260. Why Insurability Matters More Than Most People Realize

 

After going through a serious illness myself, one truth became even clearer to me:

• It is not enough to know that insurance is important.
• You must also still be insurable when you apply for it.

This is a reality many people do not think about early enough.

When people are healthy, insurance often feels easy to postpone. They assume they can always get it later, when income is higher, when responsibilities are greater, or when life finally “settles down.” 

But life does not always wait for our timing. And once sickness enters the picture, the conversation changes.

That is where the importance of insurability becomes very real.

Insurability simply means your ability to qualify for coverage based on your current health, age, medical history, occupation, and other risk factors. 

In plain language, it is not just about whether you want insurance. It is also about whether an insurance company can still offer it to you on normal terms.

And this is where many people are caught by surprise.

When a person is already sick, getting appropriate coverage may become difficult for several reasons.

• First, the insurer now sees a higher probability of claim. Insurance works best when risk is being anticipated, not when the loss is already close or already developing. Once a serious illness is diagnosed, the person is no longer being evaluated as an ordinary applicant. He is being evaluated as someone whose risk has already changed.
• Second, coverage may still be possible, but no longer ideal. The person may be approved only with higher premiums, reduced benefits, exclusions, postponement, or in some cases, outright decline. In other words, the insurance you could have obtained easily while healthy may no longer be available in the same form once your condition changes.
• Third, time stops being your ally. When a person is healthy, he has the luxury of comparing plans, choosing properly, and building protection step by step. But when sickness comes, urgency takes over. Decisions become emotional. Options become fewer. And the window to act may already be narrowing.

This is why insurability is one of the most overlooked assets a person has.

When you are healthy, you may not feel wealthy.

But if you are healthy and still insurable, you are holding something extremely valuable.

• You still have access.
• You still have choices.
• You still have leverage.

You can still secure protection before your circumstances make it harder, more expensive, or impossible.

Many people think insurance is mainly about budgeting.

• Yes, affordability matters.
• But insurability matters just as much.

Because even if you have the money later, you may no longer have the health status needed to get the coverage you want.

That is one of the hardest lessons life teaches.

• Insurance is easiest to get when it feels least urgent.
• And it becomes hardest to get when it suddenly feels most necessary.
• That is why the best time to arrange protection is not when sickness comes.
• It is while health is still on your side.

As financial advisors, this is an important truth we must help people understand. We are not trying to pressure anyone. We are trying to protect them from a future regret: the regret of realizing too late that the right time to get covered was when they still could.

• Health is not permanent.
• Insurability is not guaranteed forever.
• And delay is not always harmless.
• Sometimes the greatest value of acting early is not just getting a policy.
• It is preserving the opportunity to be protected while that opportunity still exists.

That is why insurability matters.

And that is why waiting can cost more than people think.

#acgadvice

259. When a Financial Advisor Faces His Own Mortality

 

For many years, I have talked to clients about uncertainty.

I have explained the need to prepare for illness, disability, loss of income, and even death. 

I have always believed that financial planning is not just about money, but about protecting the people we love from the risks of life.

But recently, those conversations became deeply personal.

For the first time in my life, at 62 years old, I was hospitalized.

• Lying in a hospital bed changes the way a man thinks. 
• Especially when he has spent much of his life helping others prepare for the future. 

In those quiet moments, I was no longer thinking as a financial advisor speaking to clients. 

I was thinking as a husband, a father, and simply as a man confronted by his own frailty.

Thoughts came that were difficult to ignore.

• Have I prepared my own family well enough?
• If something happens to me, will they be secure?
• Have I truly practiced what I have preached?

Beyond the fear of sickness itself, there was also the fear of unfinished responsibilities, unfinished conversations, and unfinished plans. 

Illness has a way of removing all distractions. It forces you to look at what really matters.

In moments like that, titles, targets, and production figures lose their shine.

What matters most becomes very simple: faith, family, health, time, and the peace of knowing that your affairs are in order.

This experience reminded me that mortality is not just something financial advisors discuss with others. 

• It is something we must also face ourselves. 
• And perhaps that is one of the most humbling lessons of all.

We spend so much time helping others prepare for uncertainty. 

But we must also ask whether we have done the same for our own lives.

A hospital room has a way of making that question impossible to avoid.

I came out of that experience with greater gratitude, greater humility, and a clearer sense of what truly matters. 

Our work matters. But the life behind the work matters even more.

Sometimes, the financial advisor also needs to be reminded:

• Preparation is not just something we recommend.
• It is something we must live.

#acgadvice