As the holiday season approaches, we tend to find ourselves putting certain tasks and projects aside until the New Year. While many of those things are not time-sensitive and could in fact wait, life insurance is not one of them. In this episode of Money Script Monday, Dan reviews the importance of purchasing a life insurance policy and the impact it could have to your family in the event of an unforeseen circumstance.
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Video transcription
Hello there, and welcome back to another episode of "Money Script Monday." My name is Dan Tatulli, and today, we're going to be talking about why let's talk after the holidays is the worst thing you can say.
Now, a lot of these videos have been talking about permanent life insurance, and specifically, indexed universal life (IUL). And one of the main reasons why you would purchase an indexed universal life policy is because of that tax-free distribution that you get to take out during your retirement, so you can actually use that as income.
But at the end of the day, that is a life insurance policy. And the main reason why you should purchase a life insurance policy is for that death benefit protection, so making sure that your family is financially protected, if anything should happen to you.
So this video, it's not going to be a fun video, but I challenged myself to do this. And what we're going to be talking about today is if you're thinking about purchasing a life insurance policy, if you have it right now at your table and you're just kind of making that excuse to not do it before the holidays, let's wait until afterwards, maybe you're waiting for that medical exam. Whatever the reason may be, I'm here to tell you that's one of the worst things that you can say during this holiday season.
Why is that? Because the actual heart-related deaths that happen during the holidays rise. In fact, it's by 4.2% of heart-related deaths happen during the holidays.
CNN and other several studies have shown that you're more likely to die during Christmas, the day after Christmas, or New Year's Day, more than any other day throughout the year, so pretty crazy statistic.
Everybody out there always think maybe it has something to do with the weather. Studies have shown that it's not that, it's not because of the cold or depression or anything like that.
But they've narrowed it down to really three reasons. There's not one in particular, but I'm here to talk about three different ones. So today, we're going to be talking about social, health, and then the health-system related.
Cause #1: Social
To talk about socially of why there might be a heart-related deaths around the holiday, number 1, family and friends. So you're out there during the holidays, meeting up with your aunts and uncles, and in-laws, and, you know, I'm sure you want to see some of them, but then maybe some other ones that you don't really want to and that definitely adds to your stress level.
Traveling, so think about that when you're booking that flight, and maybe you're waking up at 4 a.m. or you're jumping in that plane, and you're not eating those healthy foods per se. You're grabbing that fast food and eating at consistent times.
And also, financial stress. If you have kids, they're expecting their presents under the Christmas tree to be stacked, and that's really up to you, to uphold those expectations. When you're withdrawing accounts, when you're taking loans out around the holiday season, it could definitely add financial stress in your life.
Cause #2: Health
Number 2, health. I'm not going to go into this too much. It's kind of a known thing for us all.
The first thing is diet. So when you're celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas and all these other holidays, usually you're waking up, you put the turkey in the oven, and you're snacking all day, right?
Your first becomes seconds becomes thirds, and seven day later, you're still eating that turkey.
Also, alcohol consumption. Think about those heavy winter ales that come out, the craft beers, and the eggnog.
High blood pressure, so in addition to all of this, everything could actually raise your blood pressure throughout the holiday season which could cause deaths.
Put off needed care. Think about it. If you have an annual check-up that you're supposed to be doing in November or December, you're probably pushing that back. Much like the life insurance policy, you're probably saying, "I'll get to it in January. I'll get to it February. Let me just get through this. I've got to fly next week," and you're putting off that needed care.
Cause #3: Health System Related
The last one here is health-system related. So a lot of the areas that you travel during the holiday season, you might not necessarily know the streets in and out and all the backstreets, so it's typically an unknown area.
And if you have a heart-related issue or one of your family members out there, going to the hospital, you might not know where that hospital is.
Every single second counts when you're in that danger.
Lack of staff. Everybody has friends and family they want to see during the holidays. I do not blame them. However, when you go to the hospital, maybe the doctors and nurses are working overtime and they have a lack of staff, so now the doctor has to work multiple floors, and again, every single second counts when you need that medical assistance.
So that wraps it up as far as the reasons of why there are heart-related deaths around the holiday season, but I just kind of wanted to share with you my own personal story.
A personal story
My father-in-law. My wife, we recently married, but a few years back… She's from Iowa, she was coming out here to San Diego to visit and we kick things off, we exchanged some information.
Texts became phone calls, phone calls because Skyping, then Skyping all of a sudden was, you know, "What the heck are we doing. Is this supposed to be more serious? Should we get into a relationship?"
So throughout those months, we flew back and forth and visited each other more.
And then she decided to move out to San Diego. So I won that battle of Iowa versus San Diego.
So the weekend of moving, Fourth of July weekend, the holiday weekend, her family decided to come out and help her. That was the big moving day. She was moving in with me. And her brother, her father and her mother all flew out here to help her, you know, get used to the area, make sure she's got everything in place.
I can honestly tell you, that weekend was probably one of the greatest moments of my life. I was on cloud nine. All these months have led up to this amazing weekend I got to spend with her and her family. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was amazing.
Monday morning, Fourth of July morning, we woke up. We went to the supermarket as we wanted to grill that day, just like everybody else. And I'll always remember it, I was down that aisle, and that's when she received the phone call. And I could just tell on her face, something was up. Her face dropped and she got off the phone and said, "My dad collapsed. He's off to the hospital right now. We need to go."
So we dropped everything and we started heading over. And in the back of my mind, I'm new to this whole entire family, right, and I'm trying to make up these reasons. I know, I'm sure he collapsed, maybe it’s just a routine protocol, everything was going to be fine.
When we got there, he was pronounced dead before we were even able to make it.
He was 56 years old, avid runner. This man has run the Boston marathon! He went for a morning jog that day and had a heart attack and collapsed and died.
So things got real very, very fast. We were in that honeymoon stage. And now, we were given this situation that we had to deal with.
I got to see that first-hand, but fortunately, I got to see the good as he had multiple life insurance policies which he had on himself. He had a business. He had a partner. He had policies everywhere. Sometimes the mom, actually, didn't even know some of the life insurance policies he did have.
I got to see the benefit of what life insurance can do on the aftermath of it.
My wife and her brother don't have to think about making certain purchases. She bought a car just a few years ago. She didn't have to second-guess that and say, "I need to wait for this." She didn't have any of that financial stress because he put everything in place.
Even around the holidays, anything could happen, so we've been very fortunate to see that, the power of life insurance and what that can do.
I just wanted to share that personal story.
I left a few links below with Life Happens. It's a non-profit organization. They've got some great videos that I'd like you to check out, too.
But I want to leave you off with this…
While you're booking that flight, while you are purchasing those gifts, while you're making those plans, please, please do not leave out purchasing life insurance policy.
Don't do it for yourself. Don't do it for me. But do it for your family, because you honestly never know what's going to happen tomorrow. With that, thank you very much and take care.
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