According to the CDC, diabetes is five times more common per capita in America than it was thirty years prior to now. The primary causes of diabetes are not much of a mystery and the culprit seems to be more than anything… diet. What has changed so drastically in the American diet that would cause such a significant change in both the blood sugar levels and the average waist line of Americans?

The increase of HFCS consumption in the last 40 years is undeniable

Here is a fairly solid theory that involves the USDA, processed food and farm subsidies. Below is a graph from the USDA which illustrates the increase in consumption of high fructose corn syrup and the consumption of sugar over the same time period. It is clear that not only has the average consumption of sugar over that last 30 years remained quite consistent, but that the consumption of the far less healthy alternative, high fructose corn syrup has also increased drastically by about three fold.

When you look at the two graphs above, it is somewhat hard to deny the correlation between high fructose corn syrup and diabetes.

What is so awful about high fructose corn syrup? If you aren’t a diabetic nor work in the healthcare field, you likely aren’t familiar with the Glycemic Index. Glycemic index is the measure of a foods effect on your blood sugar. You could actually say it is a measurement of how much a certain food can contribute to obesity and diabetes, even though that would be an over-simplification. Regular table sugar, which most people already recognize is bad for your waist line and blood sugar level, has a glycemic index of about 47, and high fructose corn syrup sits at about 87. To put this clearly, consuming too much sugar causes diabetes over time and high fructose corn syrup does so at an even more detrimental rate.

If you super impose the two graphs below over each other you won’t find an exact correlation between increased consumption of certain additives and the increase in diabetes in America, but it makes it incredibly hard to deny the correlation altogether.

Many people, if not most, when given the choice between a soda which sweetened with sugar or one with high fructose corn syrup find that plain sugar tastes better. With all of the health problems that can be clearly linked to HFCS and the lack popularity in the substance it is suprising that this substance is consumed so much in America.

Americans on average consume far more HFCS than other nations because it’s made artificially cheap and the price of sugar has been artificially expensive. The reason for doing this was a clear plan on behalf of the USDA, farm interests (namely Archer Daniels Midland) and the unhealth conscious corporations which produce processed foods and caloric beverages.

Americans as a result of a price control imposed on sugar and they have been indirectly made to drink HFCS sweeteners in soft drinks and consume HFCS in many processed foods. Thanks to subsidies on corn, corn is now in massive abundance in America and industry has decided to find ways to utilize this dirt cheap substance. The market has been manipulated in such a way where livestock are now being fed corn instead of the healthier option of grass and the quality and dietic value of our diets has been degraded as a result.

Life Insurance Cost as a Result of Diabetes

If you are extremely healthy and a low fatality risk you are deemed ‘preferred plus’. Diabetics, even those in excellent control, will almost never see a rating better than ‘standard’ which is meant to be the average risk of a life insurance applicant’s dying while insured. Below is a breakdown of the best case scenario of a diabetic’s A1C rating and the corresponding approval.

A1C of 5-7
Most likely to receive ‘standard’ rating for life insurance

A1C of 7-8
Very possible ‘table 1′ rating or ‘table 2′ rating which would make the life insurance policy 25%-50% more expensive than a ‘standard’ approval

A1C of 8-9
Life insurance approval aside, your health is likely in real peril if your diabetes is this out of control. You will likely see no better than a ‘table 4′ rating to ‘table 6′ rating which will typically cost 100% to 150% more than a ‘standard’ approval.

A1C above 9
Recently I had an applicant who already had life insurance coverage who was simply looking for a better rate. He was declined by Genworth Life Insurance Company for having an A1C of 10.6 and was dissapointed. I pointed out that he should be happy he already has coverage and he should focus more on the serious health issue at hand instead of his life insurance cost.

Every now and then, someone looking to buy life insurance through my service will propose the logic of simply putting the money they would spend on life insurance into some sort of investment and reaping the long term rewards and sacrificing none of their money to the life insurance company. I’ve decided to illustrate with simple math just how this logic of “invest now and never buy life insurance” is without any merit whatsoever. Suppose we are dealing with a 40 year-old man in excellent health who is considering buying $1,000,000 worth of life insurance on a 30 year term or simply investing the money in conservative investments. Below shows just exactly what the difference between these two decisions are financially.

Buy Life Insurance
$1,000,000 of life insurance on 30 year term

$99.50 per month which is an aggregate cost over 30 years of $35,820

Forego Life Insurance and Invest Conservatively
After 10 years at 9% interest $19,773
After 20 years at 9% interest $66,583
After 30 years at 9% interest $177,399

It appears that if you survive then you will benefit significantly from not buying life insurance. In reality, once you adjust for inflation and realize that the $177,000 you will have theoretically have gained in 30 years of successful investing with tax-free compound interest the money is likely only going to be worth about a fifth of that. The most logical rebuttal to buy life insurance instead of simply investing the money is that if you die in 6 months, 2 years or even 15 years the benefit of having a little extra money saved will be of no real value in comparison to $1,000,000 tax-free dollars that your family would have received. This is the point that most people who decide to not buy life insurance simply don’t consider. If everything was so predictable that you knew you would always be financially stable, knew you would average 9% compound interest year over year and knew that you weren’t going to die then life insurance simply would not exist to begin with.

The bottom line, there is no supplement for life insurance.

Life insurance quotes. These are probably three of the most boring words in the English language. The phrase “life insurance quotes” probably conjures up dealing with five different equally dull insurance agents to hear not only their life story, but having them regale you with the nail biting tale of how (insert company name here) came to be. They’ve worked for (insert company name here) for years and think it’s just swell. We’re living in the year 2012 and have technology that would have been considered impossible by most people in the 1990′s. We should have a more efficient and objective way to buy life insurance by now and in fact we do.

Numerous local insurance agents now run radio commercials disparaging the concept of buying life insurance over the Internet, vaguely implying that it is somehow hazy or a questionable practice, when it reality it is far more logical and efficient to do financial research utilizing technology.

Ironically, the pitfalls associated with getting online life insurance quotes are indirectly caused by economics which are influenced by hometown life insurance agents. These agents purchase life insurance leads from various lead vendors on the Internet in many cases. You know those awful websites that sell your information to 5-10 people who want to sell you insurance? Many local life insurance agents pay for those leads. So as a result the Internet is largely polluted with gateway websites that lure consumers in with the prospect of receiving 5-10 quotes immediately and saving money as a result. These sites are nothing more than a farce to acquire the consumer’s personal information and resell it. If life insurance agents stopped buying these leads, the websites, SPAM, pop-ups, etc that often overshadow superior online services like YourLifeSolution.com wouldn’t exist and the consumer would able to find such valuable sites faster and therefore there would be less barrier of entry for the average consumer to obtain life insurance quotes online. The hypocrisy of a traditional life insurance agent claiming that you the consumer shouldn’t use the Internet for it’s convenience to purchase life insurance while simultaneously purchasing your information from the Internet is deafening.

Nearly all technology or innovation is disparaged by those who utilize the prior methodology. Just as candles were almost entirely replaced by light bulbs and big box stores replaced more expensive general stores, online life insurance quotes operated by the technologically savvy will replace the shoe leather of your “good neighbor”.

Faking your own death to collect life insurance is logically more common than we will ever know mainly because if you succeed at faking your own death to collect on the life insurance death benefit then society will never know.  There are however numerous cases of people doing so and being caught, and this begs the question, how often is this happening?  Typically when someone does this it’s to run away from debt or conviction of a crime, but they then seem to get caught long after the fact when they believe they have been forgotten.  This article is about a couple of cases where people who did fake their death for life insurance proceeds and obviously didn’t take the secret to their anonymous grave somewhere in a foreign country.  It is also about the fascinating question of how many people are doing this and succeeding?  I truly believe hundreds or even thousands of people successfully fake their own death and collect life insurance proceeds on an annual basis in America.  Why do I believe this?  I believe that once someone has summoned the will to go through with this life changing financial crime the mechanics of succeeding are really not all that difficult.

Ari Squire

Ari Squire who faked his own death by killing someone else and burning their corpse

Not that I’m giving advice on how to fake your death and get rich on life insurance proceeds, but normally I and most anyone else who thinks about this subject theoretically would assume a situation along the lines of a boat explosion, or claiming your spouse died in 9/11  (more on that in a bit).  However this story of Ari Squire from Chicago is far more outrageous.  In fact if this story hasn’t been optioned for a movie yet it would be an excellent idea for one.  In 2005 Ari Squire was convicted of Medicare fraud in the sum of nearly $1,000,000.  His company AccuCare was involved in a scheme of over billing the fed that had eventually caught up to him.  Like many

Squire's recruited corpse

sociopathic white collar criminals, Ari knew the most pragmatic way out of his insurance fraud issues was to commit and even larger fraud utilizing a multi-million dollar life insurance policy he currently carried on himself at this time.  Where the story goes from messy financial crime and transcends into blue collar murder is at the point he recruits an employee by the name of Justin Newman from a Home Depot who just happened to look like Ari (You can’t make this up). The offer was to work on Ari’s home for double what his Home Depot job was paying.  Soon after Justin showed up to do the work, he was murdered by Ari and made it appear as though it was Ari who died in the household accident.  Ari burned the body so it would be less recognizable and ran for the hills while his wife corroborated the story to the police.   Ari fled to Missouri and changed his appearance with the use of hair dye and colored contacts.  He exchanged emails with his wife during this time openly communicating about the scam and memorial arrangements.

In the end Justin Newman’s mother won a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Ari’s wife, Ari died after shooting himself in the head in a motel in Missouri and the life insurance company didn’t have to pay a dime for the incident.  The ending is so reminiscent of something from a Darren Aronofsky or Quentin Tarantino film.  In the end no one won from this multi-million dollar fraud.

Charles Gavett 

This case of life insurance fraud is far less macabre, but also nowhere near as cunning.  Charles Gavett of Georgia claimed his wife died in the twin towers on 9/11.  This was an extremely large claim seeing as how the chances of a woman from Georgia being in New York City would likely be backed up by quite a bit of evidence, you know a plane ticket and such.  Charles claimed his wife was interviewing at Cantor-Fitzgerald (a financial institution largely involved in life insurance settlements ironically) that day and died along with most of the company’s employees.  Minnesota Life, one of their life insurance carriers, realized that the details were extremely obtuse and with further investigation they found ample evidence that the wife was still alive and no one in their small home town in Georgia knew otherwise.  The husband and wife involved in this life insurance scam both went to prison as a result.

The Charles Gavett story contrasts the Ari Squire story so well in that Ari’s will and conviction to make the death seem legitimate was so much greater, but Charles was far less psychotic and methodic, as though he almost seemed to just have the idea with very little thought or concept of what succeeding at such a scheme would entail.

They say the most skilled criminals are those who don’t get caught and as I said earlier I believe there are many who have utilized far greater plans and succeeded at faking their own death to cash in on life insurance.

The couple's mugshots shown in a local newspaper

It depends on numerous factors, here are some simple general guidelines:

30X income for people under 30
10X income for people under 40
5X income for people under 60
after that it largely depends on net worth and such.

Income would be the most significant factor and also they take into consideration liabilities, or need for the coverage.

Rick Perry, is, or at least was under fire for being involved in a life insurance scheme that involved ‘betting’ or investing the mortality of teachers throughout the state of Texas.  A lot of people and publications, including the Huffington Post, are treating this as though it’s a significant scandal, but frankly I’m not convinced he has done much of anything wrong.  STOLI, or stranger owned life insurance, is a questionable and often fraudulent concept whereby an investor wants you to purchase life insurance so they can later take ownership of it and use your policy as an investment vehicle, but in this scenario the teachers were already insured anyway.  Life settlements if used in a transparent fashion are often beneficial to the client but of course frowned upon by life insurance carriers for various reasons.

Personally, and not to get political, I don’t like Rick Perry, but I think describing this as a “life insurance scheme” makes it sound worse than it is.  It seems like ol’ Rick was just trying to find a creative way to help the state of Texas by using Wall Street ingenuity.  Life settlements aren’t really all that bad.  The argument against them usually centers around the idea that if you die someone benefits so therefore they are bad in that somewhat is profiting from your death.

Here is thought for you, health insurance companies benefit when you die young.  The government benefits when you die young and in many cases so does your family.  Profiting from something that is bad isn’t wrong so long as you aren’t causing it.  Take me for instance.  To some degree I profit from people’s fear of death. Does that make me a bad person?  I don’t profit from the problem but moreso the solution.  I provide life insurance which makes the inevitable financial issue of an untimely death more tolerable in the long term.

I’m far from an expert on the Rick Perry life insurance scheme, but I believe it’s likely a lot of hype over what is essentially nothing more than a financial transaction which Rick Perry should have made more clear to the teacher’s union.

I found the life insurance commercial shown below through Digg.  It’s incredibly well made for a commercial and although it is far more dramatic than virtually any commercial ever shown on American television, personally I think it’s far more insightful and noteworthy than the unbelievably annoying State Farm commercials or the overly sentimental commercials for Allstate auto insurance.  A lot of the people who have commented on this life insurance commercial seem to be offended by it, or find it incredibly depressing. Personally I think utilizing hacky “discount double check” commercials, and selling life insurance at painfully uncompetitive rates is far more offensive to consumers. 

This Thai life insurance commercial really caught my eye because I actually envisioned a very similar commercial where a car crash is shown in dramatic slow motion and jump cuts are used to show the person who is seconds from dying in other parts of their life.  The one thing that is a bit illogical about this video is that it doesn’t really focus on any need for life insurance.  The person seems to be wanting “more time” and remembering their regrets which is obviously something that owning life insurance won’t help with, nor will having it make you not regret the bad decisions you’ve made.

Regardless of how you feel about the commercial, it seems like Thai Life is an extremely successful company and is growing rapidly in a developing country where the need for life insurance is likely soaring along with the economic conditions of the country.  I can’t speak of Thai Life on any critical level as I know nothing of Thailand’s life insurance marketplace, but this company does make some excellent commercials which all seem to be on YouTube.  I envy their ability to get people to voluntarily watch their commercials and brand themselves so successfully.

Watch the life insurance commercial above and judge for yourself.

New York Life Insurance has a page within their website that declares their website does not provide online life insurance quotes and they say this as though it is a sign of superiority.  Apparently in the year 2012 not providing precise and user friendly information about your product online is a virtue according to New York Life.  They then point out that they have something even better and that is agents.  They claim this is better because in the event of service needs, such as changing beneficiaries or reviewing coverage later you will want an agent.  One of the other reasons New York Life Insurance claims using them is better than an online life insurance quote service is that “life insurance is not a commodity”.  Although I agree with this statement, it’s clear they are ignoring the fact that websites like mine are operated by an agent and aren’t simply automated portals.

The claim that New York Life is better than buying life insurance via a website because New York Life provides an agent is debunked by my service actually having an agent.  Not only does this website have an insurance agent of it’s own, but that agent doesn’t necessitate using your home as a place to sell the coverage and can shop various companies instead of simply believing New York Life is the best option.

“Life insurance is not a commodity”.  This is a true statement and a statement I have made many times.  The irony of New York Life making this statement is that they treat life insurance like more of a commodity than services like mine do.  I actually compare multiple options from competing companies as opposed to pretending that New York Life is competitive for term life insurance, which they aren’t, or that there aren’t better options for permanent coverage, which there are.

New York Life Insurance capitalizes on a name.  This name is incredibly well known and it’s the fuel for their continued success.  I capitalize on the ability for the Internet to make researching and purchasing life insurance policies much easier.  Many of the requests are sent to me in the middle of the night or on the weekend.  New York Life may not see a reason to have an online life insurance quote system, but the people who use my website certainly do.

After the recent economic meltdown, a large number of children are in poverty and without health insurance. But over the past couple of years, number of children without health insurance has dropped by 1 million. Many states in the U.S. have expanded the eligibility criteria for insurance so that children can afford to get their health insurance. This has shrunken the number of uninsured children from 6.9 million in 2009 to 5.9 million in 2010. According to the experts of Affordable Care Act, the federal health care reform has played an important role in the improvement.

Overall, 34 states experienced a significant decrease in the rate of uninsured children. Among them, Florida stands first, dropping from 667,758 to 506,934. But on the other hand, unfortunately Minnesota, Kansas and Wisconsin had an increase in the number of uninsured children. While Nevada had the highest rate of uninsured children, Massachusetts had the lowest.

These data have been provided by the Census Bureau on the basis of the analysis of new health insurance data. It was done by the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families.

The main reason behind the incessant growth of uninsured children is the recent economic turmoil and the increasing cost of private insurance. However, these days, families are turning to the federal-state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs, known as CHIP. Both these programs offer health insurance to children, especially to those who belong to the lower strata of the society. These programs come from different funding streams and allow states in how they run their programs.

Above all, President Barrack Obama signed an extension of CHIP and provided $87 billion to help people in the states to pay for Medicaid in the year 2009. Experts commented that a bipartisan national commitment has given states a new tool to follow. For instance, in early days, some states would require having face-to-face interview but now many states have online applications.

Ms. Joan Alker, co-executive director of the Georgetown University research center said that the Affordable Care Act must also preserve these gains going forward. She also said that we must preserve the culture of coverage. Everybody needs insurance and everybody has the right to be insured. All families must feel that an option is available for them too.

Florida led in reducing the number of uninsured children as so many programs had been introduced in favor of the masses. Legislation passed in 2009 further simplified the process, and penalties got reduced for them who are not being able to pay premiums.

South Carolina is trying its best to make it easier for low-income children to get coverage in Medicaid. The state’s Medicaid director is requesting an additional $35 million from the state to help around 70,000 children in getting health insurance coverage.

Texas also experienced a significant decrease in the total number of uninsured children. On the other hand, in Arizona, 258,339 uninsured children in 2008 dropped to 207,967 in 2010. But unfortunately, Minnesota saw the largest increase in uninsured children, from 72,493 in 2008 to 84,165 in 2010.

However, it is to be concluded by saying that states in the U.S. have by and large seen a significant decrease in the number of uninsured children.

Dave Ramsey “recommends” Zander insurance. It would be more fair to say he is a paid endorser of the service. If you were to visit the Zander Insurance website you would notice that Dave Ramsey is clearly shown on nearly every main page. I’ve already discussed in a prior post my issues with Dave Ramsey, so in my opinion it doesn’t really seem like he is the most credible or likely spokesperson for anything.

What is good and bad about Zander Insurance?

Let me start by saying that Zander Insurance is far better than State Farm or Allstate or any other franchised type of life insurance operation.  Their quote engine is instant which puts them into the top tier of life insurance services already.  The bad aspects of the site, it that it requires personal information to be entered, and completely rejects the idea that there is any value in any scenario for someone to have permanent life insurance.  This is obviously meant to be congruent to the constant and one dimensional advice given by Dave Ramsey himself.  It’s almost as though they were one of the only life insurance operations that was capable of purchasing Dave’s recommendation because they were willing to push the highly simplistic and somewhat ignorant view that permanent insurance is never beneficial.

Virtually every life insurance website has similar flaws that Zander Insurance does except for the somewhat contrived endorsement from a questionable “financial expert”.  There are only a few sites that do what mine does as quickly as it does.  At this point it seems Zander insurance may have become too entrenched with Ramsey’s name.  For one, being involved with his name prevents a life insurance agency from being able to do any type of estate planning or even providing the best option for those using life insurance as protection of their pensions.  Secondly, now that they have beat their chest so often that Dave Ramsey the endorsement associated with them it has lost most of it’s value and objectivity. 

Zander Insurance is a decent life insurance website, but I can objectively say that YourLifeSolution.com is simply better.  It’s clean and to the point.  I don’t feel the need to shove the ‘buy term invest the difference’ mantra down the user’s throat as I believe people can understand this concept for themselves.  My site is also superior simply because it quotes more companies and provides more information about underwriting than Zander Insurance’s website does or likely ever will.