Just think, what would happen if the primary breadwinner in your home suddenly lost his/her income source and was unable to make the monthly mortgage payments? How long can you sustain that lifestyle before knowing your greatest fears and worries would soon become a reality? You would undoubtedly eventually lose what you’ve worked so hard to obtain…your most prized asset…your home!

That said, let’s look at the factors that can affect a family’s ability to stay on top of their mortgage and make monthly timely payments:

The economy
These days, with a questionable world economy and with job security being a thing of the past, more and more people have become concerned with their short and long term financial security. Whether you live in a single or dual income home, the loss of either income happens to be the primary source of stress in most homes. Sadly, as more and more Americans get laid off and find themselves unemployed for longer periods of time, the loss of that much-needed income can quickly jeopardize a family’s ability to stay afloat and continually make their monthly mortgage payments. Just think, how long can you continue to stay in your home if you’re unable to make your monthly payments?

Illness or Death
No one can predict when a long term illness or premature death will occur. The only thing you can plan for or predict is that if/when this occurs, without having a financial plan in place, your loved ones may be put in a very difficult financial position. In the event of an unforeseen or unplanned financial disaster, mortgage protection or mortgage insurance plans can offer you and your family a considerable amount of protection and peace of mind and serve as the perfect financial safety net.

So how can you protect yourself and your loved ones from such a horrific outcome? Easy! Look into Mortgage Protection and find out if it’s right for you and if so, how can it help protect your home.

It’s about LIFE INSURANCE FOR LIFE.

A life insurance product that can provide financial utility during a client’s life & NOT just at death, living benefits can be the difference between financial survival and financial demise. At Alliance Group, we have been marketing & delivering living benefits to Middle America and small business owners since 1998. For over 15 years, our research in the marketplace has led us to believe that suffering from a critical illness IS unequivocally the biggest financial threat facing families and small businesses alike throughout the country.
Did you know? 60% of bankruptcies are due to the medical costs associated with a major illness such as a heart attack, stroke or cancer…& over 75% of people affected by these illnesses HAD a health insurance policy! There remains a false sense of security amongst people who have health coverage – they believe they are safe. They believe they are covered for any and all health issues that may arise. However, the truth remains that health insurance alone does NOT cover ALL things for ALL people. The actual cost of a major heart attack including medical & non-medical costs is over $1,000,000! Did you know?
One major item that is overlooked by a health insurance policy is the potential (almost inevitable) loss of income associated with a critical illness.

Here’s a question to think about. What would happen to your client’s financial situation if they were out of work for a month? 3 months? How about 6 months…or even a  year? The facts & statistics speak for themselves. Another question…Are you providing your clients financial peace of mind?

If you are in the insurance industry – whether a P&C agent, LTC agent, health insurance agent, financial advisor or a life insurance agent, what you do for a living is protect your clients against RISK. One of the BIGGEST RISKS your client faces is a foreclosure, bankruptcy or loss of a business due to a critical illness such as a heart attack, cancer or stroke.

Offer your clients more than a death benefit…more than just life insurance.

Offer them LIFE INSURANCE FOR LIFE.

It’s your responsibility. Contact us to learn more…

I live in Oakhurst, New Jersey, about three miles from the shoreline, and as you might imagine, it has been an eventful week for us so far. All things considered, we were fairly lucky in my neighborhood, where we were spared much of Hurricane Sandy’s rain, but bore the worst of the storm’s winds. As a result, we lost power early on as the big trees on everybody’s yard began falling like dominoes. And yet, it could have been so much worse. Had it been raining hard all the while, we probably would have lost every tree In Oakhurst. And even then, that would have been small hardship compared to what folks are living with all up and down the Jersey shore right now.

At the time of this writing, I am sitting in my dim and unheated house, having just returned from a trip to the towns of Loch Arbor, Deal and Allenhurst, where the storm surge wrought horrific damage. In Deal, one house on the beach was exploded by the storm; its back half was simply missing and there was a couch on the front lawn.

Its insulation was blown all over the neighboring houses. As there were leaves all over my neighborhood, little shreds of this house were likewise distributed on neighbors’ lawns and rooftops, a grim reminder of what could have been for any other home along the stretch of beachfront.

In Allenhurst, we found the local beach club’s ticket booth intact, but a block inland. The surge and flooding had pushed it off its moorings and left it smack in the middle of the intersection one street over. The street itself leading from the relocated booth to the beach was covered in some two feet of sand. Before anybody living on that street can travel, they will have to excavate their way out.

Overhead, news helicopters and Army Blackhawks surveyed the damage while police tried in vain to keep curious onlookers from crossing caution-taped areas prone to collapse. And as we went back home from all of this, we knew that the damage we saw paled before the utter devastation that had virtually destroyed the towns of Seaside Heights, Sea Bright, Mantoloking and Atlantic City. The barrier islands and most low-lying coastal developments are all gone, either smashed and reclaimed by the ocean, or buried under the tons of sediment washed forward by Sandy’s surge.

The house is quiet now, and I have the opportunity to reflect on what this storm has taught me so far. I must get my thoughts down now before night falls and everything goes dark once more. This is what I know today; who knows what I will realize tomorrow?

1. People can and will ignore deadly peril.

Governor Chris Christie has done a remarkable job on this storm, and right at the beginning, he was informing the public about the storm’s dangers. Anybody in a low-lying area had to get out. Anybody on the barrier islands had to get out. “Tell me I’m wrong from the comfort of your friend’s couch,” he said in one of his many press conferences, and he was right. He knew only too well that many New Jerseyans felt foolish for fearing Tropical Storm Irene as they did, and as a result, they figured that perhaps Sandy would likewise be a relative non-event. They would be wrong, and Christie tried in vain to warn them. Even the mayor of Atlantic City, which was scheduled to be near to Sandy’s landfall, refused to order a mandatory evacuation. The result was that, as the water rose, emergency centers were overwhelmed with distress calls from those who thought they were too smart for the storm. At present, the body count is only a few dozen. As recovery efforts get underway, I suspect that number will climb considerably.

How often have we seen this before, whether it is people second-guessing the severity of an oncoming disaster, or people confronting the planning needs of their own mortality? We all only have so many years; eventually we will leave our family and our loved ones behind. Nobody likes to think it might happen to them sooner rather than later, but everybody owes it to the ones they care about to plan for it, and that is where a solid insurance and financial strategy comes in. Incredibly, many people just don’t bother with this, much to the frustration of those in the life insurance business. To meet a prospect with no use for life insurance must be like knocking on the door of a shoreside homeowner with news of an impending hurricane only to have the door slammed in one’s face. It makes no sense, and yet it happens. So sad.

2. What we have is more fragile than we think.

As I toured my local sea walls, the power of Sandy’s storm surge was evident. Anything within the surge’s reach was destroyed, as if caught under a giant’s fist. Telephone poles were floating in the surf that we figured came from a few towns over. Entire beachfronts had been wiped clean of all development. Even sturdy concrete infrastructure looked like it had been hit by a bomb. There was only one way to survive the harshest effect of Sandy, and that was to get the heck out of its way. There was simply no withstanding power of this magnitude.

This was a clear reminder that, especially in a nation as highly developed as ours, it is easy to forget how thin the line is between comfortable living in the 21st century and something well below that mark. We are a great nation that has built great things, but those things are so easily swept aside, and we forget that time and time and time again. Before the storm, I pruned dead branches from my trees and secured anything vulnerable to high wind because I didn’t want some piece of my property turned into a deadly missile aimed right at my living room during the height of the storm. We are safe most of the time, but in reality, we only feel safe. The truth is, we are never more than one really bad day from seeing everything we ever worked for, everything we ever built, and every person we ever loved taken away from us. The peril of life is real, and it is something we must never forget … even though almost all of us will once the power comes back on.

If only we could keep disasters like this in mind, how much future damage might we avoid? It is impossible to tell, but such mindful preparation would do much to protect our so-easily destroyed achievements. The role insurance has to play in this is obvious, especially for our friends in the property & casualty industry, who will have quite a few checks to sign once this is all over. But it is also true for the life and health world, too. Insurance has long been sold on the premise of how little we can foretell the future, especially the darker parts of it. And it is something people simply do not like to think about.

That said, while no insurer should seek to callously benefit from this disaster, there is a point to take advantage of the heightened awareness Sandy has left behind to remind people that it really pays to plan ahead.

3. What you know and what you feel are two different things.

I had read up on Sandy quite a bit before it arrived. I have covered hurricanes in the past, and I had a decent idea of what to expect, even taking into consideration that this storm was a weird hybrid of hurricane and nor’easter. I knew that the winds of this storm were likely to uproot trees and send loose debris flying, but it was really unlikely to peel my roof back. And even though there was the risk of toppling trees, the truth was that there were none that were big enough and close enough to my home to present any clear and present danger.

I knew these things. And yet, when the storm came, where was I? At my windows, looking at the big trees near my yard, expecting them at any moment to proof or crack in half, falling toward my home like some ancient instrument of revenge. Presented with the inescapable reality of the storm, I had only my fear of the storm’s uncertainty and the conviction of how much I had prepared dueling within my head, like the proverbial angel and devil on one’s shoulder. Ultimately, the angel won out, as I did not descend into some kind of crazy panic, but this was a keen reminder of how inadequate our pans can feel when they are put to a full and sudden test.

How certain are we to have prepared adequately for the loss of a breadwinner or loved one? What is the line between what we think we need to prepare for, and what we feel like spending on our future security? And then, what is the line between all of that and what we really need when the hard times come? We all have to confront this kind of reality check. Not all of us will fare so well when pressed to it because we are either too optimistic or too cheap to make an accurate assessment of our needs and then see to them appropriately. Those can make those calls on their own enjoy quite an advantage over those who don’t. Thankfully, there is an army of advisors at the ready to help make sure people have what they need when they need it. Whether people can admit to themselves that they have needs, well, that is another question.

4. There is no such thing as being too prepared.

In the run-up to the storm, we prepared well in advance. We keep a hurricane preparedness kit in the basement and restock it every year. When storms begin looking certain to visit our area, we get go bags ready, even though we do not live in a flood-prone area and are not at direct risk of storm surge damage. We do a lot to ensure that when it is a day or two before the storm, we are not hitting the store in a frantic search for things people have already bought out. Water. Batteries. Dry goods. Medical supplies.

And yet, for all of that, we could have done better. We don’t have a generator of our own; we rely on our neighbor who has one (and, truth be told, rather enjoys being the guy with the generator). We don’t even have a long enough extension cord rated for outside use to reach the generator. We don’t keep extra cans around to stockpile extra fuel. We didn’t board our windows, nor did we install storm shutters — something I considered last year after Irene blew through but which I later 86ed, thinking that it would be overkill. Well, it sure would not have felt like overkill Monday night, I can tell you.

The point is, there is a tendency to think that we have prepared too much, that there is a line we might cross between wise pre-planning and paranoid survivalist. But really, should there even be such a line? That we might feel self-conscious about protecting ourselves says much about how little we regard the dangers around us, and how certain we are that bad things only ever happen to other people. This is a mindset we should jettison posthaste. The truth is there is no such thing as being too prepared. Doomsday peppers look like idiots until one day, they don’t. That carries over to any kind of preparedness, really. When was the last time anybody ever complained about being over-insured? Surely not when a claim check came in.

5. When hardship hits, community matters.

For me, this disaster has been a very local experience. My neighbors are a bunch of good-natured, tightly knit folks, and when bad things happen, we collectively come together and make sure everybody has whatever they need. It is hard to overstate just how good a feeling it is to know that when things get tough, there are people you know, or a group to which you belong, that will help look out for you. Even if the material aid that group provides is marginal, the psychological aid can be immense. You know you are not isolated, that you are going through the same thing everybody else is and that, together, you are all going to pull through.

Without that kind of backup, disasters — whether a big shared experience like Sandy or a personal disaster such a death or illness in the family — have a way of making you feel isolated and overwhelmed. As much as we can try to prepare tactically for hard times, the wider relationships we build are in some ways our best safety net.

In the life and health world, I often hear agents and brokers speak of their relationship with their clients. To some customers, this might sound like hollow sales-talk. But I recall once reading a 100-year-old book on life insurance that began with notes like “Life insurance is just a contract until it is signed by a widow’s tears.” To a modern audience, that sounds awfully melodramatic, but it cuts to the heart of what the idea of a proper relationship between agent and client should be. Not one of mere transaction, but one of constant contact, where the mercenary elements of buying and selling are softened by the reminder that behind it is a professional seeing to our well-being. Nostalgic? Idealistic? In a world where life insurance takes a distant back seat to selling retirement products, perhaps. But times like Sandy and the long recovery to follow are stark reminders that sometimes there are needs more pressing than our future retirement. Sometimes there are needs that must be met right now, and industries like insurance are some of the few who can be there for us when we really need them.

READ ONLINE HERE

The sluggish economy continues to put financial strain on many of us. So it just makes sense to examine our  budgets and look for ways to trim the fat from our monthly expenses and put more into savings, if possible.

“That’s a great way to help stabilize your finances, but it’s also important that you have a financial safety net in place in case something were to happen to you,” says Lee Duncan, Vice President of Sales & National Training Director with Alliance Group in Lawrenceville, GA. “Life insurance is one of the few guarantees your family can rely on to maintain their quality of life if you were no longer there to provide for them.” (Check out these AMAZING testimonial Videos)

There are 95 million adult Americans without life insurance, according to LIMRA, an insurance industry research group. “The fact is the vast majority of Americans need life insurance and, sadly, most people either have none or not enough,” says Duncan. “If someone depends on you financially, you need life insurance. It’s that simple.”  September is Life Insurance Awareness Month, making it the perfect time to take stock of your life insurance needs. Lee Duncan offers three additional reasons why now is the best time to look into getting life insurance…

• You’ll never be younger than you are now. While that may sound obvious, youth is on your side when it comes to life insurance. It makes good financial sense to get coverage when you’re young and healthy, as premiums are based on your age and health. For most policies, your premiums will be locked in at that rate over the life of  the policy, and can’t be raised due to a change in your health status.
• It’s affordable, with rates near historic lows. People overestimate the cost of life insurance by nearly three times, according to a recent study conducted by LIMRA and the LIFE Foundation, a nonprofit insurance
  education organization. In fact, life insurance rates remain near historic lows; the cost of basic term life insurance has fallen by nearly 50 percent over the past decade. With the addition of Living Benefits – Benefits You Don’t Have to DIE to USE – a life insurance policy like those offered through [company] can be the difference between financial life and death.
• “Life happens” says Duncan. “One day life is going along smoothly, and the next, you’re thrown a curve ball.  No one knows what the future holds. None of us expect to die prematurely or suffer a critical or chronic illness, but the truth is roughly 600,000 people die each year in the prime of their lives – and more than half of us will be diagnosed with a chronic or critical disease at some point in our lifetime. That’s why today is always the best day to take care of your life insurance needs.”

“Life Insurance Awareness Month is the ideal time for a life insurance review,” says Duncan. “I urge everyone to take a few minutes out of their busy schedules this month to make sure they have adequate life insurance protection – ideally, with Living Benefits.” According to Duncan, consumers can get a general sense of their life insurance needs by visiting the Insurance 101 page – complete with a handy tool and calculator. The next step, suggests Duncan, should be to contact a local insurance professional, who can conduct a more comprehensive needs analysis and help you find the right products to fit your specific needs and budget.

On June 28, 2012 the Supreme Court delivered its long awaited historic decision upholding the Affordable Health Care Act. The debate on the merits of the court’s ruling and what it means to American consumers will go on and on, and the political efforts to repeal it will continue. This article offers no opinion about the law or the Courts decision, but merely the observation that as usual, it is fight about power, money, and control being waged by lobbyists, politicians, as well as businesses and professionals involved in the health care industry. Their primary concern seems focused on how the law will impact the national debt, the bottom line of companies selling health insurance, the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals and physicians.
That is all well and good. But the patients and consumers who are supposed to be helped by health care reform sit on the sidelines as bystanders to what impact, good or bad, the ruling has on their ability to take care of their family in the event of chronic, critical or catastrophic illness. The debate is supposed to be about your survival in the event of a chronic or critical illness, not just institutional profit and well-being for the health care industry. How do you take control back from those who have a vested interest in their own agenda and likelihood of re-election?
There are four key elements required for surviving a critical or chronic illness and finding a cure that offers continued quality of life with the optimal chance to choose living over dying.
• Receiving the best medical care and advice during the diagnostic stage of the illness.
• Being offered choices and options as to possible treatment, whether it is traditional, alternative, experimental or holistic.
• Having the money that will be needed to pay for the care should you be uninsured, or your health insurance carrier denies payment for the cost of the recommended treatment.
• Having control of one’s own destiny; not Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court

If you don’t have the money to pay for the care and treatment your physician or surgeon recommends as your best, perhaps only hope to live and get well, you don’t have the control. It’s that simple. Living Benefits Life Insurance provides access to the money, and therefore the power to control your family’s destiny in the event of serious, even catastrophic illness, before it happens. It offers you the freedom to choose life.
Living Benefits has already helped thousands of families and small business owners survive financially, and will continue to help many thousands more in the ensuing years by providing the money necessary to fund the enormous expense of choosing life over death.

Regardless of any governmental decision or ruling, it makes living instead of dying a real possibility.

Written by Rick Drazien, [company] for Connections: [company] Client Newsletter, Summer 2012

That said, let’s look at the factors that can affect a family’s ability to stay on top of their mortgage and make monthly timely payments:

The economy
These days, with a questionable world economy and with job security being a thing of the past, more and more people have become concerned with their short and long term financial security. Whether you live in a single or dual income home, the loss of either income happens to be the primary source of stress in most homes. Sadly, as more and more Americans get laid off and find themselves unemployed for longer periods of time, the loss of that much-needed income can quickly jeopardize a family’s ability to stay afloat and continually make their monthly mortgage payments. Just think, how long can you continue to stay in your home if you’re unable to make your monthly payments?

Illness or Death
No one can predict when a long term illness or premature death will occur. The only thing you can plan for or predict is that if/when this occurs, without having a financial plan in place, your loved ones may be put in a very difficult financial position. In the event of an unforeseen or unplanned financial disaster, mortgage protection or mortgage insurance plans can offer you and your family a considerable amount of protection and peace of mind and serve as the perfect financial safety net.

So how can you protect yourself and your loved ones from such a horrific outcome? Easy! Look into Mortgage Protection and find out if it’s right for you and if so, how can it help protect your home.

But times change and new “variable” financial engines, seemingly more exciting, were built.  The original perfect engine, perhaps now a bit boring, had to be improved to keep pace. But alas, as things continued to change (technology, expectations, and the economy) the “new” ones ran into problems.  Our original engine remained perfect, but still boring.

As people stopped embracing the new ones, even newer, more exciting, and riskier engines are built. The original is again forced to adjust with some updated and risk-free features of its own if it wants to retain the description of “still perfect.”

After a few more repetitions of this cycle, and more challenging issues to be dealt with such as changing tax laws, de-regulation, new regulations, and an economic meltdown that ultimately brings the risk-reward “benefits” of the newer more exotic engines into question, the enlightened begin to go back and examine the original (and still perfect) Tax-Free Retirement Engine which has retained all its benefits with no negative impact from the new regulatory rules, tax laws, and benefit distribution changes. 

1. With all the issues that caused problems for other financial engines, and their consumer passengers, the original Tax-Free Engine didn’t breakdown.  It didn’t go “backwards.” It didn’t care which elected chief engineer or officials were in charge.  There will be no impact on our engine if income taxes go up, or estate tax laws change. The NEW Tax-Free Engine is not influenced by negative change or risky decisions. It is impervious to recessions.  You will never loose money no matter what the market does, not ever!  You participate in the gain if the market goes up, but you will never loose the, even in down market years.  The money will grow tax-deferred and can be withdrawn tax-free.  You are always in control.

The Tax-Free Engine was called permanent cash value life insurance. It was great back then, but with the NEW  no risk “indexed” engine and “living benefit” feature in the event of critical, chronic or terminal illness, it is even better now.  It is still the perfect tax-free retirement engine…only more so!

Written by Richard Drazien for the exclusive use of [company]

April 2012

Asking or answering what if questions can sometimes be fun. For example, what would you do if you won several millions of dollars in the lottery? Coming up with an answer is a more thought provoking exercise when the question addresses your families emotional and financial peace of mind for surviving the “what if” crisis with planning that can be implemented before the “what if” ever happens.

Most clients have some form of life insurance to provide their loved ones with enough funds to continue on after they have died. It is no surprise, therefore, that most think if it as death insurance. We believe that if life insurance is going to also help you and your family survive and thrive while you are living, and life happens, it must contain “LIVING BENEFITS”. Does your coverage include that feature?

The statistical evidence is staggering. Virtually everyone reading this article knows of someone who has suffered a debilitating chronic illness that requires help in performing the basic activities of daily living, or has suffered a critical illness such as stroke, heart attack or a diagnosis of cancer. Living Benefits allows you access to a portion of the policy face amount (death benefit) while you are living, not after you’re dead.

Bills don’t stop because you are seriously ill. They keep on coming and family income may have decreased dramatically or stopped altogether. You may need money NOW to avoid bankruptcy; to stay in your home and avoid foreclosure; to continue your children’s education; to pay high medical bills that are not covered by your health insurance plan (assuming you have one) or the alternative care that is recommended as the best treatment to save your life, but costs more than you could possibly afford.

If that happened to you or someone in your family, what would you do? How would you survive? How would you provide the security and peace of mind you are seeking, not just after death, but while you are living life, and before that what if ever occurs.

What if a life insurance policy was developed that INCLUDED access to the death benefit if money is needed to help you and your family survive the financial and emotional impact of dealing with chronic, critical, or terminal illness,

1. WHILE YOU ARE LIVING
2. With NO ADDITIONAL PREMIUM CHARGE
3. With NO RESTRICTIONS ON HOW TO USE THE MONEY

If it is going to be called “life insurance,” it must help you and your family to achieve financial peace of mind while you are living. Since it is a financial burden for many to purchase three different policies to provide the amount of life insurance needed; long term-care insurance; and another for critical illness coverage, doesn’t it seem reasonable to cover all three needs in one affordable contract that included living benefits.

At [company], Thinking Differently is a Way of Life!

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LIVING BENEFITS, CLICK HERE!

FOR A FREE FINANCIAL REVIEW, CLICK HERE!

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