[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

There is a HUGE demographic out there with a fanatical belief in life insurance. They are poor, they know it, they'll always be poor, they know it and they know the cost of a funeral would have their family out in the street panhandling for funeral funds. And I see plenty of that when I'm running appointments.

One more quick story:

Yesterday my first appt was in a sort of decent trailer park. The lady was on the front porch having a smoke, husband still in bed at 9am. She said they really wanted $5k of coverage on each other, had had it, but couldn't afford to keep it and needed help keeping their gas and electric on. I asked some health questions, wrote them up a quote and, even though it was less than they had been paying, she said they just couldn't do it. I asked how much they smoked. She said she smokes a pack a day and he smokes a little over two packs a day. I gingerly explained that that ran about $700/mo and, cutting back just 4-5 cigarettes each per day would easily save them enough to pay for the life insurance they wanted. She still said it was just not possible. I then got a little tougher and said, "Lady, if you can't keep the lights on in your trailer, what are you going to do when you have to bury your husband? It's not like he's going to live to 100 when he already has COPD and has been a lifelong heavy smoker." Anyway, no sale.

Wow, not a huge surprise, but wow.

I assume your quote was considerably less than $700/mo.