Article by Larry Harris

“Term Life Insurance” is not just an affordable choice for many Americans needing the financial security of obtaining life insurance to cover their survivors or beneficiaries needs, or for paying debts they might owe. The concept of “Term Life Insurance” is relatively new, and is distinctly American. It is a close cousin to permanent “life Insurance”, or “Whole Life Insurance” that grew out of the insurance industry of Great Britain which was founded originally in the insuring of sea vessels, their cargo, and especially the cargo so precious, human beings to be sold as slaves in the New World. The originations of “Term Life Insurance” followed two paths as it grew in the United States. The first was it was to be affordable to the American of lower or middle class economic status.

The second it was to follow closely the establishment of “mortality tables” and was to be at pay out “tax free”. Today the major insurers may sell either “whole” or “term” life insurance over the Internet, but at the end of the Great Depression Americans welcomed two salesman’s to their door, the life insurance salesman and the “Bible Salesman”. If Americans slammed the door on the Hoover Vacuum salesman foot, it was common to suspect one or the other of those selling term life insurance or the Scriptures was flim flam.

Today we are suspect of “spam” at our Email, abhor pop ups advertising that intrudes on our Internet Searches, and may even be overwhelmed to find the President caricature, or photograph being used as a sells technique for insurance products. “Trust”‘ has always been a value of the world of bankers, and of insurance.

While “Term Life Insurance” is seldom a life insurance product chosen to be “trusted” or given as charitable due to low payouts it’s development to meet the needs of the average worker in the United States came to set a standard in the insurance industry very much different then that carried originally by Lloyd’s of London. Americans suffered greatly during the Great Depression, and then the advent of the Second World War left so many without. These decades would prove that Americans could be leaders in the insurance industry.

Today most of the world uses the concepts, and standards of the insurance industry which grew out of the development of “Term Life Insurance” and the establishment of the Social Security Trust Fund, and today what we depend upon as Medicare and its substandard sister, the public dole of “Medicaid” and supplemental Security Income Benefits. Standards of the insurance industry are managed by companies individually; but all must meet the conditions of “honesty” or ethical practice carried as “protections” of consumers by the Federal Trade Commission. Insurance companies in the United States obey the Surgeon Generals Office of the United States and uphold “life”, the American Medical Association, and the Food and Drug Administration. And according to the wisdom of President Franklin Roosevelt in the planning for the “well “of the American people all insurance carriers (companies) must meet terms of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

As medical science in the United States surpassed that available throughout the world it became apparent that “whole” and “term” life insurance had to be made to meet the challenges of Americans living longer, and recapturing health after serious injury, accident or illness. Today the Rehabilitation Specialist has been added as a “guide” for those aging, or handicapped/disabled when using the insurance products of Retirement Benefits, or Disability Insurance. The medical specialty of the Rehabilitation Specialist was born from the Veterans Administrations need to reintegrate injured War Vets back into the workforce.

These Rehabilitation Specialists guided passages of the Older Americans Act, and helped insure the civil rights of the disabled be protected in the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. These developments in the insuring of Retirement and Disability saw changes as well in both “whole” and “term” Life Insurance. These changes saw firmed management of ethical guides within the insurance industry and consolidated regulation of honesty and consumer protections for the American purchasing insurance. It also saw the regulations of “Term Life” insurance changed in what consumers thought were “great” ways and reduced the cost of “Term Life” insurance policies. These changes followed the quest of the American worker aging or disabled not to be presumed “useless” and further upheld standards of the United States Civil Service (a trendsetter) and the United States Labor Department. Today the only “term life” insurance carried by the Social Security Administration is the profoundly minimal “Death Benefit” which has not been raised by the United States Senate since the Korean War. And the only “term” life insurance awarded to United States War Veterans is the American flag, folded carefully, and presented to the surviving families of those Americans who gave their all for their country.

The standards of “term” life insurance have been changed as well. Not only do Americans heal and are able to come off disability benefits and return to work. Those American aging are healthier and stronger and many enjoy employment full or part time after the age of fifty five and even sixty five. Today “term” life insurance is still affordable. Is still a good investment. And now is well protected. The concept and then the standards set of “term life” insurance certainly protected the American needing affordable life insurance safe from the flim and flam of the dubious of mind. Today though those needs of Americans to be protected their investment in life insurance policies is at severe risk. And who is today at the door of America selling insurance products that will not meet what we the buyer, the consumer, must have which is “honesty” at purchase, and ethical delivery if in need? Times have changed if we wonder today that this “Latest of Great Depressions” will reduce us to the dust that saw our heartland demoralized and destroyed. Following the Bible Belts influence on the election of our political leaders since the late 1980′s and then the “rebirth” or birth of the Christian Political Far Right “we” have suffered a “lack” of trust in our insurance carriers.

The all but demise of the American Insurance Group (AIG) and then it’s “saving” by the 9 billion dollar Senate bailout violated not just the consequences of those who regulate, oversee the insurance industry, but in end will ruin the rights of consumers when purchasing or using insurance products. That bailout of AIG also violated the Social Security Act and the FEMA Act, disproving the United States Senate understands prohibitions against organized crime. This failing of “trust” has been evidenced by both the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration failing to use the “Rehabilitation Specialist’s” expertise in the finding of “Claims Decision”. This has resulted in countless Veterans homeless these nights in America.

This has resulted in 4000 American workers vested in Social Security Disability Benefits dying each year awaiting the Judge Advocates Office of the Social Security Administration to hear their “claim” that they are indeed disabled. The inability of these two government agencies, each carrying insurance on an American, if one earned coverage by devotion to country, and the other paid Social Security/Medicare tax as hard earned. The Veterans Administration stalls returning War Veterans disability benefits while they argue what even Great Britain has removed from the “books” of insurance precepts. Are all returning War Veterans actually suffering PTSD or are they lousy free loaders?

The United States Senate argues rather or not the “mentally ill” are equal to, are eligible for equity in health, and life insurance, while ignoring Social Security Disability “claimants” their day of justice by believing that those American workers dying without their benefits. Without food, housing, and medical care, who are complaining are just “mentally ill” and simply too impaired to understand that at their door is not just the flim flam man bearing a Bible but the three piece suit stealing their insurance payments. The coincidence of this rip off is coupled with the cowards’ way out following 9/11 when contrary to the law the United States Senate gave away our coverage to FEMA to the United States Department of Homeland Security. Coupled with the United States Senate illegally (Ricco) bailing out AIG with nine billion dollars of money we didn’t have, and now direly need will in my estimation not just result in more claims of human rights violations being filed before the United States Senate and the World Court by Americans suffering unduly while the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration remakes “insurance” and beneficiary into “public dole”. We will fairly know that the “trust” is failed for all Americans vested in insurance products. Failed our rights as consumers.

What do we suffer for lack of term? The lives of disabled vets, and disabled American workers cut far too short. The quality of their remaining lives severally reduced. The why of “term” life insurance impaired, the trust gone, and we, our dependents, and our survivors are left unprotected. Why is it called “Term Life Insurance”? The connotation, the usage of the word “term” was preferred to carry in trust to any American that life is as it is defined by FEMA, and by the United States Surgeon General’s Office the most valuable possession of the United States. Think twice, buyer beware, when you consider these days purchasing term life insurance or thinking the Veterans Administration or Social Security will be there, because it just seems it is the Bible salesman at the door?