The above question was posted on my goodreads author’s dashboard. Yes! I have my own “author’s dashboard”! Whoo Hoo! As usual I first came up with a simple answer, then I promptly worked it into something a lot more involved. Well shoot, life is complicated. Life insurance can be very complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, the simpler one keeps things, life insurance-wise, the better. The same could be said for much in life. Wow. Philosophical parallels, I must be in a mood. In any case, I thought the answer was good enough to my goodreads blog. (Yes, I have on there too!) As I suspect even fewer people read that blog than read this one, I thought I’d reprint it, with the author’s permission, of course, here.
My “most recent” book is actually my first published book “Life Insurance “Dirty Little Secrets” for Consumers Revealed!: How to buy life insurance the right way… and what you must avoid!”. In May I’ll publish the insurance agent version. Since both books evolved from the same idea, I’ll include them both. In case you are wondering, the consumer and the agent books are “stand alone” titles as they focus on two different audiences. While I do believe an agent could benefit by reading the consumer version, consumers wouldn’t get much out of the agent version. Both versions reveal the same “secrets” as they pertain to consumers.
That said, the idea for these books came to a head while I was waiting on a critique of my novel from a friend who is an especially talented reviewer. I wrote this novel after leaving the life insurance industry, ostensibly for good. I felt it was time to pursue my lifelong dream of writing. Since my last venture was still relatively fresh in my mind, my thoughts turned to some of the things I learned over the years. I really felt there were some things people, consumers in particular, need to know. Those were the “dirty little secrets”. In my last few months I reviewed a lot of life insurance policies. What I found disturbed, if not appalled me.
The contention by industry experts is 7/10 people do not have the insurance they think they have. My experience suggests this figure is conservative, especially when you include such policies as “workplace life insurance”. Add to this some of the surprises my clients and I uncovered and I knew there was a deep need for some clarity concerning life insurance.
This is the book I set out to write – a slim volume revealing those things, the “dirty little secrets” so few people know about. As the book developed, I expanded it to provide a better framework and then a solid approach to buying life insurance. My goal was to show consumers how they could easily and affordably obtain protection against the financial cost of losing a loved one.
This book differs from anything I’ve seen out there as the focus is on the basics of life insurance. We don’t like to think about these things but the most important aspect is to avoid the need to scramble for the money to bury a loved one. While I do show how to reach beyond the basic level sensibly, if desired, I urge my readers to focus on the imminent need first. Either way, readers are shown how to choose the most advantageous policy for their needs that offers the best bang for their buck.
The end result is far more complete than I anticipated and yet not at all complicated. I sift through the mountains of information available and refine it to a volume that anyone can easily understand and use that information to put a sound, affordable insurance plan in place.
As of this writing there is still a chance to get a free copy of the book. You’ll find details here.