My dad passed away unexpectedly 3 months ago today. He had plenty of life insurance so we’ve been taken care of in that aspect. My issue is with our insurance agent.
First, he tried pushing my mom into purchasing another life insurance policy with the payout from my dads policy- saying it’s the only way my sister and i could get the money tax free if something were to happen to our mom. My mom told him no thanks and put the money into money market accounts at the bank that my sister and i are on. My mom has plenty of life insurance too, through the agent & through her job.
Next he tried to get my sister signed up for another policy through him. We both already have 2 polices through him and then we have it through work. She also turned him down.
Now he’s starting to try to talk to me about it. He sent me an email Friday talking about how i only have one policy (which is wrong, i have 2) and that it wouldn’t be enough to cover my house and expenses if i were to die. Again, i have a very good policy through work. Friday afternoon i was in a small fender bender & ended up filing through my insurance. This morning the agent calls me to “check on me” then goes into his spiel about life insurance. I told him i had it through work and wasn’t interested. He tells me that i might not get to keep it after i retire or the premium might go up and it’s his job to “warn” people about what might happen. I told him i was at work and didn’t have time to talk to him.
Is this normal?? I feel like he’s trying to scare us into buying more polices at this point. I know his job is to sell insurance but i don’t think this is how it’s supposed to happen? I’m so mad at this point that I’m about to switch to another company or agent in another city just so he loses all my policies (house, auto) instead of making more money off me.
Agent pushing life insurance policies after my dad died
byu/ilikefluffypuppies inInsurance
Posted by ilikefluffypuppies
6 Comments
Does this agent work for New York Life or Northwestern Mutual? Generally speaking the only life insurance people need are term. Life insurance is to replace your income for the people that depend on it. It is NOT an investment vehicle or form of inheritance.
Is not abnormal tho he’s being a bit pushy.
sorry about your dad
yeah, it’s pretty skeezy to prey on your family’s current heightened awareness and sensitivity of an unexpected death, but his job is in fact to sell insurance policies by (ostensibly) sharing his expertise with his clientele
i say ostensibly because it’s not very likely that he’s actually recommending the kind of policy that benefits most folks, since nobody is pounding the phones this hard hassling a grieving family to sell a reasonable term policy; he wants a few fat commissions from selling each of you a whole life policy you don’t need
that said, he is right that your primary income replacement should not come via a policy you get through your workplace, as all of the factors that could make you lose your job would also make you lose that life insurance policy (and in the event that it’s a chronic injury or illness that leads to the job loss, you’d be completely screwed for finding coverage later)
the common wisdom is that unless you’re extravagantly wealthy (to the point that you wouldn’t be asking about this on a random reddit post), all you need is a term policy to replace your income for the timeframe your dependents would depend on it (generally for your kids to make it through college) and the rest of your money should be invested in your retirement instead of spent on whole life insurance premiums
i think there’s a comfortable middle ground where you tell him “don’t contact me again about life insurance or i will move my business elsewhere” and do some self-study to ensure you have what you actually need for a life insurance policy, then hit him up if you actually need some help
The captive agents like State Farm, Farm Bureau, Shelter, some Allstate, etc usually get most of their bonuses and incentives if they sell a certain threshold of life insurance.
Having said that..nothing he is saying is WRONG… But doesn’t mean it’s really “right” either. Just tell him no and move on
Wait. So you are mad at the guy who made sure that your mom was taken care of after your father’s death? Yes he sounds like he is being pushy. Maybe just tell him to ease up?
You don’t have life insurance through your work. Your work has life insurance as a benefit.
Generally those policies are extremely limited, difficult and expensive to take with you, and are often just kind of subpar.
The rest of this is just the agent kind of doing his job, albeit aggressively.