Pictured above: Mark Osborne, Senior Insurance Advisor & Kelli Young, Director of Marketing.
Hi! My name is Kelli and I made an extremely common, but potentially devastating life insurance mistake, when it comes to life insurance.
Let me give you a little bit of background – I grew up in the insurance world. My father took over CoverLink Insurance (then known as Hill & Hamilton) when I was 11 years old. I spent time after school helping with odd jobs, worked there during my college summer breaks and much more. It was in 2015 that I joined the CoverLink team full time.
Am I a licensed agent? No. But, based on my childhood and my present career path in marketing for an insurance agency, I would say that I have a decent amount of knowledge when it comes to life insurance.
This brings me to September of this year – life insurance awareness month. As I was preparing content for our customers about life insurance, I came across a pretty staggering statistic:
“Only 59% of Americans have life insurance, and about half of those with insurance are underinsured, according to LIMRA. One problem is that nine million households just have group life insurance. That’s usually not enough. LIMRA estimates that people with only group life insurance have average coverage gaps of $225,000.
Was that me? Was I one of the nine million who just had group life insurance? I got up from my desk, walked across the hall to Mark’s office (our life insurance expert) and sat down. I embarrassingly admitted to him, that I had no idea how much our group life insurance offered or if it would be enough for my family’s lifestyle in the event of my death.
Here I was, 37 years old with a 7, 5 and 4-year old and working husband and I was grossly underinsured. I had no life insurance policy above and beyond what our group offered. And I work at an insurance agency – I should know better!
I asked Mark, what I already knew the answer to. “Was our group life insurance policy enough for my family and our lifestyle?” Mark kindly replied with, “You probably need more; let’s look at your options.”
Mark dropped what he was doing and within 20 minutes he had explained all of my options, had done some cost comparisons and I was working on my life insurance application.
Further, the process was a complete breeze. I received a call within a few days about scheduling my health screening and they even offered to accommodate my schedule by coming to my house to perform the screening. A week, or so, later, a kind woman came to my house, conducted the screening and even spent time chatting with my kids. She was in and out within 30 minutes.
A few weeks later, I received a message from Mark that my life policies were approved, they would be here soon and we would finalize everything.
That was it! The entire process took a month – from application to finalizing my paperwork.
Why am I admitting this embarrassing mistake? So you don’t end up like me. With hope, my mistake will help prevent you from doing the same thing.
- Don’t assume. Don’t be like me and assume that you have enough coverage and that everything will be alright; not with something as critical as life insurance. It could make a world of difference to your family if you are gone.
- Don’t be embarrassed. There were so many times that I considered talking to Mark about my own life insurance policy, but I was embarrassed that I was so unfamiliar with the topic. But Mark has been working with life insurance for over 15 years. He holds a wealth of knowledge and is always willing to help. And to him, no life insurance question is a dumb one.
- Don’t avoid it. Life insurance can be a difficult conversation to have with your loved ones. I avoided the topic because I didn’t want to deal with it and figured it wasn’t necessary until I was older. But if you have a family, a mortgage and other loans, you need a life insurance policy and you need to inform yourself.
Lucky for me, I work at an insurance agency, where our life insurance expert sits right across the hall. And, fortunately for you, he’s here to help you too! With Mark, no life or health insurance question is a dumb one. He is fantastic at explaining your options in a way that is easy to understand. He will make sure the process goes smoothly and be there with you every step of the way. To him, and all of us here at CoverLink, you are family! Give him a call today.