[Rick Lee]

Just remembered another one from about 18 mos. ago. I should check back with him. In his defense, he was on SSDI due to a traumatic brain injury and he was a little slow. He smoked a pack a day, lived in a pretty ghetto apt. complex. He had just bought a policy from another agent, but set an appt with me to see if he could get a better deal. The policy he bought was one that has sort of a "teaser" rate for the first three years and you get to keep it if you can prove with a doctor's letter that you've been tobacco-free for a year by the end of year three. Otherwise, the coverage gets cut by about 40% or the premium skyrockets to keep the original coverage amount. I had probably five companies that were much cheaper if I wrote him as a smoker and he stayed a smoker. If he really was going to quit, some of those companies will let me rewrite him after he's tobacco-free for 12 mos. and it's then way, way cheaper. Anyway, he said that teaser rate was his incentive to quit smoking. I replied, "Well, it's good that you plan to quit. It will be much healthier and you'll save about $250/mo or $3000/yr by not buying cigarettes. But I can replace that policy with one that's $15/mo cheaper and they don't care if you quit smoking or continue." He couldn't get past that. He said he needed the threat of the other policy imploding on him if he didn't quit. I told him I could come back as soon as he was 12 mos. tobacco-free and rewrite him and save him even more. Nope, wouldn't do it. Then he said he was gonna call that other agent back and try to get him to write him a cheaper policy. I said, "I can do that right now for you. And if that other agent could have done so two weeks ago, why would you give him another chance to do it now?" This is why he's poor.