Death, Money, and Life

I just met with a wonderful woman about her health insurance and just had to blog about her story. I did not sell her any insurance as what she was being offered was much better and less expensive, but she gave me more than I could have asked of her.

In her sixties, she recently lost her husband. Throughout their life her husband had really good jobs. He was phenomenal at what he did. He even got involved at one point with a financial services MLM and sold life insurance and financial planning. They had set up a few IRAs and even had purchased Term Life insurance to subsidize the small amount he was given through his job. Unexpectedly he past away in his sixties, before his full retirement age and his wife was left to fend for herself. A few years back as the economy took a dive, this couple had to use their retirement accounts to live on. The wonderful term life insurance they had been paying on had the term expire a year prior and they had to lapse the policy as costs went up way too much. The wife was left with a small life insurance policy and a fairly dismal retirement account.

Having no choice, she was left to do what a lot of seniors do at her age and took her Social security widow's benefit. This helped save her in providing just enough income to live, but it has crippled her at the same time. She was able to find work and make some additional income, but if that income rises too high she will have her widow's benefit reduced. Due to her age, finding work can be even more difficult and finding a job where she gets paid what she is worth even more difficult. She is now stuck. Making the same amount of money every moth and not able to lift herself above where she is.

This really made me think about how life does this to each one of us. Trials come and we lose our footing. Whatever plan we made when things were good, quickly gets eaten up when things are bad. It reminds me of the dreams Pharaoh had during Joseph's time in the Old Testament. If you recall, there were 7 fat cows and then 7 lean ones and the lean cows ate the fat cows. So it tends to be in life.

Some things that might have changed their circumstances that come to mind. First off- she said they had some debt. Getting out of debt sooner in life can have lasting effects later on. Imagine if they had no debt, how much easier it would have been to live and be able to not worry when income was lost, as expenses could be minimalized. This also would have allowed them to save more throughout their life.
Life Insurance. I kind of wonder if when they were younger and sold insurance policies, how much a $100k whole life policy would have cost that would have been paid off in 10 years. Would that life insurance policy, that wasn't costing them a dime after all those years, been replaced to pay those bills a few years ago, or could it have been a life line at the end when she got a check to save the day?

Everyone has different circumstances. Life throws everyone different curve balls. It is just a good idea to think ahead. During those good times, are we maybe spending too much, or are we saving? I know Pharaoh enlisted Joseph as one of the first financial advisers to save grains. That investment brought money and life during the times of famine. We too can do the same.