Imagine being 100!

Recently we received a notice that a client we have on file died at the age of 104.

 This wasn’t a client of ours per se, but one we had inherited through means we can’t quite put our finger on. I won’t share any information here that couldn’t be found on a person’s obituary.

 I find this policy fascinating, and at first wanted to write about the necessity of proper and adequate life insurance since most people are, in fact, improperly insured. I decided against this as a concept because A) it doesn’t seem to resonate with people and B) the policy itself is far more fascinating than anything I could ever write about how you, the reader, 100% ought to have more permanent life insurance.

If you look here about our thoughts on what it takes to make it to age 100 financially, you can begin to imagine what it must have been like to have been born in 1918, as this person was. Born into an age of pandemic and the nearing of the end of the first World War, Woman’s Suffrage (in Canada), living through the great depression and World War Two, the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Oil Embargos, Trickle Down Economics. The introduction of the Television, the “Fuddle Duddle” incident (lol), Woodstock, Pac-mania, the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), The console wars, Desert Storm, 9/11, Tienanmen Square, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the advent of the home computer… the iPhone!

This person lived during these events, of course of which there are untold more.

The only thing I can say for certain about them, is that they bought an insurance policy from Imperial Life in 1937 for $1,000 worth of death benefit, at an annual cost of $27.55. (Adjusted for inflation for today: $18,958.54 and $522.31 respectively.) Over that time frame, from the day the policy was issued, to the day the claim on death was made, the death benefit “grew” to $4,745.30. This policy isn’t even enough to pay for the parking spot at a funeral home…

 I must remind myself, over and over, that I am not writing about proper insurance coverage. I am writing about how interesting this case is and how to apply it to our modern daily interactions with life insurance.

First things first, this policy was emailed to me in PDF form and was printed out on a printer that is more advanced than the combined might than every single piece of electronics in the world at the time the original application was filled on a type writer and by hand. The illustration is missing, but I assume that some sort of book of mortality rates and slide rule were used to calculate premiums and benefits.

I barely know what a slide rule is. I have no idea how it works. It is as anachronistic to me as a corded phone will be to my children. (or anyone under the age of 25 today.)

Today, we simply type a birth date, smoker status and sex into a program and an incredibly simplified illustration of an extraordinarily complex calculation is spit out into our hands, and onto screens that even a couple decades ago would have been considered witch craft and likely heresy. In the future, we will choose from a range of genders to create illustrations based on collected data. This might seem strange to some of us, but the reality is, this data is being collected and will be invaluable for the people who are non-gender conforming and or non-binary as the next generations look to purchase life insurance.

Initially something I find interesting about the application is that the “place of correspondence” doesn’t even exist anymore. It was swallowed whole by the city of Calgary, some many decades ago.

The policy was for a woman, and in order to obtain the policy, her husband had to sign off on the policy and a reason given as to why the policy is being taken out on her life and not her husbands. I would like to say times have changed such a great amount in the last 84 or so years, but as we are seeing with recent events in North America, maybe this isn’t so much the case.

At least, unlike this application, today’s apps don’t specifically ask for your race.

I won’t give the details of the apparent credit report, but retail credit companies of the time would explicitly ask about a person’s morals and character. Which I find to be of note. Mainly because this credit report is specifically aimed at women. I would have never thought of an insurance application as a tool to snitch on a person and ensure their “desirability of risk” to the company itself. Imagine if today, we asked your neighbours, friends and family about your daily habits and your moral worth to your community to provide you credit.

 It is very telling of how people managed their finances during that time, and in my opinion speaks to the distrust and fears fostered in banks and other institutions throughout the generations.

Today, we ask much more complex physical and mental health questions than: Have you or any of your family members suffered from “insanity” “apoplexy” “Chronic Hoarseness” “Varicose Veins” “Dysentery” “Gravel” “Dropsy” “Tuberculosis” and/ or “consumption” (not how much, or what mind you, just that you suffer from “consumption”.)

 “Sun Stroke” was considered a mental health affliction of the day apparently as well. People of this age wore suits while playing golf and didn’t believe in drinking water; this must have been a rampant issue.

 Interesting note on prohibition, which ran in Canada from 1918-20 and apparently is still an option for municipalities today. She lived during prohibition. East bound and down!

 Another interesting tidbit; nowadays insurance companies will ask if you plan to pilot a plane now or in the future and may prescribe an extra fee on top of your normal premiums if you answer yes to this. Upon signing of this policy, there is a question asking if you plan to fly as a passenger, and for how many hours. In some ways, we have indeed come quite a long way. Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA, now Air Canada) was incorporated in the same year this policy was approved.

 The selling agent(s) of this policy “earned” $1000, which as you see above translates into $18,958.54. These old boys were making some great coin back in the day. Perhaps I will do a deeper dive into how these kinds of commissions were possible in this era. Don’t get me wrong, we earn a great living doing what we do, but it is nowhere close to how it used to rain back then.

 Ok… so, imagine yourself turning 100. Thinking of all the things that have and haven’t changed over your lifetime. Looking back and seeing the unbelievable advancements we have made in our society here in Canada and around the world. There was a King in England when this policy was sold. John Dillinger was still robbing banks. The Loch ness Monster was captured on film for the first and only time.

Shes out there. She might be watching you… right now!

Personally, I hope to live longer to see what else we can accomplish on this earth. I would love to live to see the upcoming generations fix the problems we have caused. I want to be a part of that and champion causes that can move us ahead as time goes on.

 I wonder how I will feel about this in 60 years. Hmmm…

But, at the end of the day, whether we make it there or not, we have insurance policies that in 84 years someone in the industry will have to take care of and look into and think “Hey, this is interesting!”

Hopefully it’ll be me.

One final note of interest: In 1993 Dad along with a small party of independent life insurance brokers from across the country actually negotiated the sale and purchase of Imperial Life (The Imperial Life Assurance Company of Canada) from the Laurentian Group (now Desjardins) out of Quebec and split the company by region with Dad taking over the Alberta block of business, and formed Financial Growth Inc. which he later sold to Western Financial Group, who then would later sell the business back to Desjardins.

For a number of years dad ran the operations of the western Canada block of Imperial Life, which would bring about, through this transaction, his retirement at age 49 in 2000, which continues to this day. This policy is a policy from Imperial Life, which doesn’t solve the mystery of how it came to us, but is a nice piece of history to look back on. I like to think this woman lived an incredible life and saw many incredible things we literally can’t see today. I really hope so.

Thanks for reading.
 
If you would like me to opine in this space about how almost all of us are improperly insured, please let me know in the comments below.

Darris Cameron

 CEO, Financial Value Inc.