Readers of the Newark Star-Ledger’s sports section back in the ‘80s may remember the name Bobby Czyz. He’s a Jersey kid who went on to achieve a reasonable degree of success as a professional boxer, and his career was covered extensively in the Star-Ledger. He’s also a member of Mensa, so he’s not your prototypical boxer.
After he retired, he became a boxing announcer and went on the lecture circuit. He was talking about what it is like to be knocked out when he said that the knock-out punch is the one you never see coming.
Most of our bigger problems fall into that category, right? The lay-off, the end of a relationship, the problems with the kids, the loss of a major customer/client, the adverse health diagnosis. These problems all seem to come out of left field to blind-side us and deliver their ever painful blow.
While all are big problems, some are obviously easier to fix than others. The health related issues may be the hardest to fix of all, because if there’s no cure for your ailment, all the money in the world won’t fix it. See Jobs, Steve.
Taking care of ourselves can help, but even that is no guarantee. I knew a man who didn’t smoke, rarely drank, and exercised regularly and died of some rare form of cancer at age 60. Shit happens.
Of course there’s the other end of the spectrum, those who abuse their bodies and still live into their 80s. So much appears to be out of our control and dependent primarily on genetics.
I hear all the time “I have longevity in my family. Both sets of my grandparents lived to be yada yada yada.” Now obviously it is better to have the longevity gene than not have it, but having it guarantees nothing. One could still develop an illness for which there is no cure, to say nothing of accidents.
That is why life insurance exists, to protect us from the unknown. We have the data on life expectancy, so we know what the norm is.. (As a reminder, when we say the life expectancy for a 50 year old male is 28¼ years, that means that half of the 50 year old males alive today will still be alive when they are 78¼). But even if our lifestyle/genetics qualify us to be part of the group that reaches life expectancy, an accident could intervene.
In summary, to the extent we can address issues before they become full-fledged problems, we will make our lives easier. Everybody has problems, some are just more adept at recognizing them and addressing them early on. And remember, the premium is not the problem. The premium is the solution to the problem.