February 2010
73% of women and 60% of men live to at least age 75. 60% of women are still alive at age 80, while the percentage of men still alive drops below half after age 78. More than half of women are still alive at age 83.
$1,063: average monthly Social Security benefit check for retirees in Dec. 2009.
Source: Social Security Administration
40% of all workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. 64% of workers 25 and older have less than $50,000 saved for retirement (excluding homes and pensions).
Source: Employee Benefit Research Institute 2009 Retirement Confidence Survey
60% of business owners have no plan in place to "divorce-proof" their companies. Of respondents who experienced a divorce, nearly half said the breakup had a negative impact on their business. Larger companies are more likely than smaller ones to have "divorce-proofing" plans in the works or in place.
Source: MassMutual "FamilyPreneurship" research study
"Medicare Advantage will soon be a thing of the past and will be remembered as one of the largest mistakes in American health care history."
-- Gerard DeMare, in his article, "Medigap on the comeback."
From the Archives: Feb. 1957
Editor's note: The following excerpts are from the February 1957 issue of Life Insurance Selling.
How Did You Write a Million?
By Fred F. Sale, General American Life, St. Louis, Mo.
The fundamentals of success in ours -- the top profession of all -- are the same now as when I started 25 years ago: knowledge, lots of hard work, and long hours to apply that knowledge. True, the selling of life insurance, its ramifications and the public's receptiveness, have all changed since 1937, but you must still be a self-starter and keep your motor running day and night if you want to make the steep grade up the ladder. Having my own agency for 10 years, hiring and training men, I am old fashioned enough to lose patience for only one thing: "LAZINESS." I have fired two men in that period and both of them were naturals to be successful in life insurance if they could have driven themselves at full speed morning, noon, and night -- including Saturday and Sunday. After you have done that for some years and build a clientele, you can sit back and ease up a bit -- play golf, and travel.
Many years ago at a Life Underwriter's meeting here in St. Louis, Paul Cook, then a Million Dollar producer made a talk.
His closing remark has stuck with me and I still think it is the key to success in our profession. Here it is -- "At the end of each year I begin to worry and wonder where and how I am going to sell a MILLION DOLLARS of life insurance next year, but it's funny how it keeps coming, if you keep going."
Points That Help You Sell
When a young woman objects to buying insurance because she says that she might marry -- what are some of the answers?
"A married woman needs life insurance even more than a single woman, because a single woman seldom has as much responsibility to other people.
"But when a man with a family loses his wife, he is not only faced with substantial expense, due to her illness and death, but with much more expense for employing housekeeping and people to take care of his children, or with the cost of sending them to boarding schools."
