We Need a More Muscular Life Happens

We reminded the public and the industry through advertising, public service announcements and media appearances that: "Life insurance isn't for the people who die. It's for the people who live."

We spread out across the offices of over 100 life insurance company CEOs and succeeded in raising about $10 million a year for three years to support our messaging campaign.

And, as time passed, surveys showed we had begun to "move the needle."

However, over the next few years, as the sense of crisis passed, funding began to diminish, as did our budget. Our message began to reach fewer and fewer people, including producers themselves. I retired in early 2008. To stay focused on its mission, with a smaller budget, LIFE changed its name to Life Happens. Life Happens now produces some of the finest marketing and sales support material available.

I'm not suggesting LIFE's forced retreat from the broader and more intensive public information/education strategy is the only reason for the decline in life insurance sales to younger people, but I do believe it is a significant contributing factor.

Holgar Johnson, who was the president of the Institute for Life Insurance for 22 years, through and after World War II, said about public relations and public education, "You have to keep everlastingly at it."

That the life insurance industry did not stick with its increasingly effective public education program has meant, particularly for young people, that life insurance is not seen as "essential to a sound financial plan." As a result, many young people will die with only a few thousand dollars, if that, in a 401(k) or other savings, leaving their families terrified about the future.

One of the great advantages LIFE had was that we were seen as independent of any company, as indeed we were. That gave us credibility. Life Happens has that same advantage. It just needs more money to do the job.

Surely, with half a trillion dollars in annual life insurance premiums the industry could use 0.01% of that revenue, or $50 million a year, to educate the public about the essential role of life insurance in their financial plans, and about the value added by insurance and financial advisors.

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David Woods, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF, is a retired insurance agent in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. He was the chief executive officer of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors from 2003 through 2007, and the president of Life Happens from 1995 through 2007.