Dear Pre-Paid Funeral Salesperson

Sorry – Not Sorry

A recent call to my office was from a 70-year-old retiree on a fixed income. She asked about life insurance and whether she could do better than what she had. Since she did not have the policies in front of her and did not know all the details, I offered to meet her in her home and help her see what she has.

I told her on the phone that what I would do is look at what she has, determine what she needs, and then see if it makes sense to do anything at all. I explained that I only get paid if she buys insurance from me but that my primary goal is to help her with knowledge to make an informed decision.

When I arrived, she had all her policies on the table. That’s when I discovered that she had been visited recently by a salesperson and had signed up for a pre-paid funeral plan. In total, she had seven policies, whole life, cancer, hospital, and now this prepaid funeral policy. I must say that my blood was starting to boil a bit.

It took a little digging since these policies were all jammed into the same folder. I discovered that her whole life policies totaled about $29,000 and had cash values of roughly $4500. She has few expenses, no debt, no dependents and few assets.

My advice to her took two tracks. First, I told her that if she were my mother I would tell her that I don’t need her money, cash in the policies, put the cash value into a savings account maybe build it up a few hundred more if she wants, and leave it. Second was that, since I could tell this hit a sensitive place and she wanted to leave something to her sons, I recommended that she does not need the funeral policy. Cancel that, go ahead and keep the life insurance and she’s good to go.

What I wanted to say was that the funeral policy should be taken to the salespersons home and shoved down their advantage-taking throat! How can you sleep at night taking $100 per month from this woman for something she DOES NOT NEED!!!!?

At the end of it all I made $0 dollars, she is best off staying with what she has if she even needs or wants life insurance still. She is over-insured but not hurting for money so, she can keep it if she wants.

But this funeral-selling jerk needs to know that I’m not sorry for ruining your sale. You should be ashamed.

See also: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/05/3-reasons-you-should-never-prepay-funeral-expenses.aspx

and: http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2008/02/15/should-you-prepay-your-own-funeral-expenses

Update 6/22/2018 another helpful article https://lendedu.com/blog/funeral-and-burial-insurance/