November has been officially called financial literacy month. The Government has put a lot of thought into educating Canadians about finance. I applaud their efforts and give a big standing ovation to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for his speech yesterday given at the Downtown Toronto YMCA. He said Canadians shouldn't need a magnifying glass, a dictionary or a lawyer to understand what they are signing at the bank. HOOORAYYYY!!! Have I not been saying that for years?
I will have a lot to say about financial literacy over the coming month but for today I want to talk about Life Insurance. Like you this is always the last thing on my mind except that today we had some tragic news in our office. Our client who's mortgage was closing today died in a single vehicle car accident last night. We are devastated. I personally loved working with this client. There were a whole pile of circumstances surrounding her mortgage but let's just say her life was about to get a whole lot better. I am sure yesterday was one of the best days she had in a long time.
We worked hard on her mortgage and put together a package that was going to change her life. The day she came into sign the documents she was over the moon. When it came to the form asking her if she wanted life insurance she waived it. I know life insurance gets a bad name especially when it's offered by the lender but just for today I'm going to rant.
Life Insurance sales people would tell you the bank's mortgage life insurance is crap. Bank's will tell you life insurance you buy outside what they offer does not cover the mortgage and therefore crap. So who's right? Seriously, I don't care. But what I do care about is that you have SOMETHING!! Please understand that signing up for life insurance is not a life time commitment. You can cancel policies anytime you want so that's probably a more important question to ask than to waste brain power trying to figure out who's ripping you off.
The life insurance we offer covers you from the day you sign the documents. If you walk out our door and get hit by a bus you are covered. When you are buying a home the closing is coming even in the event of your death and the burden to close will fall on your estate. If you have no insurance prior to arranging your mortgage for goodness sake take the deal. You have the luxury of shopping it around after you leave the office.
I am not a licensed life insurance sales person and I tell everyone that. If making money selling life insurance was of any interest to me I would give up my career as mortgage broker. But just for today I am going to ask you to start Financial Literacy month by reviewing your insurance policies. Let's start with the "hit by a bus" theory and go from there. I agree it's really easy to be over insured but I wish I could have last week back and make my client change her mind. Over insured until you have time to review is better than nothing at all.
Sorry to start the month on a downer and I promise it will get better from here.
Can you talk about Wills next? Because, while my mom had a small life insurance policy -- enough to cover her funeral, she had no Will. Which...GAH.
ReplyDeleteBoth my husband and I work for ourselves and we have life insurance policies because the fact is, you never know.