IDAHO CONSUMER ALERT! $9.95 A MONTH MAY NOT BUY WHAT YOU THINK!

THIS IS AN IDAHO CONSUMER ALERT! ELDERLY BEWARE!
NOBODY GETS IT FOR FREE ... OR FOR $9.95 A MONTH!
Misleading ads on T.V. are preying on the elderly poor.

It was May the 4th on a balmy Spring day when I caught a T.V. ad with a friendly looking young man telling me how I can get up to $2,000 life insurance for as little as $9.95 a month. The pleasant fellow on the T.V. told me that this is important because it can help reduce the financial burden on my family when I finally kick the bucket.

It all sounds great doesn't it? Well, in the ad they seem to downplay the 2-year waiting period during which time my policy is really just a piggy bank. If I kick off in those first 2 years I get my money back. That's all; they just give me back what I paid in. With a $9.95 a month policy that means [if I die 23 months, 3 weeks, and 6 days later] I'm gonna get back about $236.31 ... the amount I paid in, and a lot of that 'piggy bank' money has been eaten away by inflation.

Curious as I am I called their toll-free number and asked some questions. Here's how our conversation went:

[PLAY PHONE AUDIO]

As you heard, I'm 68-years-old and I live in Idaho. After the customary 5 minutes on hold I spoke with one of their representative/phone call handlers named David. He asked my age and what state I lived in [I'm a little curious as to what my state of residence has to do with this]. I asked about the $9.95 a month premium they advertise on T.V. and found out that for me that $9.95 only buys me $762 when I die. That's a whole lot less than the $2,000 I thought I'd get. Obviously there's some sort of 'sliding scale' at play here.

I decided to ask him what my premium would be to get that up to $2,000 coverage advertised on television. He looked that up and told me that $2,000 coverage is gonna cost me $29.85 a month ... a lot more than the $9.95 a month they push on television.

Now let's get real. $2,000 today is just about what it takes to burn me up and put my ashes in a can. Done ... dead ... money gone. And that's today in 2023, what with inflation and say another 10 or 15 years later I doubt $2,000 is gonna do the trick. You might as well toss me into a burning building somewhere and spend the money on a nice night out on the town.

$2,000 baby!

I told David that I would need at least $10,000 coverage and he told me that's gonna cost me $139.30 a month [with that 2-year 'piggy bank' waiting period of course]. That seemed little pricey to me so I called a couple of other major life insurance companies and they all quoted me about $31 dollars a month for that $10,000 policy! Wow!

This means that the apparent 'bait-and-switch' tactics of these $9.95 a month insurance companies are meant to draw in the indigent, elderly, and disabled and anyone else living on fixed or minimum wage incomes. There are a lot of people, largely elderly minorities, who get excited about the low monthly premium they see on the tube, and then get sucked into paying much higher premiums for more realistic coverage.

In my opinion, my opinion alone, it's a scam!

Caveat Emptor ... Let the buyer beware!

I'm Max, and that's the way I see it!