – they all want
a piece of my rotting corpse.
Just a formality, they say. We know you’ll
live forever but, JUST IN CASE, please set us up so we’ll live happily
ever after once you’re a distant memory.
I always hesitate. My objection to life
insurance, I will tell them, is very simple---I don’t want to give
anyone a reason to celebrate my death.
Naturally, they’ll deny it. But when my
former partners demanded "key man" life insurance on me, I
couldn’t help envisioning the scene of them examining my broken and
battered body, anxiously confirming my death, and then breaking into song,
"We’re in the money . . .We’re in the Money."
Frankly, it gave me the willies, so I
managed to avoid any life insurance policies that named them as
beneficiaries. And I’m glad I did, because in the last few turbulent
months before the partnership finally broke up (unamicably), I would have
been overwhelmed by the fear of dying. There was no way I was going to
give them the pleasure of cashing in on my death.
My wife and children, of course, are
another matter. When the subject of life insurance is brought up, I
quickly defuse it by insisting I won’t be missed.
"You’ll be fine," I say to
my wife, Fidelity. "The business will keep running without me. Let’s
change the subject."
No chance, Fidelity, her mind racing,
has visions of sleeping with the children in the car, my picture with a
big "X" through my face placed delicately on the dashboard.
"Don’t you want to make
absolutely certain we’re financially taken care of JUST IN CASE anything
happens to you?"
Of course I care. On the other hand, I’ll
be dead. That kind of eliminates the guilt factor.
"You’ll be fine," I repeat.
"Besides, I’m not going to die."
For some reason, Fidelity doesn’t
have as much faith in my immortality. "Everybody dies," she
says.
She used to be so much fun. To put an
end to the morbid conversation before the children overheard (they’re
too young and innocent to think about Daddy dying, bless their hearts) I
tell Fidelity I’ll look into increasing the measly amount of insurance I
was already carrying.
"Great," she replies
cheerily. "The Prudential man is coming over tonight to give us some
proposals."
This is not good. I rack my brain, but
I can’t think of anything I did that would make her be in such a hurry
to increase the benefits of my dying.
The appointment is set, though, and
there is little I can do. Best to get it over with. The man from
Prudential, the company with the slogan "We Own a Piece of Your
Bones" (or something like that), enters my house to value my death.
What fun.
His hands me his card, and I am
surprised to see he is not a life insurance salesman. In one of the great
marketing coups of our time, life insurance salespersons no longer exist.
They have been replaced by financial consultants, financial planners and
investment counselors.
Merchants of Death might be more apt.
Marketing or no marketing, this guy is
selling life insurance. To make it more painless, however, the entire
package is couched in investment terms. Noting one of my children crawling
under his legs, he wisely explains to Fidelity and me that we can
subscribe to the "College Plan," which will generate tax-free
savings, enabling us to send the children to college tax free.
Fidelity sees merit in the plan, and so
do I. Of course, millions have similar plans, called universal life, whole
and value life, that work well as an investment vehicle. It’s nothing
new, or nothing I don’t know about. The "college plan" is a
nice twist, but it is still life insurance and requires substantial annual
premiums for the initial years to maintain sufficient balances.
For a variety of reasons, we end up
getting straight, no-frills term insurance which tells it like it is –
pay the premium every year, and if you live, you lose.
It’s certainly no college plan, but
then again, maybe Fidelity and the kids will get lucky and I’ll get hit
by a truck.
With the big payoff, they might as well
go for postgraduate degrees as well.
What the heck, it’s on me. |
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