Live Forever! Just $15 a month!
Highmark Blue Shield has gone from quarterly to monthly billing for some unexplained reason, which I hereby explain:
They’re raising their rates more often than once a quarter, and they don’t want to miss a month at the higher rates.
Weekly bills can’t be far off, maybe daily or hourly bills.
So when I hear about an insurance bargain, I sit up and take notice, and there’s an incredible (sic) bargain in life insurance currently featured in TV commercials.
It shows a youngish family – husband, wife, two kids – and asks how much the guy would have to pay for a $500,000 life insurance policy. Answer: less than $25 a month. And his wife could get $500,000 worth for less than $15 a month. All they have to do is call SelectQuotes.com.
What a deal!
For the insurance company to break even on its $500,000 payout, the guy would have to pay $25 a month for 1,667 years. The wife would have to pay $15 a month for 2,778 years.
Of course the company can pile up those premiums and earn interest on them, so they might make a profit even if the couple died after a thousand years or so – but even so.
You don’t suppose they intend to raise the rates later on, do you?
Like, triple the premium after three years and triple it again after six years, so all the policyholders drop out, leaving their money behind?
I didn’t get cynical until after my 1200th birthday.
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UPDATE: Latest offer (this one by mail) is from Globe Life & Accident Insurance Co: “1.00 BUYS $50,000 LIFE INSURANCE.” A subhead says, “Monthly rates as low as $3.49 for adults, $1.99 for children…” At that rate, Dad or Mom will have to pay premiums for 1,200 years before the insurance company breaks even, and the kids will have to live to age 2,093. I thought that $1 offer was a fake — it would mean that the policy holder would have to pay premiums for over 4,000 years before the company turned a profit.
You don’t suppose they plan to wriggle out of paying the claims, do you? Say, by claiming that the person buying the policy suffered from an undisclosed pre-existing condition — like stupidity?
Comment by Al — September 13, 2009 @ 2:38 pm