Life insurance is often misunderstood
by many retirees. In my many years as a financial planner, I have learned that
most people (myself included) have some type of bias they bring to any
situation, including their finances. It’s very challenging to step back,
remove the emotion of these misconceptions and objectively evaluate a situation,
especially when it comes to life insurance.
Recently, I had a client who was
dissatisfied with their life insurance agent. Because of their bad
experience with that individual, they had developed a negative bias
towards life insurance in general. After much discussion, the client
explained that one of their major concerns was that if either spouse passed
away, the surviving spouse would only receive one of their two
current Social Security checks. Their previous life insurance agent had
attempted to take advantage of this concern for the surviving
spouse by “selling a product” and it had left a bad taste in their mouths.
