Through the activity of selling life insurance, I have been given a fascinating window into how people are doing. In order to qualify someone to buy insurance, I have to gather information about age, weight, prescriptions and debt-to-income ratio and plug it into my computer. The prices are then based on actuarial tables pulled from massive data bases. Basically, I ask all the things you are taught to never ask or comment on and assign a number to it.

The irony of insurance sales is that young, healthy people who can qualify, don’t see the need for it, and older, sicker people who see the value of it often can’t qualify for or afford it.

Age is not just a number, it is an inventory of a lifetime of habits. I have old, healthy clients and young, sick ones. You can’t necessarily tell by the sound of someone’s voice what is going on inside. 

Some things are obvious, smoking will absolutely trash your body, I have the data. We know intellectually, that eating well and exercising are recommended, but every day I catalog a pharmacy worth of drugs for people who can’t control their cholesterol, blood pressure, or glucose levels. These basic issues repeated over and over, lead to damaged organs and limbs. That leads to surgeries, and those lead to more medications and pain killers. We know that pain meds come with problems of their own. 

More people than you may be aware of are suffering mentally. People of all ages are using chemicals to sleep, lower anxiety, fight depression and generally cope with the world. Those medications have side effects too and are ideally not taken for years at a time. Unfortunately, if the issues causing the problems aren’t addressed, the need for medications does not go away on its own.

The take away is, to deal with things earlier than later. Build up good habits and get help and insurance before you think you need it.