14 years ago I sold a $500,000 life policy to my father-in-law. He was 49 at the time, owned a commercial flooring company all his life, was doing mighty well financially...living it up for sure. He and my mother-in-law were very old fashioned, she never worked, never handled the money, hardly drove a car herself, totally pampered and sheltered. Well, over the last many years construction basically became a race to the bottom, and unfortunately he was running up front in that race. When the bottom eventually fell out, he wound up losing that life policy because he couldn't afford it anymore (had actually already borrowed all the cash value from it). His policy lapsed, then in that same year he had a stroke at age 59, rendering him uninsurable. Last year at age 63 he died, not a penny in savings, no life insurance, business bankrupt, home mortgaged to hilt in a failed effort to float the business. Now I have assumed responsibility for my mother-in-law, she lost her home, didn't even have money to pay for the funeral (I did that out of pocket, but most of the family never knew it). She barely gets enough social security to pay basic utilities, much less buy a house, or even rent somewhere decent. This is going to cost ME, the burden fell back on his children (my wife). Y'all, go see your agent and buy some life insurance. Don't count on the stuff you have through work (I believe statistics say less than 1% of work-related life insurance ever pays out). I tell everybody to take what your work will give you or let you buy (it's cheap group stuff), but you are wise to pretend you don't have it, because in the end you are 99% certain not to. Just wanted to share what's important to me, in hopes that it helps someone else! I could genuinely share countless stories like this...it really does happen, every day.
