As of today, my husband and I are one step closer to having life insurance. We were able to meet with our insurance agent, and get some things started. The paperwork is complete, but there are more steps we need to submit to before everything is finished. So, I suppose I could say that we are in “life insurance limbo” at the moment.
Previously, our insurance agent gave us a bunch of paperwork with details about what their life insurance policies would cost us, and what they cover. After looking at everything, my husband and I decided that this was something we could afford, and wanted to do. Today, we were able to meet with our insurance agent, and begin the next step in the process.
This part of getting a life insurance policy is kind of weird. First of all, it turned out we didn’t actually need to bring in the pile of paperwork that was generated for us the last time we visited. This is good, because we forgot about it, and left it at home. There were a series of questions that needed to be answered. They were the same questions for each of us, but, since life insurance policies are only for one person, my husband and I each had to go through the series of questions individually.
There were questions on these forms that I never expected to be asked, and others that were worded in strange ways. For example, one question asked my husband about disability. He explained that he was legally blind, due to optic atrophy. The next word the agent said was “feet”, to which my husband responded by saying his feet were fine, and he had no problems with his feet. It turns out she was asking his height, but, since the form said “feet”, that’s what she read. It gave everyone a laugh. There were questions that seemed to be trying to determine if I, or my husband, were insurance agents ourselves. We were also asked if either of us had HIV, which was a completely unexpected question.
The insurance agent decided to file the paperwork as if we were trying to qualify for the standard rate, instead of the least expensive one, ( called “premium non- tobacco”). This way, she said, we might be pleasantly surprised to learn that one, or both of us, qualified for the policy that came with the lowest premiums. We will be paying monthly premiums, and were asked to pay the first and last month’s bill, for each of our policies, today. Last month? On a life insurance policy? Yeah, that’s a bit creepy to be asked for.
Technically, we still do not have life insurance, despite answering all the questions, signing the forms, and paying the bills. There are two more steps. We should expect to receive a phone call, where each us will be asked a series of health questions. After that, we will be asked to arrange a time for a nursing service to come to our home, and do a quick exam. If all of that is acceptable, well, then we will officially have the life insurance policies we paid for today. Until then, we are in life insurance limbo.
Image by Pedro Ribeiro Simões on Flickr