I have been gut shot.....

I have been gut shot.....

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, but as the title says, in life I have gotten gut shot…  by my life insurance company.

On Saturday, we got a piece of mail from our insurance company for accidental insurance. Normally I shred those type, especially now that we are both on Medicare and supplement insurance.

But there was one thing that caught my eye. As it stated that my husband, who was the addressee for this.. might want to take advantage of it being his life insurance  was now at $37,063!!!!!!!  I was upset.. as I fired off a copy of it to my agent and said WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?   The king’s insurance is at $71,000 and we have had it that way since 1999.

Well, what leveled us to our knees was it turn out to be true. All these years we have been having our monthly payment deducted from our account to pay for what has turn out to be a FLEXIABLE insurance.

Meaning while we are paying… the policy is going down.  For the King it is down to that $37,000.. and to my horror.. mine is down to just over $13,000.  HOW THE HELL CAN THIS BE. 

When we bought our house, we decide to get life insurance to have enough money for the other to pay off the house, as we knew neither of us could pay alone.  Where did it all go wrong?  I don’t know. As I thought there were only two types of life insurance. One where you can cash it out after 20 years.. and the other you pay until one of you dies.  We decided we didn’t want to cash out at 20 years so we went for what we thought was term insurance, paying until one of us dies. 

After all who, in their right mind,  would want to pay monthly for 20+ years and have nothing at the end of that.  Guess we did,

When I was approaching 65, my agent sent me a form for a KEEP IT LEVEL .. which when I asked what it was.. she told me that the insurance company would drop my policy to a lesser amount because of my age.. and by signing, I would be keeping the same amount for 3 years.. then it would drop to the lesser amount.. ( thought she said $60,000) and by doing this it would stay there until I was 85. They wouldn’t drop it anymore or cancel.  So I gave the $60 to put this enforce.  We never heard from the insurance company again… So our policies stayed in the file cabinet and the money was deducted monthly.. And we felt safe, as we were covered.  NOT…

Then we found out that the insurance company no longer sells that type of  life insurance. Which was in 2000… just one year after we started… and 5 years before I signed the KEEP IT LEVEL paper. Why didn’t the insurance company keep the policies?  Why didn’t they tell us that and give us other options.?  Why didn’t they give us notice yearly as it went down?  All good questions..   Which is making me sick right now.

Sick mostly because I feel it was my fault. Over the many years I have drove agents, salesmen and who ever gave me paper work to sign… nuts.. because I would sit there and read every bit of the small print, so I knew what I was signing… WHY THE HELL, I DIDN’T DO IT THIS TIME?   I trusted my agent…I trusted the insurance company as it is a big time insurance company.  Very well known… But that is no excuse at all.  I knew better.. I would read all the small print….it is my fault for not doing it this time.

I feel rotten, as I not only let myself down but the King too. He depends on me for that kind of thing.

The one time in my life I took the word of the agent. And did not read it… just went home and put the policy in the file cabinet.

Heck if we had caught on early.. we could have gotten a different policy when we could afford it because I was younger.. but   78.. who is going to insure me?   Also had I known it 7 years ago, I would I would have dropped the policy when we paid off the house.  

Well, I am pulling up my big girl pants..and trying to find a solution…to this mess.  And finding out even more that all life insurances are not the same.. and which insurance company do I trust?

The blessing of this is.. we found out now.. and not down the road when one of us found out that the insurance policy was as good as worthless, when we needed it the most …after the other is gone.

So I should be stronger next week and get back into the routine.. of posting..

Maybe you should go see what is in your life insurance policy..