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July 25, 2013 at 11:15 AM
In the summer of 1993, I was about to turn nine and cared about just three activities:
1) Going to horse camp;
2) Singing Taylor Dayne songs into a Barbie-turned-microphone at my grandma’s house; and
3) Watching “Jurassic Park” so many times I could (um, can…) recite entire scenes by heart.
My mom and dad — who are clearly movie fans first, responsible parents second — had no qualms about taking me and my then 6-year-old sister to a film featuring lifelike dinosaurs ripping into people … and I’m really glad they didn’t. Because even though it gave me nightmares about a T-Rex eating our family dog, “Jurassic Park” is still easily one of my favorite movies ever.
It felt appropriate, then, to honor the film’s 20th anniversary by attending a screening at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science this week, followed by a question-and-answer session with Joe Sertich, the museum’s paleontologist. Yet, somewhere between raptor attacks and questions about bird DNA vs. frog DNA, I started thinking about another species in danger of extinction — the insurance agent.
There’s no shortage of research and anecdotes out there on the declining relevance of life insurance producers. Sales that used to take place over a series of kitchen-table meetings with a professional can now — for many people — be completed alone, in a matter of minutes, using Google and a quote aggregator website.
But if “Jurassic Park” taught us anything, it’s that even if the technology’s there, it doesn’t mean we should use it. Sure, there’s a big difference between technology that could potentially leave you dramatically underinsured and technology that could leave your body parts scattered around a theme park outhouse. Either way, though, your client ends up in danger.
