When you grow up and have kids, the craziest thing happens. You have to start being responsible or something like that. You know, like having a working cell phone, a roof over your head and some kind of wheeled transportation? It’s the absolute worst.
But here I am, trying to “adult it” with the best of them and probably barely keeping up. Since my heart is in the right place but I’m saddled with poor time management skills and a lack of healthy boundaries involving commitments, I often fail at being responsible. But this time, I knew I had to keep moving forward and do the right thing. When you’ve lived out personal trauma, you realize how important it is to make sure those left behind are taken care of, which is why I decided it was time to pursue [life insurance].
These kids aren’t going to take care of themselves if something happens to my husband and me. But even saying the words “life insurance” seems so heavy. If you think it was heavy for me, you should have seen how my husband, Chase, responded.
Instead of hearing, “Wow, if my wife kicks the bucket, I will be a hundred-thousandaire,” he heard, “My wife is planning to take me to a third-world island with an ill-equipped police department and make me ‘scuba dive.’”
I couldn’t believe it. He threw such a fit, you would have thought I asked him to bungee jump without a cord. He used every excuse in the book.
We’re too young.
It’s like asking for something to happen.
It’s a waste of money.
With every single reason my blood pressure crawled higher. Not a good combination for someone hoping to pass a life insurance physical. I had to remind Chase that we are responsible parents who want our children to go to college one day without having to pursue alternative methods of employment -- like most Americans. If we aren’t here to know the joy of paying these tuition bills, we need to make sure it can happen another way.
When he finally relented, I knew I had days to make this work. Otherwise he would talk himself right out of it -- or die of a heart attack with the way my luck works. (Just kidding. Kinda. I do have extraordinary bad luck.)
I started looking into it and thoroughly confused myself. I have no idea what any of these fancy terms such as “whole life” and “term life” mean, let alone which would be the best for my situation.
So, I turned to Google because I wanted to meet with someone in person. Funny how that works.
This whole journey led me straight to the office of Robbin Gibbons, a local Farmers Agent. Lucky for me, she had the capabilities to answer all my questions.
It turned out that Chase and I both were good candidates for affordable life insurance. Who woulda thunk? In 30 short days, we were both presented with final documents to seal the deal. That’s when my feet started to cool. As I sat down to sign, I couldn’t help but ask some super important questions.
Like, what happens if my husband shows up to claim this policy with someone much younger and much prettier than me in tow? I can get over the age thing as long as she’s good to my kids, but hotter? That’s not going to work for me, even in the afterlife.
Robin (while looking me dead in the eye): I will look her up on Facebook before I turn in any paperwork.
Katie: Sweet. If gold digger is listed as her occupation, you remind my husband I will haunt him for the rest of his existence.
And that my friends, is how you know you found the right agent.