Life Insurance

This morning at 3, I woke up on a couch after a night of curbstomping the competition in trivia. Realizing that I hadn't slept at my actual house in a week I decided to drive back home to sleep for a few more hours. On the way home I listened to Mike and Mike (East coast feed it was 6am) on one of the commercial breaks there was a touching story about Lamar Odom. The story goes that he was raised by his single mom who was a prison guard blah blah blah she dies when he is 12 and he gets a massive paycheck because she had life insurance. Then he talks about how since he had life insurance he had the option to go play college ball before eventually going pro because there was plenty of money left to cover his expenses. (The commercial doesn't touch on the scandal where he accepted thousands from a booster) but anyway, he goes on to marry a threat level III humanoid and pops out 2 inter racial babies all because of the miracle of life insurance.

Ok so that recap was slanted towards my agenda. And although I assure you that Lamar Odom's Kardashian offspring with Nessy (The Monster of the Loch) will have plenty of reality tv money should he unexpectedly pass, I understand the value of a 32 year old man with 2 kids taking out a policy.

Moving on. The economy is in the shitter, but any smooth looking upper middle class male of any intelligence probably thought that his future was in finance. He took those accounting classes and studied hard in F305 thinking that he was going to be the next guy on Wall Street...and do you know what happened to all of these guys when they graduated? Oh you know this guy, you were kinda friends in college and they hit you up for some sort of networking meeting. You weren't sure if it was just a lunch or if they needed something...

Well let me tell you exactly what they are going to do...try to sell you insurance.

First of all, why the fuck do I need insurance? I am responsible for no one. If I go on a 1000 mg adderall bender and my heart stops, first person to call dibs gets my Xbox and collection of polos. Like honestly what the fuck do they train these kids at Northwest Mutual to say...

Trainer: So basically call all your friends and make them buy insurance from you, and if they won't buy any from you make sure they give you the names and numbers of 5 more people that you can pester.

Trainee: Excuse me sir, this is probably a stupend question...but why does a 23 year old single need life insurance.

Trainer: EVERYONE NEEDS INSURANCE.

But seriously, the best part is they sell you this thing called term insurance, which means if you die in the next 10 years it pays out and if you live, you're just out a few thousand dollars. In effect you are betting on yourself to die, and they are betting on you to live...pretty fucking morbid. I really can't imagine what goes through the head of someone who is about to call an old high school chum and say "Hey man, I passed my series 66! Want to buy some annuities?"

Not that there is anything wrong with actual investment managers, my dad does it, lots of really smart dudes do it. But they have a series 7 and at least have a strategy of growing your wealth. The business model is totally fucked, why make new hires target their friends to sell life insurance, what they really should be doing is spending their time at nursing homes, all the old people that have tons of money that they don't know what to do with. Not people like me who see an $80 monthly premium in 4 fifths of Jager that I won't be able to drink, it's a fucking joke.

Even if I did get life insurance and then got hit by a car while crossing Wilshire tomorrow, where would that money go? To my parents? So they could establish some sort of memorial fund in my name? Gay. I actually heard a very bad ass story about a marine who took a half million dollar policy out on himself before he went abroad. Sadly he dies, stipulated in his policy are that the beneficiaries must use the money to rage in Vegas hard for the next 10 years in his memory...now that, is what life insurance should be used for.

But I get it, it's a job right? Sometimes I begrugingly take these meetings because I feel so terrible for these guys. I've interned at an insurance firm, I've seen the daily morning meetings where they sold 0 policies and got 0 referrals. It's depressing, I literally would not be able to pull myself out of bed in the morning. I would rather work the drive thru at the McDonalds at 38th and College (maybe then I would need a life insurance policy)
And then asking me to sell out 5 of my friends, so you can go through this whole awkward song and dance with them, and then they forever hate me...Oh God, it's too much to handle. A word to the wise, if you give any of my info to some kid who works at a shitty Mass Mutual subsidiary, I will find you and stab you in the achilles.

In closing, if you ever go into an interview and are given a piece of paper to fill out 100 "potential prospects" walk out and call them Ponzi artists, you've seen Boiler Room, none of those fucks had a legitimate advisors license either, it's pretty much the same.

I realize that some companies provide life insurance for their employees, so if I name you as my beneficiary please take the 10 people I name in my will on the most epic adventure of a lifetime...in fact save a little bit to get all members of that excursion a policy too.