David J. Murphy

March 4th is famously known as the only calendar date that is also a military command. It just so happened that I attended the 105th birthday party for a WWII veteran on March 4, 2022.

“And if you should survive to a hundred and five
Look at all you’ll derive out of bein’ alive
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart.”¹

Robert Henry Doolan was born on March 22, 1917, in Cincinnati’s West End. He graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1935. The attack on Pearl Harbor inspired him to enlist in the Army Air Corps in 1941, and he graduated as a second lieutenant navigator the following year.

First Lieutenant Doolan served his country during WWII in the Army Air Corps as a member of the 326th Bomb Squadron, 92nd bomb group.

During his 13th mission as a navigator on a B-17 Flying Fortress, German fighter planes shot him down, forcing him to emergency-land in Holland. Doolan and another airman, co/pilot Donald Elbert Weir, spent 21 days attempting to escape back to England, shifting between safe houses, with aid from the Dutch resistance before being captured. As they entered the safe house door in Rotterdam, Doolan and Weir were knocked unconscious by members of Schutzstaffel, a Nazi paramilitary organization. They were gagged and handcuffed. Bob told me, “They push you here, they push you there, with a gun on your back all the time.” Upon capture they were taken to a prison camp.

He spent two years in the Stalag Luft III prison camp which was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape. (To read the thrilling actual history of the real escape visit this: https://www.history.com/news/great-escape-wwii-nazi-stalag-luft-iii).

Of his time in the prisoner of war camp, he had few things to say by way of complaint. “You miss the most what you miss that day,” Doolan said. “Obviously you miss your family or a sweetheart, but if you get hungry enough, you don’t think about anything else but food.”²

“Doolan was evacuated from the camp with other POWs in January, 1945, by the Germans, to avoid the Soviet Red Army, where they were marched and moved by horse carts and train cars to a new camp at Moosburg, Germany. The Moosburg prison camp was liberated by General George Patton and Doolan returned to the United States in 1945.”³

When Doolan returned home to Cincinnati, he married Dolores Ann Abbott. They raised three children. Doolan graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. Doolan and Dolores were married 71 years. She died in 2017.

Back on March 4, 2022, myself and fifty or more people gathered to celebrate Bob Doolan’s 105th birthday. Being “young at heart” he entertained us with stories and song. He heartedly sang these lyrics:

“Fairy tales can come true
It can happen to you if you’re young at heart
For it’s hard, you will find
To be narrow of mind if you’re young at heart.”⁴

(To hear Robert Doolan tell his own story here is a link to an interview he gave on his 100th birthday: https://www.wvxu.org/history/2017-03-08/local-veteran-former-pow-robert-doolan-turns-100-this-month-and-shares-his-wwii-stories#stream/)

After the war Doolan was awarded with these commendations: Air Medal with clusters, Air Offensive Europe, European Theater Operations with Battle Star and Purple Heart with cluster.

Against the Odds
Alistair Begg wrote, “The ultimate statistic is that one out of one will die. Death is the only certainty of life.”⁵

Only 14 out of 1,000 80-year-old men will live to 100. Only three percent of men currently 60 years of age will live to age 100.

The International Database on Longevity (IDL) was created “to gather demographic information on those who have lived to a validated age of 105 years or over, opening the door to accurate measurement of mortality at very old ages.”⁶

“Jeanne Louise Calment lived for 122 years and 164 days, the oldest verified age of any person, ever. Her interviews revealed a portrait of the centenarian in high spirits: ‘I’ve only ever had one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it,’ she told reporters when she turned 110. Calment died in 1997 in Arles, France, where she spent much of her impressively long life. No one else, according to accurate records, has lived beyond 120 years.”⁷

The number of men able to escape from Stalag Luft III were 76, of which only three made it to safety. Poor odds. Although he was not included in the escape plans, Robert Dooley was a survivor. He survived twelve successful missions, a plane crash, multiple prisoner of war camps, forced marches, and 105 years of living.

People who are alive between the ages of 105 and 109 are known as “semi-supercentenarians.” Researchers at UC Berkeley and Sapienza University of Rome tracked the deaths of nearly 4,000 residents of Italy who were aged 105 and older between 2009 and 2015. “They found that the chances of survival for these longevity warriors plateaued once they made it past 105.”⁸

Specifically, the results revealed that people between the ages of 105 and 109 had a 50/50 chance of dying within the year and an expected further life span of 1.5 years. These percentages did not change between 105 and 110.

The researchers drew the following conclusion:

“Our data tell us that there is no fixed limit to the human lifespan yet in sight,” said study senior author Kenneth Wachter, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of demography and statistics. “Not only do we see mortality rates that stop getting worse with age, we see them getting slightly better over time.”⁹

Huh.

Everyone in that study has since passed. Not one person’s life expectancy got better over time. As for Robert Dooley, he died on October 5, 2022, six months after his 105th birthday.

Impossible Schemes
The certainty of mortality is the predicate of life insurance.

Throughout my career in financial services, I have heard some critics of the life insurance industry express their opinion that there are better ways of taking financial responsibility for your family than owning an individual term, or permanent life insurance policy.

Here are some suggested alternatives to life insurance:

• Investing and Saving. “If you are able to set aside enough funds each year, you can very well never have to worry about holding a life insurance policy.”8 (If you live, that is.)
• Mortgage Insurance. (Limited in its flexibility and extent.)
• Accidental Death and Dismemberment. (Extremely restrictive.)
• Disability Income Insurance. (A highly recommended product, but not an alternative for the lump sum payable by life insurance.)
• Critical Illness Insurance. (Again, a highly recommended product, but not an alternative for the lump sum payable by life insurance.)
• Prepaid Funeral Plan. (Useful and practical, but very limited.)
• Guaranteed Issue Plan. (Helpful if the insured cannot qualify for individually underwritten life insurance.)

Summary:
There really is no substitute for individually owned life insurance.

“Life insurance covers all causes of death, with one main exception: Suicide within the first two years of owning the policy. Apart from that exclusion, life insurance covers death from illness, disease, accidents, and homicide.”¹⁰

Life insurance gives responsible people the means to prove they are dependable to their lives’ dependents.

“Life insurance is a key element in feeling financially secure. Among insureds with financial dependents, 68 percent feel secure, compared with 47 percent of non-insureds.”¹¹

The nonprofit Life Happens (formerly the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education) recommends that as an independent financial professional you should share with your clients these very good reasons for purchasing a life insurance policy soon:

• “You’ll never be younger than you are now.
• It’s affordable, with rates near historic lows.
• Life happens. One day life is going along smoothly, and the next, you’re thrown a curveball. No one knows what the future holds. None of us expect to die prematurely, but the truth is roughly 600,000 people die each year in the prime of their lives.”12

At 105, Robert Dooley sang:

“You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on its way.”¹³

There are 41 million people in the U.S. who say they need life insurance but do not have it. If you are an independent financial professional, pledge yourself to the following:

1. Don’t let people seek “impossible schemes” in order to accomplish what only life insurance can do.
2. Remind them that “dreams sometimes fall apart” at the seams but having the wherewithal to afford the changes makes laughter easier.
3. “Life gets more exciting each day” and proper planning makes it affordable.
4. Encourage your clients to say, “I love you” to their family while they are living and to be able to say, as they are about to die, that “love is on its way.”

If Robert Dooley were alive today, he would sing this to your clients:

“Don’t you know that it’s worth
Every treasure on earth to be young at heart
For as rich as you are
It’s much better by far to be young at heart.”¹⁴

My translation:
Don’t you know that it’s worth
Every treasure on earth to be prepared
from the start
For as rich as you are
It’s much better by far to prove your heart.

Footnotes:

1. “Young At Heart” lyrics © June’s Tunes Ltd. Partnership, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
2. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/life/2017/03/30/wwii-pow-turns-100-years-old-recalls-return-home/99587458/.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Doolan.
4. “Young At Heart” lyrics © June’s Tunes Ltd. Partnership, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
5. https://www.truthforlife.org/daily/?tab=alistair_begg_devotional&date=11%2F18%2F2022&src=22ELKB0&utm_campaign=Alistair%20Begg%20Daily%20Devotion&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=234308426&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_epWCHqsFKBn_MrLBi1SEY4clSyX_hpUTvmeTbhY4ZAs4qX5JPYMu5CcEabGtIBiswkkGtUdmT59kT-iYItQTcYv2Pww&utm_content=234308426&utm_source=hs_email.
6. https://www.supercentenarians.org/en/.
7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/06/28/new-study-questions-a-limit-to-the-human-life-span/.
8. https://news.berkeley.edu/2018/06/28/supercentenarians/.
9. Ibid.
10. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/life-insurance-alternatives_b_7832936.
11. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/life-insurance/how-it-works/.
12. https://www.limra.com/en/research/research-abstracts-public/2022/2022-insurance-barometer/.
13. https://www.lifeinsure.com/life-insurance-awareness-and-your-loved-ones/.
14. “Young At Heart” lyrics © June’s Tunes Ltd. Partnership, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
15. Ibid.

“Generally, a fall of fifty feet or more will kill almost anyone.” This is what my rappelling instructor told me. Although I had been a rock climber since I was a young adult, I was in my mid-forties when I began rappelling. Together with good friends I rappelled off cliffs and even buildings. I actually was able to participate in a seasonal event associated with the Christmas holiday in downtown Cincinnati by rappelling off a building with others dressed as Santa, Reindeer, and an Elf.

Although my rappel master specified fifty feet, tree arborists cite thirty feet as the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most people who fall from thirty feet or higher die. Even if you land on your feet and have the leg strength to soak up the force of the landing, you are still going to break bones or suffer internal injuries.

According to the World Health Organization, “Globally, falls are a major public health problem. An estimated 684,000 fatal falls occur each year, making it the second leading cause of unintentional injury death, after road traffic injuries.”¹

Gravity causes any object in free fall to accelerate. The standard value is 980.665 centimeters per second per second (so-called “g force”). Acceleration increases proportional to the square root of the height of the fall, but directly proportional to time. If you fall for one second you reach the speed of 32 feet per second. If you fall for two seconds your acceleration will reach 64 feet per second.

As you are falling it is gravity that causes your acceleration to go faster and faster the longer you fall. Once you have fallen approximately 450 meters you have reached terminal velocity. This means you will not fall any faster. Any height above 450 meters means your survivability is unaltered. Rock climbers know that once you get over a certain height, you’re not going to survive a fall anyway. (This, strangely, gives them courage.)

Point: Fifty feet is the “red line” of falling. One reason for this is the design of our bodies. We are built top heavy. At a certain height, we will end up landing upside down. On our heads.
Application: Climbers use unusual caution when operating at heights above fifty feet. Climbers often use a top rope. Rappelers double- and triple-check harnesses.

Red Line
We use the term “red line” when describing behavior that has become unacceptable. Additionally, a “red line” is the “fastest, farthest, or highest point or degree considered safe.”² Beyond the red line, it is hard to recover.

For life on planet earth, there are red lines in every direction, and for all activities. Consider the National Football League (NFL). When a game comes down to the last two minutes, there is a differential in team scores that presents a red line.

On November 27, 1966, the Washington Redskins scored 72 points versus the Giants. That is the most points scored by any team in NFL history. But it took them four quarters of play (sixty minutes) to achieve that score.

On December 8, 2013, however, the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Ravens met in Baltimore and played an amazing game in snow and cold. With two minutes and five seconds to go, Minnesota was leading Baltimore 12 to 7. The two teams combined for over 20 points in the final two minutes of regulation and scored five touchdowns in the last two minutes and five seconds! There were six lead changes in the fourth quarter. In one of the craziest finishes in NFL history, Baltimore would defeat Minnesota by the score of 29-26.

Point: The red line in the NFL for overcoming a point deficit in the last two minutes of a game is two touchdowns. Rarely can a team score 14 points more than their opponent in the last two minutes of regulation.

Application: Anticipating that they might find themselves behind in the score near the end of a game, NFL teams practice the two-minute drill. They become more aggressive in their play calling. They make better use of the clock. They use the sidelines. They increase the tempo of play. They deploy rarely used onside kicks and trick plays.

Red Lines in Financial Services
In financial services we work with people and their money. Because time is fleeting, and money is finite, red lines arise in many situations.

Red Line Example #1, Pre-Retirement Period
The transition from earning an income (and setting aside savings and investments) to drawing an income from accumulated net worth is a major change. For all people invested in the markets, a crash is an emotionally stressful event. This is particularly true for retirees and pre-retirees.

For anyone soon to retire, a prolonged stock market downturn could affect their retirement plans. A person’s investment portfolio tends to be largest near retirement, in anticipation of drawing down income. If retirement income is dependent on taking withdrawals from a stock portfolio (within an IRA, 401k, or other qualified plan), and the market suffers a downturn, the prospective retiree faces two consequences:

1. When stock prices are low, more shares must be sold in order to generate the same amount of income anticipated before the downturn.
2. Selling stocks in the portfolio in a bad market can permanently undermine the ability to participate in market rebounds.

Volatility is when markets go up and down over time. For younger investors, market volatility is a nuisance. For someone about to retire, or newly retired, volatility can be very damaging to the plans for sustainable income.

Between October, 2007, and November, 2008, the Dow Jones lost more than 40 percent. Assets in defined contribution plans and IRAs lost about 30 percent of their value in that same period. If left untouched by withdrawals, those funds recovered over the next few years. These eventual gains were available to pre-retirees who continued to work longer than they had intended, reduced their spending, or had other sources of income that allowed them to postpone taking withdrawals.

The red line for pre-retirees is the amount of income they can derive from other assets (cash, etc.) if the value of their securities declines due to a market adjustment.

The best way to avoid selling price-depressed assets is to prepare in advance. Knowing that the invested assets will be needed soon for income, it is wise to hold “the equivalent of at least a year’s worth of anticipated withdrawals in cash investments—such as checking or savings accounts, money market funds or certificates of deposit (CDs)—with another two to four years’ worth in relatively liquid, conservative investments such as short-term Treasuries and other high-quality bonds or short-term bond funds.”³

“A four-year cushion should be enough to help you manage your risk in most bear markets. According to research by the Schwab Center for Financial Research, from the 1960s through 2021, the average peak-to-peak recovery time for a diversified index of stocks in bear markets was about three and a half years.”⁴

Point: The five years prior to retirement are the equivalent of the final two minutes in a football game. Just as it is improbable for an NFL team to overcome a two-touchdown deficit in the last two minutes, it is extremely difficult for someone to regain the growth curve of an asset portfolio if the market suffers a downturn in the few years leading up to retirement.

Applications:

• Clients need to prepare for market downturns in the years leading up to retirement by accumulating one to four years’ worth of income in conservative, liquid, safe, cash-like accounts.
• Some independent financial professionals (IFPs) urge their clients to deploy an Age-Based Asset Allocation model based on the fact that a person’s age dictates the amount of risk that is reasonable to take on. One model subtracts the person’s age from 100 and the result is the percentage of stock that person should retain in the portfolio. Someone age 40 should have 60 percent invested in stocks. Conversely, someone age 60 should have 40 percent invested in stocks. Preservation of capital replaces risk tolerance as the objective.

Red Line Example #2, The Retirement Years
Many people who retire are unaware of the risk that can steal huge amounts of potential income. This is the “sequence of returns” risk.

Down markets can pose significant sequence of returns risk in the early years of retirement. The risk has to do with the order, or sequence, of stock returns over time, combined with investment portfolio withdrawals, and the impact on the retirement savings.

Here’s how a sequence of returns risk can impact retirement savings: Say a person retires at age 65 with $1 million invested in stocks and securities with the goal of withdrawing $40,000 each year. If at the outset of this person’s retirement the portfolio is subject to a bear market, and loses 30 percent of its value, more shares of stock than anticipated will need to be sold in order for the $40,000 income goal to be achieved. Also, when the market rebounds, the sold shares are gone and no future gain is available.

However, if the order of yearly returns is reversed and the bear market happens much later, toward the end of the person’s life, the downturn might be offset by growth of the portfolio’s value in the intervening years.

The red line for retirees is not the specific returns over time but the order of those returns.

Point: IFPs must help their clients prepare for retirement in more ways than just accumulating necessary funds. They must also help clients plan for withdrawing funds from other sources in down markets.

Applications:

IFPs can help their clients combat the sequence of returns risk in these ways:

1. First, by urging clients to spend more conservatively during down markets because the less they have to withdraw the less the impact on the portfolio overall.
2. Second, IFPs can recommend products like permanent life insurance which build tax-deferred cash values that avail the policyowner the ability to withdraw funds that are potentially income-tax-free so that, in down market years, the retirement investments are not sold at decreased prices and can rebound as the markets recover.
3. Third, the IFP can make sure clients know where they stand in terms of retirement income readiness, and therefore give clients some control over the date of their retirement.
4. The IFP can urge clients to factor in withdrawal sequencing with their Social Security start date.

Summary
A red line is the fastest, farthest, or highest point or degree considered safe, beyond which it is hard to recover.

Red line injuries from falling cannot be blamed on gravity. Injuries arise from lack of caution and the failure to invest time and effort in proper preparation.

NFL teams that find themselves losing by more than two touchdowns (the red line) in the final two minutes of regulation cannot always overcome the failures of the previous 58 minutes of play.

Red lines face us in every aspect of life, including in our financial lives.

The IFP serves best when clients know what to do, if and when a market crash happens, either in the pre-retirement years or during retirement. Market corrections often force investors to sell securities that have lost significant value, and the impact on long-term growth snowballs.

IFPs can help clients protect themselves and their money by preparing a rational, well documented plan. The plan should specify, in advance, exactly what the client will do if a market downturn happens. Market corrections are emotional and stressful events. The hardest part of a market crash is sticking to the plan and not selling in a panic.

Clients who sell their stocks at a market low cannot recover. If a plan is in place that anticipates a downturn, and the clients hold onto price-depressed securities, these securities will likely regain their pre-crash positions.

Albert Einstein wrote, “You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.”

Similarly, you cannot blame market downturns for failure to plan. IFPs can help their clients plan and prepare for the red line risks of pre-retirement, or mid-retirement, market crashes.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/falls.
2. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redline.
3. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/a-lasting-market-downturn-can-be-big-risk-early-in-your-retirement.html.
4. https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/market-volatility-retirement-what-if-you-havent-prepared.

I recently spent three weeks in Poland doing what I feel called to do these days. I traveled with two teammates named Rich and Joan (a delightful married couple). We conducted three nightly seminars each week on the subject of Emotional Intelligence. Our audience was comprised of university students from multiple universities in three different cities. We spent the daytime hours meeting with individual students for mentoring. Our purpose in traveling to other countries is to use what God has given us (our experience, training, wisdom from our lives and careers) to encourage university students to use what God has given them, so they can, in turn, make a positive impact on other people.

We started in Poznan, ended in Warsaw, and in the middle week, found ourselves in Krakow. There we stayed in a boutique hotel named “Amber.” At the front desk we received a guide meant to help us pronounce Polish phrases that we may want to use in our encounters with native speakers.

Sadly, we did not find the guide to be all that useful. Consider the examples shown in Table 1.

We had nothing. Our tongues and lips locked up like we had mouthfuls of peanut butter.

The guide is intended to address the needs of a traveler, someone who does not speak the language. The guide is designed to somehow help travelers use a few expressions to better navigate their unusual surroundings. It is not altogether successful.

This experience caused me to reflect on the language we use in independent distribution and financial services, and in life insurance specifically. The people we serve are often experiencing traumatic changes and stressful financial fluctuations. How well does our lexicon meet their needs?

Point: At a time when the industry is marketing complex products with opaque and technical features, it behooves the independent financial professional to use great care to use the right words in all communications.

Where there is ambiguity, or when the information is stated in terms that people generally do not use, the opportunity for misunderstanding increases. For example, today’s indexed universal life policies are steeped in words, phrases, and terms that individually confuse the reader and, when considered in combination, utterly baffle the mind.

This hard-to-understand terminology invites distrust. This opens the door to commentaries and articles stating such things as, “Critics say indexed universal life insurance is being sold dishonestly.”¹

Life insurance at its very core comes to life when people come to the end of theirs. The good of life insurance enters into grief.

Question: In the life insurance industry, are we providing clear guidance, sharing useful, understandable words, and giving people the ability to navigate the strange world of grief?

Grief
The writer C.S. Lewis (born November 29, 1898; died November 22, 1963) spent most of his adult life as a bachelor. In 1956 he married an American writer named Joy Davidman. Tragically, she died of cancer four years later at the age of 45. Lewis, a deeply respected thinker, philosopher, theologian, and author of nearly three dozen books, found himself without words, without answers.

To help himself sort out the confusion of emotions, doubts, and lost direction, he kept a journal that became a book entitled, “A Grief Observed.”

Here is how the book begins:

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”²

Point: When a life insurance death benefit is paid, the money slides in under an invisible blanket separating the deceased’s family from the world. The death proceeds land in the world of grief.

Personal Pain of Grief
Lewis died one week before his 65th birthday. My own father died one week before his 67th birthday.

It was a little after 8:00 AM on Monday, November 15, 1993, and I was sitting in a conference room with all the other executives of Manhattan National Life. We were about to begin an all-day planning session to choose our strategies for 1994. My assistant, Becky, opened the door, apologized for interrupting, and came to me and whispered in my ear, “Dave, Di is on the phone. You need to take her call.”

My wife let me know that my Dad had unexpectedly died overnight. I informed my colleagues and headed home from downtown Cincinnati. I went directly to Spring Grove Cemetery. Designated as a National Historic Landmark, Spring Grove is very much like a park with over 700 acres of trees and flowers. There among the headstones I wept like never before. Every one of those graves held the remains of people who left grieving loved ones behind. I was not experiencing anything new. But it was new to me.

Lewis: “The death of a beloved is an amputation.”³

My Dad died whole in all his relationships. He and I knew we loved one another and there was nothing that needed to be said or forgiven. Yet, suddenly, the familial appendage known as “Dad” was gone from this world, from my life.

In A Word
Those of us in the life insurance industry should pay attention to the words we use to describe our products and our processes.

Consider the following examples:

Beneficiary
It is easy to find a dictionary definition or legal description of this word.

A beneficiary is a natural person or other legal entity who receives money or other benefits from a benefactor. A beneficiary is the person or entity chosen by the deceased to receive the benefits from the decedent’s life insurance coverage.

Beyond its definition, we have the opportunity to incorporate the truer essence of the word in our usage.

To be a beneficiary, then, is to be lovingly selected, and generously designated to receive valuable benefits. A beneficiary is the target of the intentions and affections of the deceased.

Point: Every independent financial professional should take great care in explaining the beautiful essence of the relationship between the policyholder and the beneficiary.

Claims
The word “claim” has many different uses. It can refer to property, to rights, or to something set aside for another. Alternatively, a claim can take on a negative connotation and mean “an assertion,” or even “allegation.” Independent financial professionals can help grieving families by stating the word “claim” in the positive sense of seeking what is due or securing a privilege or what is rightfully theirs.

“The loss of a loved one is devastating, and the life insurance claim process may only add to that feeling of grief and finality. But try to take solace in knowing that your departed loved one had a life insurance policy to help you during this difficult time.”⁴

Beyond the Words
Not only do life insurance products achieve their purpose when an insured dies, the independent financial professional can also.

Because life insurance companies are not tracking every insured to see if they are still living, the deceased’s family or surviving business partners must notify the company when the policyholder dies. The process is called filing a claim. And the assistance of an independent financial professional can prove invaluable.

It all begins with two key steps:

1. Finding the life insurance policies that the deceased owned.
2. Procuring multiple certified death certificates.

Researching Policies
Occasionally people own life insurance policies but their own families are not made aware of their existence. Or, if they are, they cannot find the policies or any information. If the family or surviving business partners believe such life insurance policies existed, but do not know which companies issued the coverage, a seasoned independent financial professional knows that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has created a Life Insurance Policy Locator.

The NAIC Life Policy Locator can assist consumers in locating life insurance policies and annuity contracts of a deceased family member or close relationship.

The Web Site is: https://eapps.naic.org/life-policy-locator/#/welcome.

The member companies will search their records to determine whether they have life policies or annuity contracts owned by the deceased. If found, these companies will contact the surviving family or business partners but only if they are the designated beneficiary or authorized legal representative.

Here are other ways that helpful independent financial professionals can guide the surviving family/business partners in their search for policies:

• Look through the decedent’s records, files, and safety deposit box.
• Contact the decedent’s previous employer to discover if the person may have been a certificate holder of an employer-provided group life policy.
• Review bank account statements to see if payment was being made to a life insurance company.
• Ask the decedent’s auto or home insurance agents if they had helped the decedent purchase life insurance through them.

Note: If you are an independent financial professional, remind all your clients who own life insurance to let their beneficiaries know that the life insurance policies exist. Otherwise, the beneficiaries won’t know they’re owed a death benefit. They will not know the loving intentions behind the policies.

Retrieving Death Certificates
A certified death certificate is needed to file a life insurance claim. A surviving family member or business partner can usually get a certified death certificate from a state/local health department. Many other financial institutions will also request certified death certificates.

To the family left behind, the death certificate is something that makes the loss very real and, suddenly, official.

I remember a financial advisor telling me that my own mother’s death certificate was actually a Certificate of Merit indicating that she had lived well and successfully passed through this world and was on her way to the next (and better) world.

Submitting the Claim
In addition to the death certificate, the deceased’s family will need other information, including:

• Name of insured
• Date of death
• Cause of death
• Place of death
• The claimant’s name

All this will be submitted to the life insurance company that will review the claim.

Again, these can be viewed as the following:

• The name of the deceased competitor
• The location of the finish line
• The time the race was completed
• The name(s) of the people who cheered the competitor all along

Summary
It is a privilege to develop and distribute financial products that translate good intentions into concrete acts of love. The financial services industry, and the life insurance industry in particular, facilitate the fulfillment of dreams that continue after we are gone.

Life Happens describes it this way: “The main reason to buy life insurance is because you love people and want to protect them financially.”⁵

Helping people purchase life insurance is an honorable mission. It is, however, only half-way to completion. Being there, serving the surviving family members and business partners, entering into their world of grief—that is the second half, and perhaps most important phase, of the mission.

The point of this article is simply to remind those of us involved in this meaningful industry that we need to take great care to use the right words when the promise of life insurance is fulfilled.

C.S. Lewis was torn on whether or not he wanted people to speak to him in his time of grief. “I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not. I hate if they do, and if they don’t.”⁶

In our business, we must show up, and we must be prepared to say the right things.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/life-insurance/indexed-universal-life-insurance-problems/.
2. “A Grief Observed,” by C.S. Lewis, N.W. Clerk publisher, 1961.
3. Ibid.
4. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/life-insurance/how-to-make-claim/.
5. https://lifehappens.org/about/campaigns/.
6. “A Grief Observed,” by C.S. Lewis, N.W. Clerk publisher, 1961.

As a child, I was always threatened by Christmas. Santa is described by these frightening lines in the Christmas song:

He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness’ sake!

And the moral? “So! You better watch out!”

Over my career in financial services, I often wondered if I were in fact doing “good for goodness’ sake.” Or, to be honest, doing good for my good. For mere personal gain. To receive acclamation.

Ethics in Financial Services
A sound measure of goodness is ethics.

In 2014 the Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and Securities Commission of Malaysia (SC) announced the formation of the Financial Services Professional Board (FSPB). The objective of the FSPB was to “drive the development and harmonization of professional standards across the banking and insurance industry, Islamic finance and capital markets, working closely with regulators and the professional bodies within the financial services sector.”¹

The financial services industry plays a central role in any economy. This is why, in 2018, the FSPB established the Professional Code for the International Financial Services Industry; basically, a shared commitment to a common set of values, designed to engender trust in the financial industry.

On May 24, 2018, Ms. Jessica Chew Cheng Lian, deputy governor of the Central Bank of Malaysia (Bank Negara Malaysia), gave the Welcome Address at the convention where the new FSPB Professional Code was launched. In her remarks she said:

“There is an acknowledgement that behavior is ultimately regulated by something that runs deeper than rulebooks. It is not an easy thing to put your finger on. Regulators have talked about ‘the way things get done’ in an institution, or ‘the human element in everyday decisions.’ We like to think of it as how one behaves when no one is watching.”²

Everyone, that is, including Santa.

Trust Is Rooted in Ethics
Here are the five principles contained in the Code of Ethics for The Financial Services Industry:

• Principle 1: Competence “Individuals across the financial services industry shall develop and maintain the relevant knowledge, skills and behavior to ensure that their activities are conducted professionally and proficiently. This includes acting with diligence, as well as obtaining, and regularly updating, the appropriate qualifications, training, expertise, and practical experience.”³
• Principle 2: Integrity “Organizations and individuals acrossthe financial services industry shall be honest and open in all their dealings. This includes behaving in an accountable and trustworthy manner, and avoiding any acts that might damage the reputation of, or bring discredit to, the industry at any time.”⁴
• Principle 3: Fairness “Organizations and individuals across the financial services industry shall act responsibly and embrace a culture of fairness and transparency. This includes treating those with whom they have professional relationships with respect and ensuring that they consider the impact of their decisions and actions towards all stakeholders.”⁵
• Principle 4: Confidentiality “Organizations and individuals across the financial services industry shall protect the confidentiality and sensitivity of information provided to them. This includes using it for its intended purposes only and not divulging information to any unauthorized persons, including third parties, without the necessary consent from those involved unless disclosure is required by law or regulation.”⁶
• Principle 5: Objectivity “Organizations and individuals across the financial services industry shall not allow any conflict of interest, bias, or undue influence of others to override their business and professional judgment. They shall declare, to those concerned, all matters that could impair their objectivity.”⁷

This is a good list. Santa would be pleased if all of us in the financial services industry, especially independent distribution, acted accordingly.

Point: In independent distribution we need to act ethically in order to strengthen the trust others place in us.

More than Ethics
On April 14, 1939, John Steinbeck published his novel The Grapes of Wrath. It had staggering success. Steinbeck wrote the 619-page novel in longhand, in a mere five months. His wife, Carol, prepared the typed manuscript. The book sold over 400,000 copies in its first year of publication. In its review, The New York Times wrote, The Grapes of Wrath is “a magnificent novel of America.” Because of the novel’s success and influence, Steinbeck received the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1940.

Back then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column, entitled “‘My Day,” which ran six days a week. In her column she wrote: “Now I must tell you that I have just finished a book which is an unforgettable experience in reading. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck both repels and attracts you. The horrors of the picture, so well-drawn, make you dread sometimes to begin the next chapter, and yet you cannot lay the book down or even skip a page.”⁸

In fact, the First Lady traveled to California to see for herself the living conditions at the labor camps that Steinbeck described. The Grapes of Wrath, and Ms. Roosevelt’s support, led to Congressional hearings about labor law reforms and wage regulation.

Steinbeck’s wife Carol not only typed the novel, but she also suggested the title. The Grapes of Wrath comes from the opening lines of Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic, published in 1862:

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.”

Ms. Howe and her husband visited Washington, D.C. in November 1861. While there, Howe heard Union troops singing a marching song called John Brown’s Body, a song that glorified the abolitionist John Brown, a man who was convicted and hanged for murdering a family of planters, and for killing a group of U.S. Army soldiers at Harpers Ferry.

While Howe and her husband were both strong anti-slavery activists, there was something distasteful about heartily praising a murderer in song.

Howe wrote the new lyrics to the same tune the very next day. She took dead aim at slavery. One verse of the hymn includes the words “let us die to make men free.” This is a call to fight to end slavery.

After she had written the lyrics, Howe wrote in her diary that “something of importance” just took place. In fact, her poem and the popular tune became an important part of American culture. Battle Hymn of the Republic was sung at the funerals of Winston Churchill, Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. In 1963 Judy Garland sang it on national television in honor of John F. Kennedy. More recently, it was performed at the memorial services for the victims of 9/11 and at President Obama’s second Inaugural Address.

Point: Today we easily embrace ethical behavior, and we all roundly agree with ending slavery. Santa, again, would be pleased.

Grace that Runs Deeper than Rulebooks
But wait.

One might ask why Carol Steinbeck chose Battle Hymn of the Republic as the source of her husband’s book title.

Carol Steinbeck chose Battle Hymn of the Republic as the source of the title for her husband’s novel because, like Howe’s lyrics, The Grapes of Wrath tackles a huge social ill—the maltreatment of immigrants and the poor.

In the 1930’s, the Dust Bowl created intolerable living conditions for over a million people living in the Central Plains who migrated west to find work and establish life in places like California’s Central Valley. For many, the only choice they had was to leave, and they found themselves on Route 66 headed to California.

Once these throngs of impoverished people arrived, tensions ran hot between the migrant population and the established merchants, landowners, and middle class of the western states. There is a huge divide between ownership and aspiration.

Steinbeck: “The quality of owning freezes you forever in ‘I,’ and cuts you off forever from the ‘we.’”⁹

Greed and generosity are competing forces in the novel. Steinbeck portrays self-interest and altruism as equal and opposite powers. The rich are depicted as greedy, and the poor are presented as generous. The landowners and businessmen are blamed for upholding a system that keeps the poor families in poverty. The people in power kept prices controlled in order to increase profits. The employers created extreme competition for good-paying jobs in order to keep wages low.

The majority of people already living in the western states felt fear and anxiety as these hordes of people came looking for assistance and opportunities.

Every now and then Steinbeck describes the acts of kindness offered by ordinary people seeing the needs of others and feeling empathy. Acts of grace.

Point: There is something beyond ethical behavior. It is called grace.

There is an unfamiliar line in Battle Hymn of the Republic which states that to the extent that you fight slavery and its proponents, “so with you My grace shall deal.”

Independent Distribution and Immigration
In the United States we all see the spiraling immigration problem. Countless people are streaming across our borders. It will require the strength and wisdom of political leaders and other decision-makers to resolve the myriad issues involved with immigration. It is massively beyond anything we can address here.

However, the reality cannot be escaped that millions of migrating people are living within our borders, and they, like Steinbeck’s “Okies,” have traveled hard roads and are seeking to find work, settle into communities, and raise families. They are a challenge wherever they settle, but tensions, anxieties and fear ought not to preclude independent life insurance distribution from addressing the needs for our products that these newcomers have.

Let’s return to the words of Ms. Jessica Chew Cheng Lian.

• Something that runs deeper than rulebooks
• Something not easy to put your finger on
• The human element in everyday decisions

Deeper than Rulebooks
According to the ACLI: “Life insurers provide jobs, protect American families, and invest in the economy. 90 million American families count on life insurers’ products for protection, long term savings, and a guarantee of lifetime income when it’s time to retire. Given today’s economic uncertainties, the financial and retirement security these products provide has never been more important.”¹⁰

In 2022 Forbes Advisor conducted a survey on life insurance.11 It includes some interesting findings:

• Fewer than half of people without life insurance surveyed in this study say they feel financially secure.
• 44 percent of American households would encounter significant financial difficulties within half a year if they lost the primary wage earner in the family, and 28 percent would reach this point in only a month.
• 106 million American documented and naturalized adults do not believe they have adequate life insurance coverage, according to the 2022 Insurance Barometer Study conducted by LIMRA and Life Happens.¹²

Imagine what the statistics would be for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. They also have to worry about taking care of their families after their deaths.

Immigrants have the same needs for life insurance as U.S. citizens:

• Income replacement
• College funding for dependents
• Debt cancellation

(Note: Purchasing life insurance is not illegal for an undocumented immigrant.)

Point: Undocumented persons are as much in need, if not more so, for the products offered by the life insurance industry.

Something Not Easy to Put Your Finger On
But can they actually acquire coverage? Are they excluded by the rulebooks?

Without proper paperwork and documentation, just about everything an undocumented immigrant does in the United States will be more difficult.

Life insurance offers many benefits to immigrant policy owners and their beneficiaries regardless of their citizen status. Life insurance rates are not impacted by immigration status. However, finding life insurance is not easy for people who are not U.S. citizens. Citizenship status will influence which life insurance companies will be able to provide coverage and what further information is required to acquire a policy.

Undocumented immigrants living in the United States do not have Social Security numbers. They do not have U.S. citizenship. How, then, can they apply for life insurance?
(Note: People entering the United States illegally, with no documentation whatsoever, are not able to get life insurance.)

Undocumented immigrants can use a tax identification number (ITIN) to apply for life insurance policies. (With numerous carriers.) An ITIN is issued by the IRS. With it, immigrants can open a bank account, file taxes, and purchase life insurance. An ITIN is not contingent upon citizenship, and life insurance companies normally do not ask any questions about a proposed insured’s immigration status. The ITIN is not an indication that a person is an undocumented immigrant. Many foreign nationals and other legal, non-U.S. residents utilize an ITIN. Using their ITINs, life insurance companies will search the immigrant’s medical history and review their background for criminal activity.

These are extremely useful documents for immigrants applying for life insurance:

• A valid driver’s license
• Documentation of the last-seen doctor visit
• Employment history and paycheck records
• A current, valid passport from the home country
• Other requirements:
• Must reside in the United States and provide an address
• Have a U.S. bank account

Life insurance company underwriters consider and approve undocumented immigrants based on:

• MIB
• Driving records
• Prescription drug history
• Health history
• Working status
• Lifestyle situations such as credit history
• Insurable need

While Federal law protects life insurance beneficiaries, and undocumented immigrants can receive death benefits from life insurance policies regardless of immigration status, certain government agencies may intervene due to immigration status.

Point: With special attention given to non-citizen status, immigrant persons can qualify for life insurance policies with some documentation.

The Human Element in Everyday Decisions
Undocumented immigrants are especially at risk if a spouse or partner dies unexpectedly. Typically, very few extended family members live nearby to help the deceased’s immediate family.

In addition, because they are just getting started in the United States, they generally do not have adequate financial reserves should an emergency happen.

Most immigrants are willing and able to pay one or two dollars per day for life insurance to help their surviving family and loved ones should they die. Life insurance is an important financial safety net for both U.S. citizens and immigrants to the United States.

Question: As an independent financial professional, are you open to helping people (who are technically illegal immigrants) in their pursuit to provide their families and loved ones with financial security through life insurance?

Application:

• How can you broaden your activities and offerings to attract and serve the immigrant population?
• Are your services discoverable by immigrant people living within your same geographic area?
• Are you willing to expand your marketing to cross language barriers and socio-economic differences?
• How can you enhance your networks by working cooperatively with agencies serving immigrants, with English as a second language services, and other organizations aligned with the concern for the present and future of these recently arrived families?
• What can you do to tailor your processes so that you serve this imperiled population?

Summary
Even children who came across America’s southern border illegally hope for Santa to find them. Santa is no respecter of borders. Nor does he inspect citizenship documentation.

Can we as an industry rise above politics, cross cultural barriers, and do what only we can do—provide financial security needed to anticipate the unexpected occurrences of death and disability?

Steinbeck: “Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, and emerges ahead of his accomplishments.”¹³
With grace as our motivation, let us walk up the stairs of the concepts that make our industry great!

Footnotes:

1. https://www.bnm.gov.my/-/announcement-on-the-formation-of-the-financial-services-professional-board-and-the-appointment-of-its-chairman-and-board-members.
2. https://www.bis.org/review/r180613c.htm.
3. https://www.maybank.com/iwov-resources/corporate_new/document/my/en/pdf/FSPB_Code_of_Ethics_PartA_B.pdf.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2020/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-grapes-wrath.
9. “The Grapes of Wrath.” John Steinbeck, The Viking Press-James Lloyd, April 14, 1939.
10. https://www.acli.com/About-ACLI/Learn-More-About-the-Life-Insurance-Industry.
11. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/life-insurance/life-insurance-statistics/.
12. Life Happens: 2022 Insurance Barometer Study.
13. “The Grapes of Wrath.” John Steinbeck, The Viking Press-James Lloyd, April 14, 1939.

“Pretend you are driving a car in the middle of a thunderstorm, and you happen upon three people on the side of the road. One of them is a frail old woman, who looks on the verge of collapse. Another is a friend who once saved your life. The other is the romantic interest of your dreams, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet him or her. You have only one other seat in the car. Who do you pick up? There’s a good reason to choose any of the three. The old woman needs help. The friend deserves your payback. And clearly, a happy future with the man or woman of your dreams will have an enormous long-term impact on your life. So, who should you pick? The old woman, of course. Then, give the car keys to your friend, and stay behind with the romantic interest to wait for the bus!”¹

We are all individually surrounded by people we can help, people who can help us specifically, or people who we know could benefit from meeting someone else we know. Our success in life depends on how well we build relationships, and the extent to which we establish reputations for making other peoples’ lives better.

In this article I am simply attempting to expand our appreciation for the art of networking.

Networking, defined: “Networking is the exchange of information and ideas among people with a common profession or special interest, usually in an informal social setting.”²

Throughout my career I have regularly attended networking events. Initially, I viewed this as my best way to let people know that I existed and what it was I did for a living. (Notice the ridiculous hero of that sentence: I, my, I, I.) As I matured, the idea of networking transformed into more of a means of meeting influential people. Later on, the approach I took in networking was to discover who in my relationship circles could prove helpful to people pursuing their dreams.

My ultimate networking goal: To make connections between people who had needs and those who could meet those needs.

Frail Old Woman
In the story above, told by Shane Snow, there is a category of person who we can help, who, in return, can literally do nothing to further our own success. We all have a natural human tendency to act mainly out of self-interest. Those of us who lead organizations (for-profit, or non-profit) generally seek to build relationships with people who can help our organizations in some way.

Someone once said, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”³ Imagine seeking to serve people and extend hospitality to them, not because of what’s in it for us, but because of what’s in it for them.

Personal Illustration #1
I had an appointment in downtown Cincinnati. Traffic was slower and heavier than usual because of a downpour of rain. The interstate had three lanes of traffic moving toward town. I was in the middle lane about to merge into the right lane in order to exit. That is when I spotted a car parked ahead on the right berm, and the woman standing and looking at her car’s flat tire. Standing in pouring rain.

I had a decision to make. I was running late to an appointment with a highly influential and wealthy prospect. This was before I carried a cell phone. It was not possible for me to alert the prospect concerning the delay. Yet, here was someone in dire need. What to do. I pulled off the highway, stopped my car, and walked back to the woman. I urged her to get into her car and out of the rain. I wore a white dress shirt, tie, suit pants and good shoes. It took me about 15-20 minutes to jack up her car, replace the tire, and load the damaged tire into her trunk. Off she went. I walked back to my car.

I drove into the city, valet parked my car at a hotel near the offices of my prospect, found a public bathroom, cleaned the black tire smudges off my arms and hands, straightened my wet tie, dried my shoes, donned my dry jacket, and took the elevator up to the offices where I was now thirty minutes late. My only thought: “I blew this one. No chance he is ever going to meet with me, a life insurance agent, after being thirty minutes late without notification.”

The elevator arrived at his floor and the doors opened into an open reception area. The man’s name was there on the wood paneled wall in large letters above a wide desk where a woman sat ready to receive guests. The woman sitting there was–guess who–the same woman I had helped.

Yes! The appointment could not have gone better!

Point: When we serve someone who cannot benefit us in any way, we are providing the highest level of service we can. Maybe, just maybe, we might be blessed precisely because they cannot repay us.

A Friend Who Once Saved Your Life
All of us have achieved our success, in part, due to the actions and influences of other people. Rarely has the other person actually saved our life. They most certainly helped us move up, advance forward, expand our reach, or achieve the next level.

In an article for “Investopedia” written by Julia Kagan and published in June 2022, Ms. Kagan wrote:

“Once you join a networking group, it’s important to become a contributing member. Rather than just using the association to further their own goals, people who use networking effectively look to offer something of value to other group members.”⁴

How can we benefit others or add value?

Consider these examples:

• Help others to widen their circles of acquaintances.
• Help people discover fresh opportunities.
• Help people increase their awareness of news and trends in their fields.

Point: What we have we did not create except through the combined efforts of many other people. What we have is intended to be shared.

Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity
In the mid 1990’s, American television host, Jimmy Fallon, was a Computer Science major at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. While a student there he obsessed about the comedy industry and occasionally performed comedy at small clubs. Fallon sent an audition tape to a former boss named Peter Iselin. Mr. Iselin passed on Fallon’s tape to an entertainment agent named Randi Siegel working in Los Angeles. Ms. Siegel had connections to “Saturday Night Live” and worked with clients like David Spade and Adam Sandler.

Although she found Fallon’s tape to be charmingly amateur, Ms. Siegel called him. To her amazement, Fallon knew who she was. (He was a student of the comedic industry.)
“He was so dead-set on joining SNL that he dropped out of school one semester shy of graduating.”⁵

Fallon bombed his first audition at SNL. He was able to eventually get a second audition. He was hired as a cast member in 1998.

Randi Siegel handed Jimmy Fallon a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Point: We may be the one who can offer someone else a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Just as possible, someone we meet just may be able to introduce us to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If we are willing to be generous and open handed with our relationships many of us can end up being the person in the middle and simply connect one person with a dream to another person who can help bring the dream closer. (Like Peter Iselin in Fallon’s story.)

Personal Illustration #2
I have two friends who like the same kinds of experiences and adventures that I do. Recently we discovered that a coming Friday was wide open on each of our calendars. We met mid-morning and headed to downtown Hamilton, Ohio.

Our first stop was at a women’s health facility called “Pathway to Hope.” We knew people who volunteered there and wanted to see firsthand what it was like and gain an understanding of the services they offered. The director gave us a personal tour. We made two networking accomplishments there:

1. The hallway walls were barren of artwork. One of the three of us is an artist/photographer. He volunteered to donate several framed pieces of his work as gifts to be hung on the blank walls.
2. The facility shared the space with another organization that was moving to new headquarters. They were leaving behind bulky wood furniture that must be removed. We three have a friend that takes unused, unwanted old wood furniture and turns it into new, highly utilitarian pieces. We took photos and texted them to our friend who expressed interest in taking the pieces off their hands. For free.

Our second visit was to a one-room museum dedicated to honoring the children’s book writer and illustrator, Robert McCloskey. Mr. McCloskey was born and raised in Hamilton. He was famous for his book Make Way for Ducklings, published in 1941. He received two Caldecott Medals from the American Library Association, and the U.S. Library of Congress named McCloskey a “Living Legend” in 2000.

The curator of the museum is an older man named Jim Schwartz, and he was very generous with his time and answered our questions. We came to find out that Mr. Schwartz had other interests. He wrote three books about an important Ohio manufacturing company named Cincinnati Milacron, and biographies of its founder (Frederick A. Geier) and the founder’s heir and successor.

The three of us jumped into networking gear! We happen to know a man who built and sold a highly successful machine tool company and who has a personal museum of historic Cincinnati Milacron machines. He is a fanatic about the industry and Milacron’s important place in it.

We connected our friend with Jim Schwartz and came to discover that our friend owned and has read all three of the latter’s books! Both men were delighted to make one another’s acquaintance and they look forward to sharing their knowledge with one another.

Point: We run into people every day, inside and outside of our work, related or sometimes unrelated to our normal lives, and yet, in a small world, we can often make connections between new friends and those we know well.

Summary
In life and in business we cast out our nets in order to find new opportunities, to meet new people, and to increase our influence in the world. In the process we can help those who cannot return the favor, begin to repay people who have blessed us, and find ways to connect ourselves and others with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

In particular, through networking, we can:

1. Gain insights that only come from viewing a situation with fresh eyes.
2. Develop and nurture not only professional relationships, but also strong and long-standing friendships.
3. Build invaluable social skills and self-confidence.
4. Open the door to new perspectives, suggestions and guidance.
5. Create access to new and valuable information sources.
6. Help other people to receive introductions to potentially relevant people.
7. Improve our own reputations as being knowledgeable, reliable, and supportive.
8. Sow the seeds for reciprocal assistance.

After reading the above, and as an independent financial professional, how would you answer this question:

How well is your net working?

Footnotes:

1. Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success, by Shane Snow, Harper Business, September 2016, ISBN: 0062560751.
2. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/networking.asp.
3. Luke 14:12-14 (NRSV), Oxford University Press, August 15, 1991, ISBN-10:0195283805.
4. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/networking.asp.
5. https://www.businessinsider.com/jimmy-fallon-networking-key-to-success-2014-11.

Image by Paul C Lee from Pixabay

“Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or an antelope—when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”¹ —Bernd Heinrich

The greatest mistake we sometimes make in financial services is believing that our industry is about money. It is not. It is about people. Nor is economics about money. It is a social science. It studies the implications of individual human actions and collective interactions. Economics is psychology and sociology.

Point: We are first and foremost an industry comprised of people who are concerned about other people and the uncertainty in their lives.

Question: Have you ever heard someone say, “Life is a hoot,” or, “What a hoot.”

These are expressions that mean “to be fun and a good time; to be funny.”

We hear people say, “it was a hoot and a half!” In other words, “very funny!”

We are in the financial services business because, frankly, life is not always a hoot.

Learning from Owls
The animal we most often associate with a “hoot” is the owl. According to naturalist Leigh Calvez, there are 642 owl species and subspecies in the world. I just finished reading her excellent book, “The Hidden Lives of Owls.”

I enjoyed reading about and encountering several species of owls in this well-written book. It is arranged by chapters that focus on Ms. Calvez’s exploration of various ecologies by owl species, as follows: the Northern Saw-Whet Owl, Flammulated Owls, Snowy Owls, Northern Spotted Owls, Barred Owls, Northern Pigmy Owls, Long- and Short-eared Owls, Great Horned Owls, and Great Gray Owls.

Interesting Owl Facts:

• “In a single year, one Great Gray Owl may eat as many as eighteen hundred rodents.”²
• After several years of study of Long-eared Owl pellets, “ornithologist Simon Birrer revealed 477 different species of prey… including 180 small mammal species, 191 small bird species, 15 reptiles, 83 insects, seven amphibians, and one fish.”³
• Owls have fourteen vertebrae in their necks as compared to our seven, which allows them to turn their heads “270 degrees without cutting off the blood’s circulation to the brain.”⁴
• Owl eyes “are power-packed with black-and-white nerve cells, called ‘rods,’ and a tapertum lucidum–the same mirror-like structure that causes cat or deer eyes to shine in the dark. This special layer of tissue reflects light back to the rods a second time, to the point that the owl’s night time world is brightened to what we would think of as cloudy daylight conditions.”⁵
• For most owl species the female is larger than the male, a trait known as “reversed sexual size dimorphism.”⁶
• Owls have talons designed for predation. They have “two toes on each foot pointing backward, one forward, and a fourth that can move either way – an advantageous structure for forceful grasping and squeezing of prey.”⁷

Point: Owls are fierce predators equipped with everything they need for survival.

Making the Connection
You may be wondering how owls relate to financial services. Glad you asked.

Author Leigh Calvez described herself this way: “As a single mother raising a daughter, I’d fallen into wrestling with the daily struggle to get through the day rather than embracing my life.”⁸ This is why she chose to spend a year studying owls. She expected to learn about owls, and to spend time in nature but, in the end, Ms. Calvez experienced transformation.

This happened while exploring the lives of Great Gray Owls in the northeastern corner of Oregon, in a mountain range called the Blue Mountains. With the help of a retired professor from Oregon State University, named Andy Huber, Ms. Calvez found a nesting pair of Great Gray Owls. The nest was well-camouflaged in a jumbled canopy in a tall Douglas fir. The female had been sitting on a clutch of eggs for about a month. Through binoculars, Ms. Calvez looked into the yellow-eyed gaze of the mother owl. “I wondered at the maternal dedication that would allow an animal to sit almost entirely still for weeks.”⁹

The chicks hatched. The male Great Gray was responsible for catching all the prey necessary to feed the chicks and the female. There were four chicks. One fell out of the nest and the naturalists placed it on a scaffold close to the nest. Baby Great Grays grow quickly. In just three weeks they are large, gray, steady, and wing-flapping bottomless pits.

Then tragedy happened. The father owl was killed, ironically, by a Great Horned Owl.

Each baby required four or more rodents per day in their diet. The provider was now dead. After this tragedy, the mother owl sat for days in a tree removed from the nest. Her bright yellow eyes were now sullen. She made no sound. She did not respond to the cries of her hungry chicks.

The naturalists and Ms. Calvez engineered a process of supplying live mice for the mother owl to catch and feed to her young. They intervened to save the family. Where before the father played the role of provider, the naturalists now took over.

The mother owl had to adjust to the circumstances and adapt her behavior to take mice in a new and strange way. Wrote Ms. Calvez: “I admired this owl not only for her beauty and power as a predator, but for her grace and fierce determination as a mother. I’d watched as she turned to us humans, trusting us in her time of desperation to help feed her hungry family. As a single mother trying to make ends meet, I could see my own life played out in hers…I sensed the devotion she felt for her children, as I felt for my child. I felt kinship with this great gray bird.”¹⁰

Point: Human beings, like owls, assemble in families and face exposure to risks of all kinds. When tragedy happens, they will often need outside assistance to survive.

Providing and Seeing
There is an ancient Hebrew word that holds instruction for all of us in financial services: yir·’eh. It means “to provide.” Interestingly, it also means, “to see,” or “to look.” It is a term used as a name for God. It can also be used to describe us.

In the case above of the Great Gray Owl mother in need, she received provision only because someone was literally watching over her. Thankfully, through persistence and wisdom, the naturalists managed to help the mother feed her chicks after the father/provider was killed.

Point: In Financial Services, we have the opportunity to get out in front of disaster and tragedy. Our diligence must happen now, and urgently, in the process of prospecting, pursuing client relationships, and wisely presenting sound plans of protection and provision. If we are going to help families survive setbacks, we must first see them.

Application

• Look for ways to help single parents provide for their children.
• Look for potential clients who are providers for dependents.
• Help them to see the fragility of financial stability and safety that their families face.
• Present reasonable, affordable solutions to provide families with amelioration for potential tragedy.
• See the people.
• Lastly, see the owl who comes.

The Owl Who Comes¹¹ by Mary Oliver
The owl who comes
through the dark
to sit
in the black boughs of the apple tree
and stare down
the hook of his beak,
dead silent,
and his eyes,
like two moons
in the distance,
soft and shining
under their heavy lashes–
like the most beautiful life–
is thinking
of nothing
as he watches
and waits to see
what might appear,
briskly,
out of the seamless,
deep winter–
out of the teeming
world below–
and if I wish the owl luck,
and I do,
what am I wishing for that other
soft life,
climbing through the snow?
What we must do,
I suppose
is to hope the world
keeps its balance:
what we are to do, however,
with our hearts
waiting and watching–truly
I do not know.

What are we wishing for in regard to our clients who are living that soft life climbing through their days? How do we help them keep balance and equilibrium when tragedy happens? Are our hearts waiting and watching? Or, are we urgently acting and pursuing preemptive solutions?

Truly, because we do appreciate the wonder of our industry’s products, we do know what to do!

Summary
In 1850 English poet Alfred Tennyson wrote the poem, “In Memoriam.” He contrasts mankind’s faith and prayers with harsh reality. Although people have such splendid purpose in their eyes, they must contend with Creation’s final law—Nature’s “red tooth and claw.”

Our clients are in a race against forces that destroy and threaten their very lives. When the sun comes up, we’d better be running to see them before tragedy happens.

Again, Mary Oliver wrote: “Every night the owl with his wild monkey-face calls through the black branches, and the mice freeze and the rabbits shiver in the snowy fields—and then there is the long, deep trough of silence when he stops singing, and steps into the air.”

We never know whether it is sickness, disability, chronic illness, or death that is ready to step into the air and head for our clients in any given period of time.

We need to be seeing people now and proposing solutions while they are still in the “long, deep trough of silence.”

Footnotes:

1. Why We Run: A Natural History, Ecco Publishing, May 7, 2002, ISBN-10: 0060958707.
2. The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature’s Most Elusive Birds, by Leigh Calvez, Sasquatch Books; Illustrated edition (August 16, 2016), ISBN-10: 1632170256.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. http://yearsrisingmaryoliver.blogspot.com/2010/09/owl-who-comes.html.
12. New and Selected Poems, Volume One, by Mary Oliver, Beacon Press; Reprint edition (April 15, 2004), ISBN-10: 0807068772.

CaringBridge,^© a nonprofit organization, exists to help families keep their social networks informed when a family member is battling serious, life-threatening illness like cancer.

As I write this, a dear friend is battling metastatic brain cancer. His wife created a CaringBridge^© Journal to share their journey with others.

The day of the surgery to remove a large tumor on his cerebellum, my friend’s wife posted her first entry:

“As a woman, I will not question my man’s statement:

‘I didn’t lose strength; I was just weak.’

It was just so macho, in a meek way.”

The day after his surgery, she posted this:

“He said quite quietly this morning, ‘I’ve been thinking about what the doctor said—It’s going to be a long marathon. A marathon is a very long run…in a very short time. Climb each hill, some easy, some hard. That creates a whole picture. You’ve just got to pace yourself.’”

Point: A marathon is a very long run…in a very short time.

The Life Insurance Industry Is in a Marathon
Like nearly every industry, the life insurance industry is in the throes of the digital revolution. Consumer expectations require that carriers invest in end-to-end IT solutions and comprehensive systems in order to keep pace with the consumers’ ever-changing requirements and demands.

A supply chain involves a series of steps involved to get a product or service to the customer. First Mile, Middle Mile, and Last Mile delivery phases are terms used within supply chain distribution specialties.

First Mile logistics: Simply put, once a good or service is manufactured, wherever it goes next is known as the First Mile.

Middle Mile logistics: Is when products or services are moved from a facility that holds the services or products briefly, and packages them into orders and gets them out to consumers. Fulfillment centers are significant players within the Middle Mile process.

Last Mile logistics: Is the transfer of goods or services to the final delivery destination. It is known alternatively as same-day delivery, next-day delivery, express delivery, or just standard delivery. Simply put, it’s the last step in the delivery process.

Within the life insurance industry, the digital revolution is changing everything, and impacting every supply chain phase, with great rapidity. Examples include automated underwriting, the use of Big Data in risk assessment, e-applications, e-policy delivery, and paperless processing.

Because life insurance consumers are not isolated buyers, but omni purchasers of products and services, everything that the life insurance industry does is instantly compared with every other purchasing experience.

Example: Amazon

What is Amazon’s First Mile? “The First Mile is the flow of materials within the supply chain to create a product before it’s delivered to the customer.”¹

What is Amazon’s Last mile? “The Last Mile team helps get customer packages from delivery stations to a customer’s doorstep.”²

If the Last Mile is delivering one thing to one person by this time tomorrow, the First Mile represents the delivery of one component to one worker on an assembly line.

Point: The life insurance industry is in a marathon (along with every other industry) and needs to go a great distance in a short period of time.

The Last Mile
The Last Mile phase of supply chain management describes the short, final delivery and communications segment of distributing the services or products to customers. Last Mile logistics tend to be complex and costly to providers of goods and services who deliver to these customers.

“Some of the problems of Last Mile delivery include minimizing cost, ensuring transparency, increasing efficiency, and improving infrastructure.”³

Ecommerce sales are expected to reach $6.5 trillion by 2023. This will be accomplished “thanks largely to new fulfillment concepts including Dark Stores (shuttered stores opportunistically converted into fulfillment centers), warerooms and automated order facilities.”⁴

Dark Stores and Ghost Kitchens
(Is it just me or are those evil-sounding names?)

As online shopping booms (reaching nearly $100 billion in 2021), many retailers are struggling to meet the demand of customers for same-day delivery. To accomplish this Herculean task many retailers are turning to Dark Stores.

“A Dark Store is a micro-fulfillment center dedicated to rapid online order fulfillment. It is a kind of small, local store but without the customers. It has aisles with shelves and racks for groceries.”⁵

The name “Dark Stores” is derived from being dark—that is, closed to the public—since they are only used to fulfill online orders. Dark Stores are being utilized increasingly in the grocery and whole food sectors, fashion, big box retail, homewares, and furniture industries.

Many retailers are searching to find delivery-focused alternatives to traditional stores. Among these are Kroger, Wendy’s, and Chick-fil-A. They are among major U.S. chains that took over nearly 100 million square feet of industrial and warehouse space in 2021 (with an additional 376 million square feet of space under construction).

Dark Stores, through delivery, are enabling retailers to enter markets where they do not operate physical locations via ghosting. “Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A and other fast-food chains, for example, have introduced ‘ghost’ kitchens that operate expressly to serve delivery orders—no dining room or carryout.”⁶ Chick-fil-A, and other fast-food retailers, partner with a leading ghost-kitchen brand, Kitchen United, to offer delivery out of a shared commercial kitchen.

“The ghost kitchen craze is being driven by the explosion of delivery options in fast food.”⁷ Think UberEats, GrubHub and DoorDash.

From their website: “Kitchen United MIX’s mission is two-fold: Delivering delicious food options to hungry communities who crave variety; while also providing local restaurant businesses with streamlined operations support within clean, safe, state-of-the-art kitchen facilities.”⁸

Consider their value proposition:

• “Want American, Asian, and Italian takeout from three different local restaurants all in the same order? Create your MIX!
• Need to place a single order catering to all different dietary preferences from high-protein, to plant-based and health-conscious, to comfort food? MIX it up!”⁹

Another firm is competing in this same space. Ocado makes their mission clear on their website:

• “Whatever your schedule, there’s a delivery slot just for you.
• Our mission is to wow customers through an incredible combination of unbeatable range, effortless convenience, and fair value.”¹⁰

Next for Life Insurance Distribution and the Last Mile
As recorded above, Last Mile decisions are based on these objectives:

• Minimizing Cost
• Ensuring Transparency
• Increasing Efficiency, and,
• Improving Infrastructure

Minimizing Cost
For as long as I have been in financial services, life insurance carrier distribution systems have included these parties:

• Retail Agents/Brokers
• Brokerage General Agents
• Aggregation Groups

Over the years I have witnessed carriers reducing their own costs by relegating more and more responsibility to the distribution system. The carriers quit doing things that are necessary and simply cast them off on their distributor partners. Examples:

• Printed Marketing Materials, Forms Inventories
• Agent Training and Contracting
• Live Customer Service Representatives
• Orphan Policy Service
• In Force Policy Illustrations
• Paramed Scheduling

Savings to the carrier only resulted in increased cost to the distributors.

Point: Digital solutions should reduce costs for carriers and their distribution partners.

Ensuring Transparency
The philosophy of business transparency requires the sharing of information freely in an effort to benefit the organization and its people, suppliers, distributors, customers, and the public. Transparency happens by implementing good processes and formalizing feedback.

Point: All parties need to understand and agree that the outcomes are worth the effort.

Increasing Efficiency
Efficiency is defined as “the ability to achieve an end goal with little to no waste, effort, or energy. Being efficient means you can achieve your results by using the resources you have in the best way possible.”

Efficiency is not achieved by simply eliminating steps in the process that yield unrecognized or undercelebrated benefits. Distribution partners know the activities they do that enhance relationships with customers, increase the likelihood of future sales, and lead to referrals and good will.

Point: Carriers would do well to listen and seek to understand these benefits.

Improving Infrastructure
One of the tension points between carriers and distribution partners is marketing, lead-generation, and prospecting. In the P&C world, carriers opted to go direct to consumers with national ad campaigns. Sure, the name recognition helped some distributors make additional sales, but they ended up in competition with their own carriers.

Point: Economies of scale can and should benefit all parties.

Last Mile Pivot Point
Underlying the entire debate about costs, speed to market, customer satisfaction, paths to increased sales, and product positioning is a simple question that is endlessly debated: “Is life insurance bought or sold?”

This debate points like a laser to the question of whether or not people want to buy life insurance from a person or if they are self-motivated enough to drive their own purchase decisions through web sites and digital or robot advisors.

My Personal Experience with The Last Mile
From the beginning of my career in life insurance, I have counted it the highest privilege to present life insurance solutions to families and businesses, to assist them in applying for coverage, and to deliver the actual policies they acquired. There is something magical about our products. They are the means by which love extends beyond the grave. I had the joy of seeing families cared for when the unexpected happens. It was inspiring to see business owners and families adopt the disciplines of saving and preparing for illness, disability, long term care, retirement, and death. It was in all these interactions, these Last Mile activities, that I found my greatest fulfillment.

Summary
The life insurance industry is in a marathon in adapting to the digital realities and has far to go in a short period of time.

I do not pretend to have the answers. I no longer have the responsibility to work actively on alternative means of delivering our products more effectively and satisfactorily to our end users.

In the life insurance industry, everything is headed in the direction of greater consolidation. Mergers are sensible when the objective is lower costs through scale and achieving greater efficiency by eliminating redundancy. Consolidation generally does little to improve end-user value, or to enhance the general public’s embrace of the industry.

At one time our industry was entirely built on relationships.

Final Point: In our efforts to gain efficiencies and cost-savings in the Last Mile, perhaps we can remember the importance of relationships.

Maybe we can create “Light Stores” and “Angel Centers.” As we “climb each hill, some easy, some hard,” maybe we can create an incredible combination of variety, safety, value, and effortless convenience for people needing our products.

Here is what I do know. I agree with Solomon Huebner: “There is nothing more uncertain than life, and nothing more certain than life insurance.”

Footnotes:

1. https://www.zdnet.com/article/its-not-delivery-why-the-first-mile-can-kill-you-and-what-to-do-about-it/.
2. Ibid.
3. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lastmile.asp.
4. “The ‘Dark’ Stores In Retail’s Future: Prepare To Be Ghosted,” by Bryan Pearson, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpearson/2022/02/03/the-dark-stores-in-retails-future-prepare-to-be-ghosted/?sh=74c4fac13c4a.
5. https://www.shiprocket.in/blog/guide-to-dark-stores/.
6. https://www.businessinsider.com/chick-fil-a-wendys-ghost-kitchens-growth-2019-10.
7. Ibid.
8. https://www.kitchenunited.com/.
9. Ibid.
10. https://www.ocado.com/webshop/startWebshop.do?clkInTab=Home.
11. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/efficiency.asp.

Question: Where do fish keep their money?

Answer: In riverbanks.

Question: Why are some fish at the bottom of the ocean?

Answer: Because they dropped out of school.

Question: What keeps a dock floating above water?

Answer: Pier pressure.

(See Footnotes for more jokes about Water¹)

Jokes stem from the art of slightly bending familiar and simple things. Stories, like jokes, help us see something with fresh eyes.

I am an avid fan of Jesus. For one thing, I admire his use of stories in communicating truths. His stories drew from examples that his audience knew with great familiarity. Sowing seeds. Vineyards. Bushel baskets. Lamps. Rocks, thorns, good soil. Two brothers. Mustard seeds.

“Then Jesus asked, ‘What is the Kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree and the birds of the air perched on its branches.’” (Luke 13:18-21)²

As an independent financial professional you can significantly improve your powers of persuasion by tapping into this same principle. This article takes something everyone is familiar with—water—and presents possible parables using water that might help independent financial professionals communicate important financial principles.

We will consider these examples:

• The Water Cycle
• Water Will Always Find an Outlet
• Water’s Own Level
• Flowing Like Water
• Dripping Like a Faucet
• Standing Water

First Parable: The Water Cycle
The water cycle begins when water evaporates from the surface of oceans and lakes, rises into the atmosphere, cools, and condenses into rain or snow in clouds, and falls again to the surface as precipitation. “The water falling on land collects in rivers and lakes, soil, and porous layers of rock, and much of it flows back into the oceans, where it will once more evaporate. The cycling of water in and out of the atmosphere is a significant aspect of the weather patterns on Earth.”³

Scientists take frequent and detailed measurements and make models to predict changes in Earth’s water cycle.

Application: Money Cycle
As paper currency is deposited with a Federal Reserve Bank, the quality of each note is evaluated by sophisticated processing equipment. Notes that are still in good condition continue to circulate. Bills that are worn, torn, or marked in any way are taken out of circulation and destroyed. This process determines the lifespan of a Federal Reserve note.

Money Cycle varies by denomination and depends on a number of factors, including:

• How the denomination is used by the public.
• How often the denominations are used as a store of value.
• What bills pass most frequently between users.
• The notes that are most often used for transactions.

Lifespan of Federal Reserve Notes⁴
The Federal Reserve Board is the issuing authority of U.S. currency (see table 1) and is therefore responsible for ensuring that there is enough cash in circulation to meet the public’s demand.

“Table 2 shows the value and volume of U.S. currency in circulation calculated in billions. As of December 31, 2020, there was $2,040.7 billion in circulation, totaling 50.3 billion notes in volume.”⁵

(How can there possibly be $2.7 billion in circulation in two-dollar bills? Who is hoarding them?)

Point: Like scientists monitoring the water cycle, so the Federal Reserve Board monitors money in circulation.

Second Parable: Water Will Always Find an Outlet
Water always finds a way to move from wherever it is toward sea level. Water continuously changes from one form to another as it moves toward its true purpose. It follows the path of least resistance. For example, water always flows downhill. It is usually easier for water to move around a rock unless the water has enough energy. In certain instances water will move the rock rather than go around it—because it is easier.

Application: Money Follows the Path of Least Resistance
In financial matters, friction is a major influencer. People will repeat what worked previously even if the results were less than optimal. Change requires an investment of time and energy in order to gain better understanding of alternatives. Change of any kind is only so much friction.

People are generally passive decision makers rather than active decision makers. Most people choose the simplest means of saving, investing, planning, and giving when activating their own (perceived) best interest.

Example: Roth Conversions

Most people do not have enough tax diversification. Tax diversification means having investment assets in each of the three types of accounts that have different tax consequences: 1) taxable accounts; 2) non-qualified annuities, traditional IRAs, and other tax-deferred accounts; and, 3) income from permanent life insurance, Roth IRAs and other tax-free accounts.

Also, wise retirees utilize bracket management. Using this strategy, they can control their tax rate in retirement. Tax rates can fluctuate during retirement years. In a year when retirees are in a low tax bracket, they can take more money from their qualified plans or traditional IRA. When they find themselves in a high bracket or want to avoid jumping into the next tax bracket, retirees can take tax-free distributions from a permanent life insurance product or Roth IRA.

For reasons of tax diversification and bracket management, a Roth conversion may make great sense for your clients, but they will stay in traditional IRAs unless you can guide them from passivity to activity.

Point: Without wise planning, proper allocations, and wise distributions of money, money will seek the path of least resistance—resulting in retirees paying higher taxes unnecessarily.

Third Parable: Water’s Own Level
Everybody knows that “water seeks its own level” but very few people know why water seeks its own level. Three factors:

• Atmospheric pressure.
• Water pressure depending on depth.
• Water’s density.

Water pressure is primarily a function of its depth. If two bodies of water have equal depths their pressure will be equal. Consider a tube shaped like a U. Fill both sides with water. Because the water in both tubes is at rest at the bottom, the pressures in both tubes will be equal. Pouring water into one tube raises the water in the other until the pressures equalize. This is true whatever the density of water or whether or not there is atmospheric pressure.

This principle is best seen using something called “Pascal’s Vases.” You can use four glass tubes of varying shapes, all having the same height, that are all connected at the base. You pour water into any tube and regardless of the shape or volume, the water level is the same in each tube, proving that water’s pressure is dependent upon vertical height only.

Application: Money Seeks Its Own Level
The old saying, “money begets money,” is true in some regards. “Beget” (verb) means “to give birth to; to bring about.” If someone has money, it can be used to get more money through investment. This explains why the “rich get richer.”

As an independent financial professional (IFP) you can help your clients to think in terms of vertical height. Vertical height of money comes from pouring more money in and keeping money from leaking out. Clients build wealth over time. This column of money gains greater pressure, and when the money fills one need, it flows over to the next need, and eventually, into dreams.

Using a Pascal Vase analogy, one tube could symbolize paying off the mortgage, a second could be college savings, another retirement, a fourth could be a summer home, and additionally, a legacy plan could help the client give significant money away.

Point: The IFP helps clients build the vertical height of wealth in four ways:

• Keep more income through wise tax planning.
• Save more money.
• Invest more money.
• Give more money away.

Fourth Parable: Flowing Like Water
“Water is the driving force of all nature.”—Leonardo da Vinci

Water is a flow resource. It is best when moving. It is always behind life in all its forms. It is also an easy resource to waste.

Consider how many of us have formed water-wasting habits.

• Taking baths and long showers. Think of it this way: The average American shower uses 17.2 gallons of water and lasts up to eight minutes—that’s a lot of water.
• Laundry loads that are only half full.
• Washing dishes with running water.
• Running the water while brushing teeth.
• Overwatering the lawn.

Application: Stop Spending Money Like Water
We often use the phrase, “spending money like water.” We use this to describe someone who spends too much money in a careless way, who spends freely, or spends lavishly.

There is a Japanese proverb: “Getting money is like digging with a needle; spending it is like water soaking into sand.”

Let’s face it. We all waste money. We could all use a little accountability.

Debra Pangestu wrote an excellent article entitled, “How to Stop Spending Money: 7 Tips and Tricks to Curb Your Overspending.”⁶ In the article she used this list as her outline:

• Understand Your Spending Triggers.
• Track Your Spending.
• Stick to Cash and Stop Relying on Credit Cards.
• Forget Your Credit Cards—Literally and Figuratively.
• Set Short-Term Financial Goals.
• Learn How to Budget Money.
• Give Every Dollar a Job.

She wrote, “In many cases, knowing how to stop spending money has to do with identifying the emotional and psychological triggers that cause us to spend. If you remove those triggers, you’ll remove the temptation and opportunity to overspend.”⁷

Point: Every IFP is inclined to show respect to each client and is hesitant, therefore, to criticize spending behavior. But the best tool an IFP yields is accountability. Perhaps the most important step the client needs to take in order to achieve financial success is to get a better hold on spending.

Fifth Parable: Dripping Like a Faucet
According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Water Science School, “There is no scientific definition of the volume of a faucet drip.”⁸ The scientists at USGS concluded, after conducting several experiments, that the volume of a faucet drip, one drip of water, equals 1/4 milliliter (ml). Using that estimate, they calculated the extent of wasted water from a single dripping faucet as follows:

One gallon = 15,140 drips

One faucet, ten drips a minute = 14,400 drips per day = 347.2 gallons per year!

The rate of loss is too small to cause alarm. The annoyance of the drip is worse than the cost. Or so it seems.

Application: Letting Money Slip through the Fingers
CNBC Select spoke with debt-relief attorney Leslie Tayne about the common ways people waste money.⁹ Ms. Tayne founded Tayne Law Group, a New York-based debt relief firm. Her mission is to help people to analyze their spending habits and recognize when they spend when they do not need to. Unnecessary spending drags our budgets down. It often takes the help of an independent financial professional for people to break the habit of spending on things they can easily live without.

Examples:

• Paying for Identity theft insurance if their credit cards come with built-in protections from fraud.
• Making minimum credit card payments when they can afford more.
• Paying for unused memberships and subscriptions.
• Paying for convenience.

According to USA Today, the average adult in the USA spends $1,497 per month on nonessential items. That’s roughly $18,000 per year on things we can all do without.

“The tendency to splurge consistently on nonessentials is causing Americans to skimp on other important items. Case in point: A good 38 percent of Americans claim they can’t afford to fund a retirement plan because they don’t have enough money. Meanwhile, 35 percent say they can’t afford a life insurance policy, 28 percent can’t afford to pay off credit card debt, and 26 percent can’t afford car repairs.”¹⁰

Point: Nobody purposes to waste their money. Successful people are busy people. They are wary of accountability in their personal lives because they experience oversight daily in their working lives. Facts reveal that help is needed. It takes effort to finally call the plumber to fix the leaking faucet. It takes an IFP to help people assess their spending habits, seriously consider what they actually need, and make hard choices to stop the spending drags on their budgets!

Sixth Parable: Standing Water
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes warnings about the disease threat and other dangers associated with standing waters.¹¹

• Standing water can be a dangerous drowning risk for small children.
• Standing water often contains contaminants that can lead to illness.
• Exposure to standing water can cause wound infections, skin rash, gastrointestinal illness, and tetanus.

Healthy water is flowing water.

Application: Idle Money
According to Investopedia: “Idle funds refer to money that has not been invested and is, therefore, not earning interest or investment income. Idle funds are simply funds that are not deposited in an interest-bearing or investment tracking vehicle, that is, are not participating in the economic markets. These funds are often thought of as “wasted” funds since they do not appreciate in any manner.”¹²

How does idle money cause damage to one’s financial strength? When inflation is rising, the idle funds are in effect losing value as they are not even growing at the pace of rising costs. In addition, people everywhere are struggling financially. Charities regularly run short on funds. Underutilized funds (idle money) anywhere could be the difference in another person’s very existence.

Lynne Twist wrote a book entitled, “The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life.” Here is a quote germane to this issue:

“Money carries our intention. If we use it with integrity, then it carries integrity forward. Let your soul inform your money and your money express your soul. Money flows through all our lives, sometimes like a rushing river, and sometimes like a trickle. When it is flowing, it can purify, cleanse, create growth, and nourish. But when it is blocked or held too long, it can grow stagnant and toxic to those withholding or hoarding it.”¹³

Point: Every IFP has the opportunity to make the world a better place by addressing the presence of idle money sitting in each client’s portfolio. The possibilities are endless for such funds to move from stagnation to unimagined prosperousness and productiveness.

Summary
Water is an amazing substance.

• The heat capacity of water is more than twice the heat capacity of natural mineral and rock material. Oceans tend to even out temperature differences on Earth.
• Water is the best all-around solvent. More solid substances dissolve in water than in any other liquid. Because of this, living things are made mostly of water.
• Water is never used up: It gets recycled over and over again, constantly moving between the plants, animals, rivers, and seas on earth’s surface and atmosphere.

Money is a remarkable aspect of human society.

• Human beings need money to pay for such things as shelter, food, healthcare bills, and a good education.
• Money is a universally recognized medium of exchange.
• Money provides freedom.
• Money empowers dreams.
• Money enhances the feeling of security.
• People need to save enough for the future to ensure they will have enough available when they no longer trade their labor for money.

For the independent financial planner, there is no better way to help people understand financial ideas than through the use of stories. Stories require something familiar. It is hard to find anything more universally familiar and appreciated than water.

Footnotes:

1. https://kidadl.com/funnies/puns/water-puns-and-jokes-that-will-have-you-crying-with-laughter.
2. Holy Bible, New International Version^®, NIV^® Copyright ^©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.^®
3. https://gpm.nasa.gov/education/water-cycle#:~:text=The%20water%20cycle%20describes%20how,to%20the%20surface%20as%20precipitation.
4. https://www.uscurrency.gov/life-cycle/data/life-span.
5. https://www.uscurrency.gov/life-cycle/data/circulation.
6. https://www.mymoneycoach.ca/blog/how-to-stop-spending-money-7-tips.html.
7. Ibid.
8. https://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-drip.html.
9. https://www.cnbc.com/select/ways-people-waste-money/.
10. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/07/americans-spend-thousands-on-nonessentials/39450207/.
11. https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/extreme-weather/floods-standingwater.html.
12. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/idlefunds.asp#:~:text=Idle%20funds%20refer%20to%20money,participating%20in%20the%20economic%20markets.
13. “The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life” by Lynne Twist, W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (March 14, 2017).

“I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.” —Anonymous

On Tuesday, July 19, 2022, Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game will be played at Dodger Stadium.

Question: When did this revered institution originate?

Once upon a time there was a professional baseball team from Cleveland, OH, named the Cleveland Naps. The team existed for twelve seasons (1903 to 1914).

The Naps played their home games at League Park situated at the northeast corner of E. 66th Street and Lexington Avenue. Babe Ruth hit his 500th career home run playing for the New York Yankees in Cleveland’s League Park on Aug. 11, 1929.¹

On October 2, 1908, something magical happened at League Park.

The weather that day was standard fare for October in Cleveland and perfect for baseball. The high temperature that day was 51° and the low was 42°. (The record high temperature for October 2 in Cleveland was 86° set in 1919. The record low temperature for Cleveland on October 2 was 32° set in 1975.)²

A crowd of 10,598 came to watch baseball.

With a week left in the season, three American League teams—The Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox, and the Cleveland Naps—were engaged in a race for the postseason. These three teams were separated by just one-and-a-half games. “Three games remained in the regular season and the Naps were a half-game behind the Detroit Tigers as they headed into a match-up against the Chicago White Sox, who trailed the Naps by one game.”³

On that day, the fans were treated to a pitcher’s duel. Addie Joss pitched for the Naps and Ed Walsh pitched for the White Sox. (Both pitchers would end up in the Baseball Hall of Fame.) The Naps recorded four hits and they were struck out by Walsh 15 times. Unfortunately for the Tigers, Joss recorded a perfect game, only the second in American League history. He accomplished the feat with just 74 pitches, the lowest known pitch count ever achieved in a perfect game.

By turning in what was probably the most clutch performance by a pitcher in baseball history, Addie Joss became one of the first “fan-favorites” in baseball’s fan-captivating culture.

Point: Sometimes things happen as idyllically perfect as things typically are in storybooks.

Tragedy Yet to Come
Addie Joss was a fantastic pitcher.

• His career ERA was an incredible 1.88 and ranks second among all pitchers ever. (Ed Walsh, Joss’ opponent on October 2, 1908, holds the MLB earned run average record with 1.816.)
• Joss gave up a meager 16 home runs for his entire career.
• In his abbreviated nine-year career Joss amassed 160 wins, 46 by shutout.
• Along the way he produced two no-hitters, (one of them the perfect game described above) and seven one-hitters.

On April 3, 1911, while the Cleveland Naps took the field for warm-ups before a scheduled exhibition game against the Chattanooga Lookouts, Addie Joss trotted across the field to catch up with an old friend of his, Chattanooga shortstop Rudy Hulswitt. While they were talking, Joss fainted, and he was later sent to his doctor in Toledo. Eleven days later, professional baseball players and fans awoke to the news that Joss had died from tubercular meningitis. He had turned 31 years old just two days before.

Point: Every real story includes hardship, and its repercussions.

The Start of Something Huge
The first Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held on July 6, 1933, at Comiskey Park in Chicago as part of the 1933 World’s Fair. The All-Star Game was planned to be a one-time event. It turned into an annual milestone.

More than two decades before that first interleague All-Star game, the elite of the American League’s players gathered at Cleveland’s League Park. They played the Cleveland Naps on July 24, 1911, to celebrate the career of Addie Joss and to honor his memory.

The Back Story:
Addie Joss’s funeral took place on April 17 in Toledo. His team, the Naps, were scheduled to play the Detroit Tigers that day. Joss’ teammates declared their intention to strike if the game that day was not postponed. American League President Ban Johnson canceled the game. All twenty-five members of the Naps, as well as a handful of Tiger players, arrived in Toledo for the funeral of Adrian C. Joss.

Hundreds of other people also attended. Addie was loved by one and all. In attendance were Joss’ wife and two small children. Now penniless.

Ballplayer-turned-evangelist, Billy Sunday, preached the funeral sermon. “Joss tried hard to strike out death, and it seemed for a time as though he would win,” Sunday proclaimed. “The bases were full. The score was a tie, with two outs. Thousands, yes, millions in a nation’s grandstands and bleachers sat breathless watching the conflict. The great twirler stood erect in the box. Death walked to the plate.”⁴

The Naps’ owner, Charles Sommers, imagined his team playing an Addie Joss Benefit Game. The All-Star game was the brainchild of Cleveland management and Vice-President E. S. Barnard. His idea took shape. On July 24, a day off for all teams in the American League, Joss’ teammates faced an all-star team at League Park. Future National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, Cy Young and Nap Lajoie, played for Cleveland. The all-star team included both Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb, who would also become National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees. The Naps lost by a score of 5-3.

Cy Young once described Addie Joss this way: “He was a great man. I feel sure he never made an enemy.”⁵

Walter Johnson said, “I’ll do anything they want for Addie Joss’ family.”⁶

Joss’ widow: “Addie had real friends, even amongst his bitterest rivals on the ball field.”⁷

Jimmy McAleer, manager of the Washington Senators, gladly volunteered to lead the all-star team on the field as the skipper. He said of Joss, “The memory of Addie Joss is sacred to everyone with whom he ever came in contact. The man never wore a uniform who was a greater credit to the sport than he.”⁸

A total of 15,272 fans turned out to watch the quick one-hour and thirty-two-minute game. That is almost 50 percent more people than saw Joss pitch the perfect game back on October 2, 1908.

The Addie Joss Benefit Game in 1911 raised $12,914 for the Joss family. (The equivalent of over $380,000 in current dollars.)

This was before GoFundMe, and Crowdsourcing.

Point: It is not unusual for people to come together to do something wonderful for a person in need, especially if that person is well-liked.

Great, But Can You Spot What’s Missing?
The Addie Joss Benefit Game did not take place prior to the invention of life insurance. Perhaps he never met anyone in the business of life insurance. He may not have purchased anything near $12,914 in death benefit, even if an agent had approached him. Who knows? An underwriter may have declined him.

Given what we know about the man, Addie Joss most likely loved his family intensely. He certainly would have agreed to buy life insurance if he understood what it could mean for his family should he die.

It is unlikely that Joss would have expected a game to be played in his honor and the ticket proceeds given to his wife and kids.

Question: Are people in your orbit counting on something like GoFundMe to attract caring people to meet the financial needs of their surviving family members should they die unexpectedly?

Summary:
Baseball fans love to see some of the best players gather for the annual All-Star game. Most people do not know the back story. If you are an independent financial professional, the Addie Joss story may help you illustrate the wonder of life insurance to the people in your life.

GoFundMe and Crowdsourcing are getting bigger and bigger. Hopefully it has hit you that they are poor substitutes for life insurance.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.sportsengine.com/article/baseball/babe-ruth-becomes-1st-hit-500-mlb-homers#:~:text=August%2011%2C%201929,-Sport%3A%20Baseball&text=Babe%20Ruth%20hit%20his%20500th,11%2C%201929.
2. https://www.weather.gov/cle/CLERecords
3. “You Could Look It Up: No Hits for You”. Steven Goldman, September 8, 2006. Baseball Prospectus.
4. https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/clevelands-first-all-star-game-a1205232151e
5. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/71012-a-true-fan-favorite-the-story-of-addie-joss
6. https://sabr.org/journal/article/addie-joss-day-an-all-star-celebration
7. Ibid.
8. https://www.baseball-almanac.com/tsn/addie_joss_benefit_game.shtml