As we welcome a new year, I’ve been reflecting on a few things, like the importance of getting life insurance now instead of later. Too often, many of us wait. After all, why buy life insurance if you’re young, healthy, or even if you have existing coverage? Believe it or not, many compelling reasons exist to opt for coverage. Some of those reasons are obvious, while others … not so much. So, let’s go over the top five reasons life assurance is essential for all cigar enthusiasts and why now is the best time to buy coverage.
Embrace Uncertainties with Life Assurance
Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee tomorrow. After all, life is full of uncertainties. Forgive the bluntness, but we all die eventually. Most often, you get life insurance to protect against premature death. If you’re a younger person (say, below age fifty), the concept of death is sometimes abstract. “Yeah, that’s for old people!” (said with a chuckle).
In 2023, one of my best childhood friends died in a plane crash. Later this past year, one of the most beloved members of the Atlanta cigar community, barely thirty years old, was murdered near his home downtown. While she hasn’t passed (and God, we pray she beats it), I learned last week a college girlfriend of mine is living with advanced cancer. The point is stuff happens even if we’re too young, too healthy, or too something else to die. Embrace life’s uncertainties by acknowledging them as a potential reality, then get the coverage you need. Avoid waiting for something to happen.
Secure Your Coverage While Eligible
You qualify for life insurance based on your health. While you may not die today, waiting to get life insurance can cost you more. That’s more true if you experience a health event or become critically or chronically ill, such as with cancer, heart disease, or a million other things. These illnesses can prevent you from getting the life assurance and coverage you need. Or, they can make your coverage more expensive and more limited. Instead of a $100,000 policy, a critically ill person might only qualify for a $5,000 or $10,000 policy — and at a steep price to boot!
In the past few months, I’ve had a handful of prior clients call and ask about getting another policy, only to be declined coverage. Usually, these calls are the best calls you can get: the client already knows and trusts you. They’ve been successfully paying for the current policy. They got through medical underwriting before, and you don’t have to chase them!
So what happened?
In each case, their health changed, making them less attractive to the insurance company. As a result, the insurance company denied their application for life insurance coverage. However, some clients anticipated the insurer declining their coverage and decided not to apply.
Lock in Affordable Protection Now
Life Insurance Will Never Be Cheaper For You Than Now. Many factors drive life insurance rates, including:
- Mortality rates
- Macro-economic factors like interest rates
- The operating efficiency of the life insurance carrier
The future cost of a 20-year term policy for a 40-year-old may cost less than it does today, or it may increase. However, over the last few decades, life insurance rates have declined as life expectancy rises and carriers become more efficient (e.g., leveraging technology).
The one-factor driving insurance rates that remains the same is your age. Every year you wait, you pay a higher rate than you would have the year before because you’re a year older.
Get Covered Before Health Issues Arise
As part of the underwriting process, many insurers ask applicants to go through a brief medical exam, and this may include lab work. Of course, this also depends on the amount of coverage requested, the applicant’s health, and other factors. Usually, this is a routine event, with nothing unexpected found, mainly if the individual receives routine medical care. But now and then, something unexpected emerges.
Thirty-plus years ago, Magic Johnson famously was diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). What most people don’t know is he learned of the ailment while undergoing bloodwork related to a life insurance policy he was considering.
Closer to home, I was at a cigar event, and out of the blue, a fellow Brother of the Leaf came up to me, hugged me, and told me I’d probably saved his life. I didn’t recognize him immediately, but his case returned to me as he told his story. He’d been declined for an insurance policy a while back. His PSA was off the chart. I told him, “Forget the insurance; I’m telling you one man to another, go see your doctor and get this checked out!” Turns out he had prostate cancer. He got treatment and beat the cancer. But not for applying for insurance, he might not have known until much later, and treatment may not have been as effective.
Enjoy Non-Tobacco Rates Even Though You Smoke Cigars
Of course, you probably already know this if you’ve been keeping up with Cigar Life Guy over the last few years, but that’s what we do. Cigar Life Guy gets you non-tobacco rates on life insurance no matter how many cigars you smoke. We’ve been doing it for a while now, and it works.
Cost — even perceived cost — is a barrier that prevents many people from getting the life assurance they need. Don’t let your love for smoking cigars or your perception of what coverage will cost stop you from getting life insurance.
Life Assurance Q&A:
1) Getting declined after a previous approval for coverage is not uncommon, but it is also not the norm. If your health is the same or similar, don’t let this prevent you from applying for another policy.
2) What happens to your existing policy if an insurer declines your coverage for a new policy? The short answer is you still have the existing policy, and assuming you were truthful about your health at the time of the original application, there’s nothing to be concerned with relative to your current coverage.
Editor’s note: Cigar Life Guy Founder Dave Arlinghaus wrote this article.
Photo Credit: Cigar Life Guy