Fear Sells Life Insurance (1)
I get lots of junk mail. A fair amount of my junk mail comes from promotions that my mortgage companies and their partners send my way. I can usually spot junk mail by looking at the envelope, but the sneaky devils at Coldwell Banker Mortgage (aka Cendant Mortgage) like to put their junk mail in the same envelopes as important statements, thus making it more likely to be read. (Of course this also makes their important tax statements more likely to be tossed!)
Never before has junk mail made me laugh like it did today. I received an offer from the Liberty Life Insurance Company who partnered with Coldwell Banker Mortgage to send me an offer I couldn’t refuse…to not laugh at. (Click here for the letter in PDF.) Rather than focusing on why their life insurance is the best, they decided to focus on how mortal I am. They went so far as to include a list of ways in which I might die, including bicycle accidents, choking, pedestrian accidents, falls from ladders, food poisoning, contact with machinery, accidental firearms discharge, forces of nature, drowning, electrocution and fire.
My God! I had never realized there were so many ways in which I might die! I was quite comfortable living an ignorant life of the danger around me until the fine folks at the Liberty Life Insurance Company pointed out the perils of life that may one day do me in. Clearly I need to buy their life insurance. How could I have lived so long without it? Dying without it must be even worse!
I can just picture the boardroom meeting that took place while this letter was being drafted. Did they have a list of ways to die up on a whiteboard? Which suggestions were scratched before the letter was finalized? Tiger attack? (Too unlikely, despite recent events.) Terrorist attack? (Already too overplayed.) How about run over by a steamroller? Yes, that happens too.
The letter continues…
“What are my chances of having a fatal accident?”
Consider these statistics in the United States alone:
- Someone dies in an accident every 5 minutes.
- In just one year, more than 40,000 people died in auto related accidents.
- In that same period, more than 33,000 people died as a result of accidents that happened in their own homes.
On the back of the letter they go on to say:
According to the National Safety Council, an accident claims the life of one American every six minutes. [Notice this is inconsisent with what was said on the front of the letter.] But the numbers don’t tell the whole story. You see it on the evening news and on our roads and highways. It’s a risk we all live with. Now, you can be prepared - with Mortgage Decreasing Accidental Death Insurance from Liberty Life Insurance Company.
And here I thought CNN, MSNBC and Fox News were already doing a good enough job trying to scare people about their imminent deaths. Fear is such a great motivator. Used by governments, hostage takers and cult leaders, I shouldn’t be surprised to see marketers using it now too.
*Sigh* I liked the 1990’s much better when they used sex to sell instead of fear.
Fear is what these people live on. I prefer a country and a people ruled by intelligence and not fear. When you let fear take the drivers’ seat, then there’s no telling where you are going. Hyped goals become the means to an uncertain end and intelligence becomes the squirrel that gets caught under the wheels of a fear-drunken democracy. Understanding the risks we face is one thing, but exploiting people by using fear is (technically) a form of terrorism, is it not?
M,
I tried to email this to you but your box is full. It concerns your legal blog.
Enjoy,
Bjorn
//
M,
Hey I just noticed your web page and blog concerning your little run
in with the folks that enforce municipal policy in your area. Some
folks call them “police officers” but they are really policy officers of a
given municipal corporation. They of course enforce municipal policy
but that begs the question, exactly who is subject to municipal policy
. . . ?
In the meantime I wrote the little rant below for my friends in
response to a story on yahoo News today. I think you may find my comments
directly relate to your experience. Btw, the litmus test for municipal
nonsense is evidenced by the “fine”. The method for destroying their
prosecution of your alleged violation of one of their “codes” (secrets
maybe?) is to subpoena the agent of the fictitious plaintiff (the
prosecutor is representing a municipal corporation which of course is a
fictitious “person”, which of course DOES NOT EXIST!) for your waiver of
right. Id est have the prostitutor demonstrate on the record (this is a
challenge to the juridiction invoked by the prostitutor) your waiver of
your right to Life, Freedom and all that for the contractual municipal
nonsense of “Health, Safety, and Welfare”. When the prostitutor cannot
produce a contract with your signature on it, well, no ticky, no
shirty . . .
Shake and bake. If you would like to know more about my DogoneBeach
caper fell free to ask.
Bjorn & The Dog
//
Greetings,
This article appeared today concerning the atrocities being committed
by BlackWater (what a name - I think the owner is a right wing
extremist terrorist Christian from Atlanta by the name of “Buba” or some such)
and other such Mercs. Buried in the article, and apparently not
censored out, is this little gem of a paragraph:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070919/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_outsourcing_the_war_1
A measure proposed by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., would require all
government contractors to be covered by federal criminal codes, a
shortcoming revealed by the conflict in Iraq. Presidential candidate Barack
Obama, D-Ill., is promoting similar legislation in the Senate.
Wait a minute guys, I thought ALL Americans, US Citizens et cet.,
were subject federal criminal codes . . .
NOT.
You see what most Americas believe (belief = NOT KNOWING) is that
they are subject to a plethora of (Local, State and Federal municipal)
ordinances (”ordinance” - to “ordain” = religious law maybe . . .), rules,
regulations, codes, including “criminal” codes, et cet. When
factually most Americans are NOT subject to any of this nonsense at all. Here
in California about eight years ago I rather extensively proved this at
the local level when I got “busted” for (doing what I have an absolute
right to do) walking with a dog on the beach. By the time I got done
with the City of San Diego (a municipal corporation like 84,000 others
across America) ALL thirty-five (35) municipal judges (the entire bench
actually) had recused themselves from the DogoneBeach caper. And as I
moved to have four very senior municipal judges removed (not from the
case but) from office, the quasi criminal case against me was dropped
like a hot potato. After that I sued the three San Diego City
(idiot) cops in Superior Court and had some fun with that too.
Bottom Line?
This article (and the subsequent activity in the House and Senate at
a higher level) proves that - for example - City (of whatever/where
ever) “ordinances” ONLY apply to City employees, City Officers, People who
contract with the City (and only where their contract contains a
clause binding the parties to such ordinances) et cet, AND (maybe - though
probably not) the owners (of the municipal corporation) of the City -
AND THAT IS IT. Thus most of the other people hanging about a given
“city”, which is most people in the area, are not subject to ANY of its
“ordinances”. The same all holds true at the Federal level because unless
there is a clause in the mercinaries contracts, they are IN FACT NOT
subject to federal criminal codes merely because they are Americans, US
Citizens, et cet.
So what “law” is the House and Senate going to pass? Well just as
they CANNOT PASS A LAW MAKING DRUGS ILLEGAL (there is no such “law’,
rather at the State municipal level there is a “Health and Safety Code”
which talks about “controlled substances” but like everything else it only
applies to employees, officers, and contractors et cet - there is a
similar thing at the federal level), they cannot pass a “law” making all
contractors subject to federal criminal codes. What they will do is
enact a regulation requiring ALL government contracting officers (who are
already subject to such things) to place in such federal contracts the
proviso that all signatories to the contract are subject to federal
criminal code.
So finally you say, well there are lots of people in jail (it is
true) for “possession of a controlled substance”. Well, as WC Fields once
said “There is one born every minute” and, from a slightly different
perspective, Ignorance of the law (or lack thereof) is no excuse . . .
Bjorn
In many ways this is very logical marketing. Most people are not as smart as you or I. We are genertically pre-disposed to be concerned more about specific risks, than general ones. Nassim Nicholas Taleb explores this in Fooled by Randomness.
Thus, if a life insurance company is to sell its product, it needs to do more than suggest that you buy insurance against the risk of dying - because that is a non-specific risk which humans in general are not well equipped to evaluate. Instead, in order for their marketing to be effictive, they need to highlisht all the risks that potential clients may be concerned about.
At the end of the day, Life Insurance is a good thing (Adam seems to lose sight of this). Further, lots of people buying life insurance is a good thing - because without a lot of buyers there would be a big risk of adverse selection driving up premiums.
Therefore, it is in everyones interests for there to be a large and vibrant market for Life Insurance. And lets face it, the only reason anyone ever buys insurance is fear.
I had my wife die and she was not insured. We chose not insure her because she was a stay at home mom and we insured me as I was the source of financial income.
We did have medical insurance so at the time of her death i did not have to pay out a huge financial bill as well as a funeral and comming to terms with the loss of a spouse.
I have since re-married and my wife has life insurance. I do not do it out of fear she will die but out of practicality knowing what financial pressures occur if one of you dies and leaves the other behind.
Last time I checked the mortaility rate of humans is 1 out of ever 1 dies (apart from Enoch and Elijah I know of no exceptions). Life insurance is not fear but wise financial planning for an event that is guarenteed to occur. Be it from old age or some other cause.
You don\’t take insurance out because you are afraid you take insurance out because you weigh up the cost of the insurance vs the cost incured of not being insured.
I insure my house and contents I had a split water pipe that caused a flood that wrecked all of my carpets and some of my walls were water damaged. The insurance covered the repairs and I look at it as a monthly investment that if/when I need it I can draw off. The actual damage bill was equivilent to 12 years of insurance payments. I was able to fix the problems and not be financially stressed.
Insurance can be wise financial planning. We are not really in control of everything so we can never guarentee what is going to happen in five minutes from now.
Wow, It never occurred to me as well that there are so many ways you can die. Well, first of all I hope you are still alive and survived all these fatal obstacles of life
Secondly, don’t worry! I am too a scary cat but l agree with the last commenter who is saying that you shouldn’t insure yourself or your husband/wife out of pure fear, you take insurance out because you weigh up the cost of the insurance vs the cost insured of not being insured. Me and my husband have one life insurance in Canada and I guess this is amply enough to make sure if one of us dies we won’t leave out children in a tight spot, at least not financially.