Friends, the following is a personal story I recently wrote to include on the "Real LIFE Family Stories" page of our company website. It illustrates the importance of insurance, and how the absence of it has just this past year affected the family of a very good friend of mine.
In February 2012, I lost my best friend of almost 20 years to cancer. He was 49 years old.
Like
me, Charles was a single father raising a boy and girl completely on
his own. That is one reason we bonded so well over the years, sharing
the stories and the struggles of single parenting.
We
enjoyed a lot together with our kids in tow; offshore fishing, camping
and a myriad of other activities. Now that has ended forever, and
truthfully, his death at such a young age has been very hard to fathom,
and a wake up call that it truly could have been me.
However,
my hurt will never compare to the pain his young son and daughter still
feel every day. In addition to losing their only parent before
graduating from high school, the house they lived in their whole life is
now in jeopardy of being lost to the bank. His daughter is now
attending the much more affordable local community college rather than
attending a 4-year university. His son will undoubtedly face the same
scenario. And they both have lost in numerous other ways as well. Now
they live apart from one another with separate relatives, each in no
financial position to take on the challenge of another teenager in the
family.
For years I urged my friend to protect his family with Life Insurance.
He was extremely healthy and could easily afford the modest premiums
his age and health would make possible. However, it was exactly for this
reason that he always said,
"Hell,
I'm as healthy as a horse and have never been really sick. By the time
anything happens to me, the kids will be out of the house and on their
own with their own families, and all that money I spent on premiums
would be wasted, that I could have spent enjoying life or doing things
for them."
Not
wanting to push the issue with a "hard sell" to my best friend, I
always acquiesced, and dropped the subject until the next time I thought
I could broach it again. Despite several conversations over the years
just like this with his best friend, an insurance broker, my friend never really saw the value in purchasing Life Insurance.
This
is the problem with any type of insurance. It is sometimes hard to see
the value in insurance, or anything, when you have nothing tangible to
show for it.
Sadly, when Charles was first diagnosed with a rare, incurable form of cancer called clear cell sarcoma, one of the first things he said to me was,
"Sure wish I had listened to you about the life insurance!"
Then, half jokingly and meekly he asked,
"You don't suppose I could qualify for it now do you!?"
Friends,
I can honestly say that aside from the loss of one of my own parents,
this moment was one of the saddest of my life; knowing how much that
insurance protection for my friend Charles could have provided to his family that was now completely out of reach and impossible to obtain for them.
Over the years since I met Charles, if he had paid Life Insurance premiums consistently from the day I met him (even
for 20 years), the premiums paid would have been a tiny fraction of the
benefits and lifetime financial security his family could have been
blessed with.
Instead, his children face years of financial struggle without their father while they do their best to process the emotional struggle and pain of losing him.
Friends, don't let there be any chance this could happen to your family!
Call our office today at 561-337-8000 to schedule a review of your family's all-important personal insurance plan.
In the meantime, don't miss these other real-life stories below!
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