January 2010
Want to live longer? Buy an annuity
"We're not going to win a Nobel in Science, presumably, and we're probably not going to make the baseball Hall of Fame, but there's one thing that anybody can do. Turns out you can buy an annuity -- this financial contract where you pay a bunch of money up front and it gives you monthly payments. Turns out people apparently look forward to getting that monthly payment, and they live longer."
-- Stephen Dubner, co-author of "SuperFreakonomics," speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America" Dec. 16 about how studies reveal Nobel Prize winners in science tend to live about 18 months longer than equally qualified scientists who do not win the award, and baseball Hall of Famers tend to live longer than former players with similar statistics who did not make it to Cooperstown.
40% - of all adult consumers will be over 50 by 2015. While 37% were over 50 in 2009, only 30% were over 50 in 1995.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
57% - Age at which "advertising pros" think someone is "over the hill."
75% - Age at which baby boomers consider someone to be "over the hill."
Source: The Boomer Project
From the Archives - Jan. 1975
Editor's Note: The following excerpts are from the January 1975 issue of Life Insurance Selling.
Why don't you try this? -- 1975: What's Coming?
By Harold P. Cooley
It's anybody's guess whether the corporate field or John Doe is going to have the worst of it in the coming 12 months. From where I sit, it looks a bit grim for both. However, we only have to look back to the desperate 30's -- if you can look that far -- and be reminded that the built-in security of our business makes it the last to feel the force of a general business recession. As I'm sure I've pointed out before, 1932 was, undoubtedly, the worst year in the history of our business, and yet, throughout all those dark days, the postman brought more daily cash to our home offices than he took away with him. It's pretty hard to beat that setup.
There's one thing I'd urge you to keep in mind -- that the cash value of your clients' life insurance is crisis cash, and in a financial jam, it's easy to "send this good money after bad." Corporate directors will seek this easiest way out of financial troubles just as quickly as John Doe will -- maybe quicker.
Business conservation can be as important as production in tough times, and you big producers had better do your homework on your cases and be prepared to explain the "escape hatch" offered by the statutory provisions of the policies. Paid-up insurance or extended term can easily be a better break for all concerned than abject surrender.
Million Dollar Sales Ideas: Transfer Capital While Prospect is Alive
By Ronald F. Karabian, CLU
New York Life Insurance Company, Fresno, Calif.
Here is an approach I use:
"Mr. Prospect," why not transfer, while you are living, the capital you wish to transfer to pay your estate, inheritance and probate costs, instead of waiting until you die and letting Uncle Sam transfer the best piece of capital you have to pay those costs?
"At your age, 40, you say you have $100,000 in investments. Why not transfer $2,400 of your $10,000 annual earnings on those investments to guarantee the preservation of this asset, which you have worked so hard to make?"
