An Exciting Story
Let’s imagine for a moment that a brand new medical study was done that discovered that each and every one of us has a diamond in our body. Where the diamond lies is not important but that every single person in the United States has this diamond. Now what’s interesting is that the diamond starts out very cloudy and imperfect but for some, the diamond gets clearer and clearer and more and more brilliant as they age. So for a few lucky ones, by the time they reach the ages of 65-85 they have developed a large,
brilliant, very valuable, perfect diamond just sitting in their body doing nothing.
So now 65-85 year olds are asking themselves the questions: What should I do? What are my options? I wonder how much my diamond could be worth? What could I do with the money? What if I just do nothing?
Now the
great news is that doctors are able to determine the quality of the diamond simply by reviewing the medical records and they are willing to do this at no cost. The
bad news is that the actual procedure to remove the diamond, although non intrusive, simply a draw of blood, is extremely expensive. So, it only makes sense to have the diamonds quality assessed before making a decision to remove it or not.
Let’s look at a recent case: Muriel is a healthy 80 year old female. Muriel doesn’t have a lot of money but she does periodically donate to the public library. She has decided to have her medical records reviewed so that she can find out if she has a valuable diamond or not. After the medical record review, it is determined that Muriel’s diamond may be very valuable, as much as $500,000, great news! The bad news is that it is going to cost about $300,000 to have her diamond removed and Muriel doesn’t have that much money. Not to worry, a wealthy investor offers to pay for the procedure as long as she agrees to pay him back plus interest. Muriel agrees and has the diamond removed. Once she has the diamond she contacts a diamond broker who sells the diamond to an investor for a whopping $500,000! Muriel pays the broker a commission and then pays back the investor for the cost of the procedure plus interest and she is left with $175,000. She uses $75,000 of it to fund a long term care policy for herself and then donates the remaining $100,000 to the public library.
Just think if Muriel hadn’t checked to see if her diamond was of value and had eventually passed away with it still inside. What a waste.
Of course this is a make believe story but the basis of this tale is completely true. If you are between the ages of 65 and 85, in relatively good health, you may be carrying a very valuable asset that you don’t even know you have. This asset is your insurable capacity or rather your ability to qualify for a large life insurance policy that could be created and then sold to an investor for hundreds of thousands of dollars.