You have sung his music. He is one of my favorite singers. Do you remember who he was? Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.
It really is in a name. It’s in a phrase. It’s in a word that sometimes we make the decisions, financial decisions that we make, based on what we understand.
When I look at a person’s life, when I look at the stories in my book, Investments Don’t Hug: Embracing the Life Insurance Asset, I realize that sometimes people will not pick certain products because of maybe what they have heard about that product in the past. They have made decisions, not on what the product does, the song that it sings, the harmony that’s provided, the tune that comes through; instead, they are fixated, very possibly, on what the product is called.
Over my lifetime, I have gotten so much from the use of whole life insurance. There’s term and whole life insurance. Both are important. Both are products that you should probably own during your lifetime, but the whole life insurance is something that has provided me with coverage my entire life until the very day that it comes to an end, even if I live to be 121 years of age, it will still be there carrying on in a state income tax free, but along the way it provides money that can be used for opportunities. It provides money that I might need in the event of an emergency. It provides money in case I decide to make an investment elsewhere, whether it’s in real estate, whether it be in the market, and I need ready cash, I need liquid cash, it is available there for me. It provided me an opportunity if I become disabled, if it has been constructed correctly, that the insurance company will take on the responsibility to continue the payments, not only that I have the life insurance in effect, but they will continue contributing into the cash portion of my whole life insurance policy, unlike my 401(k), unlike my IRA that will cease deposits, cease contributions, cease investments if I am unable to because of a disability that could end my working life.
There’s so much fixation on the word whole life, the reason it’s called whole life is because it’s lasts the whole of your life. So, what does this have to do with Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.? A name that would not fit on a marquee. You don’t know him by that name, but you know his music. You have sung his music, and for the rest of today the melodies of his songs will be in your head because that name was not the popular name that we know him by; instead, we know him by the late, great John Denver.
