Many financial experts advise as to the best time to purchase life insurance. They will often talk of significant life events that lead many folks to consider purchasing a policy marriage, birth of a child, change of employment or increased income, to name a few. There are also business events that can prompt one to purchase a life insurance policy.
However, I dont ever see any mention of the times when you shouldnt (or cant) purchase a policy. Unfortunately, we often receive requests from folks at times in their lives when it actually is too late to purchase a policy. Here are a few examples:
- We received a call from a gentleman who was scheduled to undergo quadruple bypass surgery. This was the wake-up call he needed to prompt him to finally stop procrastinating and purchase a life insurance policy so his family would be financially protected should anything happen to him. Unfortunately, due to his pending surgery (and heart condition) he was not eligible for coverage.
- We get a lot of requests from people who have elderly parents or grandparents who are seriously ill and they want to purchase a policy so that, at the least, burial costs would be covered. Unfortunately, we also receive quite a few requests for larger policies ($500K $1 Mil) for the purpose of leaving money for the grown children or grandchildren. Due to the advanced age and often, the illness, most of these people are not insurable. Even if they were, the larger death benefits would not be approved, unless there was significant proof of insurable interest.
- We received a request just this week from someone asking if a life insurance policy could be purchased on a family member who was recently deceased. This was certainly a first for us, so at first we seriously thought someone was joking with us. Unfortunately, this was no joke this person truly thought that perhaps one could purchase a policy on a deceased person and then receive the death benefit.
While these examples might seem extreme to many, I can assure you that we get at least one of these types of requests weekly. It happens o
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