Question: Who wants to talk about life insurance? I know, I know, it’s clearly not a favorite topic for most people to discuss, but still, it is a necessary discussion for various reasons. The simplest reason is that life happens and unfortunately, for all of us, death happens. As Bruce Hornsby once said, that’s just the way it is. Just so you know, I’m actually not new to blogging but blogging about the insurance game is a new experience. So, why do I want to discuss insurance, specifically life insurance now? Well, there are a few reasons.
All of us know at least a little and have opinions about the insurance industry, but there are a number of misconceptions. I mean, what do you think when the word insurance comes up? Do you think of a man walking through your neighborhood, going door to door with a briefcase in his hand? Do you ask yourself why it seems that insurance is too expensive? Do you wonder what the benefit of insurance is?
Realistically, these are some of the same images and questions that I’ve had over the years. It’s also a discussion that I’d never really had until recent years. I mean, I knew the basics. You need to have various types of insurance because things in this life just seem to happen and you need some sort of protection when these things do happen.
I’ve had all sorts of insurance over the years; car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, etc. But entering into the life insurance industry as an ‘insurance man’, as people call me, I began to see the insurance discussion a little different from how I viewed it before. My view has changed not only because I am an ‘insurance man’, but also due to the hundreds of conversations I’ve had with clients.
Talking to clients has allowed me to understand why many people have misconceptions about insurance, why some people insist on having it, why some people don’t trust insurance companies and why some people came to understand the necessity of insurance after having experienced some type of tragedy.
This blog will be my own way of educating people about this game of insurance, sharing some of my experiences in the industry, and maybe even selling a few policies. If I succeed in teaching readers a few things they may not have previously known, thus equipping them with the knowledge to make informed decisions about life insurance, I will feel as if my mission is accomplished.
My objective is not to come across as the pushy insurance man, nor to force you into making a rushed decision about whether you should have life insurance, what type you should have if you in fact decide that you need it, or the face value of the policy you should buy. I can help you with that decision, but in the end, it is just that: YOUR decision.
I will say that, after having had so many discussions with current clients as well as prospective clients, I think that, for most people, having life insurance is a good investment because, well, you just never know what challenges this life may bring you.
For example, a few days ago, a client’s husband called, told me his name, and began to inquire about his wife’s policy. The client went on to tell me that his son had just died at the age of 41 and wanted to know the steps he would need to take to have his son buried.
Although I had never met this man, I immediately offered my condolences. I know it’s a difficult thing for parents to have to bury their children because, in general, people expect that children should be burying parents and not the other way around, but again, life happens.
In the previous week, I made a call to a woman who has been a client for a few decades. Upon her answering the phone, I noted certain anxiety in her voice. She told me that she really didn’t want to talk at that time because she was dealing with the recent passing of her daughter. Before I could even respond, her son took the phone from her and started talking.
As with many of my clients, the man, who I shall call ‘Randy’, took care of his mother’s affairs, including paying bills and tending to any complex issues that she may need to deal with. After venting for a few minutes, the man asked if there was a way that his mother could pay her insurance premium without having to think too much about it every month. I told him that there were a number of options available and that I could actually help him with the issue if I could come over, explain these options and have her sign a document.
He agreed and told me to meet him and his mother the following day at 10 am. Arriving at the house on the east side of Detroit the following morning, I was greeted by a short, black man who I assumed to be in his early 40s. This was ‘Randy’. He invited me into the house and invited me to sit on the living room couch.
After a few initial pleasantries, he asked me how long I thought I would be his mother’s insurance agent as there had been quite a few in the previous few years. After I told him that I hoped to be his mother’s agent for a while, we got down to the business of making his mother’s monthly premium payment hassle-free.
At that point, his mother, who I shall call ‘Betty’, entered the room and ‘Randy’ formally introduced us. I again offered my condolences for her loss. After a little small talk between the three of us, I turned to ‘Betty’ and asked, if she didn’t mind revealing, what the cause of her daughter’s death was. She revealed that her daughter had been murdered by her husband, Betty’s son-in-law.
As it was such a delicate topic and such a violent death, I decided not to discuss the topic any further. Also, as ‘Betty’ only had renter’s insurance with my company, I didn’t see the necessity of questioning whether her daughter had had any life insurance at the time of her death.
Unfortunately, as Detroit is consistently ranked as one of America’s most violent cities, homicide has always been a regular part of news reports. In 2018, Detroit had a violent crime rate of 2,007.8 incidents per 100,000 people with 261 of these violent crimes being homicides.
I stayed at ‘Betty’s’ home for about 20 minutes, having her sign the necessary documents and then going on my way. ‘Randy’ and I discussed my return to the home a few weeks later to determine what type of coverage his mother had, both with my company or with any other insurance provider.
The next day, at my company’s office in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, I was told by one of the administrators that I had a call on line one. This was the call in which a man told me his 41-year son had just died. I didn’t bother to ask how his son died, but we know it could have been any number of reasons from health problems to murder, an accident, or any other issue.
As I service residents on the east side of Detroit, I would assume that the vast majority of my clients were African-American. I can’t say this with 100 percent accuracy because I haven’t met all of my clients face-to-face. Nowadays, I would say that about 70 percent of my clients pay their premiums with a card, with about 90-95 percent of those payments being made by a debit card. The other 30 percent either mail in their payments or request that I go to their homes or places of employment to pick it up.
As I talk to these clients regularly on the phone and I’m familiar with the tone and dialects of black people, I can say with relative certainty that, of the hundreds of voices I’ve heard on the phone, not one of them is non-black. As I grew up in Detroit, which has been a primarily black city for decades, and I am also African-American, I’m pretty confident in my assessment.
I bring up this topic of race, a black-majority city, and life insurance because it will be the focus of this blog. I will sell and can sell insurance to people of whatever race or ethnicity, but as most of my clientele is based in a black majority city, I thought it would be a natural choice to focus on black people and life insurance given the complex history of the two in the United States.
I hope you get something out of the posts I plan to write in the future.