Is there an App on the market like the Senior Life App?

[theinsuranceman]

OK Todd... who else does everything that Legacy does?

Hey Todd.....You're not answering this question. Since you like to ridicule me up here let's put you in the hot seat. You're not answering this question because you put your foot in your mouth!
So who else saves Ms. Jones $$$ the way Legacy Assurance does? You said LA was not the only game in town. I certainly don't know of any. This is your chance to share this info with me and others.

 

[Newby]

Is anyone going to bring up the percentage of policy holders that SL rescinds in the first two years, or the fact that they insure undocumented people without a SSN making it difficult to pay death claims?

Or that Senior Life has no skin in the game if Legacy Assurance ends at a future date? Which is what has happened 100% of the time that companies have offered funeral merchandise price guarantees tied to life insurance policies with no inflation factor built into the life insurance product.

History just repeats itself over and over. This is nothing new. In the short term, it's just a way to sell cheap caskets to people with life insurance. Over the long term, 20 or 25 years when normal inflation makes it impossible to turn a profit selling caskets at prices quoted years earlier...you just close down Legacy Assurance and Senior Life has no responsibility other than to pay their insurance claim. It's a proven winner for the insurance company. Not so much for consumers.

 

[Newby]

It's not just the casket that has the savings.

At today's prices, a funeral home will be charging $6k-$8k for a casket, a vault, and a monument. Of courses these figures will vary some depending on which part of the country you are in. Maybe your area is a tiny rural area and does not fall in the average?

If Ms. Jones passes away on the first day the family can get the casket, vault, and monument for $3500 with LA OR they can get the same 18 gauge casket, vault, and monument for approx $7k at the funeral home. That would be a $3500 savings.

Even if Ms. Jones is a GI because she has alzheimers and is in a nursing home, and she passes away on the same day her policy issues, her family still gets her casket, vault, and monument for $3500...no waiting period!

Why would a person prefer to pay $6k-$8k for a casket, vault, and monument at the funeral home when over at LA they can get the same quality casket, vault, and monument for just $3500?

Of course the funeral home will still be charging for the embalming, music, hearse, all the other expenses.

Louis, I'm taking a break from up here so I can get back to work. I just don't have the time to hang around up here for 5 to 10 hours a day debating with people who are not out there "making it happen".

Greg you are drinking somebody's Kool-Ade. I've worked closely with funeral homes all over several states. All of them sell basic caskets for $1200 to $1400 mid price caskets at around $2000. 85% of their funerals will be in those two catagories. When they sell a $3500 casket they think they had a huge day.

Grave liners (unsealed burial vaults) range $800 to $1000 and the commonly used sealed vaults range $1200 to $1500.

Sure there are way higher priced caskets and vaults available. They are used for Michael Jackson and Princess Diana.

In top of that, funeral homes usually have packages where they package services and merchandise together. When people take those they are saving more On the total cost. If people supply their own casket they break up the package and pay the full service prices.

 

[rousemark]

Greg you are drinking somebody's Kool-Ade. I've worked closely with funeral homes all over several states. All of them sell basic caskets for $1200 to $1400 mid price caskets at around $2000. 85% of their funerals will be in those two catagories. When they sell a $3500 casket they think they had a huge day.

Grave liners (unsealed burial vaults) range $800 to $1000 and the commonly used sealed vaults range $1200 to $1500.

Sure there are way higher priced caskets and vaults available. They are used for Michael Jackson and Princess Diana.

In top of that, funeral homes usually have packages where they package services and merchandise together. When people take those they are saving more On the total cost. If people supply their own casket they break up the package and pay the full service prices.

 

[theinsuranceman]

Or that Senior Life has no skin in the game if Legacy Assurance ends at a future date? Which is what has happened 100% of the time that companies have offered funeral merchandise price guarantees tied to life insurance policies with no inflation factor built into the life insurance product.

History just repeats itself over and over. This is nothing new. In the short term, it's just a way to sell cheap caskets to people with life insurance. Over the long term, 20 or 25 years when normal inflation makes it impossible to turn a profit selling caskets at prices quoted years earlier...you just close down Legacy Assurance and Senior Life has no responsibility other than to pay their insurance claim. It's a proven winner for the insurance company. Not so much for consumers.

You would be correct EXCEPT that let's say 5 years down the road that LA, going forward, starts bundling a casket, vault, and monument for $4k rather than $3500. All previous members still get their package for $3500 AND all future members get their bundle for $4000.

These increasing tiers could occur every few years to keep up with or even ahead of inflation. This way all members get their bundle for what their membership states.

I believe the caskets are already bought (at today's price for cost of goods) and sitting in storage warehouses around the country so the product can be shipped immediately with less time restraints for delivery. Shipping is 2 days or less. The $3 membership helps pay for cost of storage?

LA also, and I quote from their brochure, "Wish Team: With this service, our experienced team will gather pricing information information from funeral homes in your area. We will then aid in negotiating those prices to make sure that you and your loved ones are getting the best funeral price available."

Worse case scenario: LA would stop selling memberships and honor all previous memberships. Kind of like Settlers recently....no new customers but honoring all present policy holders.

 

[Newby]

You would be correct EXCEPT that let's say 5 years down the road that LA, going forward, starts bundling a casket, vault, and monument for $4k rather than $3500. All previous members still get their package for $3500 AND all future members get their bundle for $4000.

These increasing tiers could occur every few years to keep up with or even ahead of inflation. This way all members get their bundle for what their membership states.

I believe the caskets are already bought (at today's price for cost of goods) and sitting in storage warehouses around the country so the product can be shipped immediately with less time restraints for delivery. Shipping is 2 days or less. The $3 membership helps pay for cost of storage?

LA also, and I quote from their brochure, "Wish Team: With this service, our experienced team will gather pricing information information from funeral homes in your area. We will then aid in negotiating those prices to make sure that you and your loved ones are getting the best funeral price available."

Worse case scenario: LA would stop selling memberships and honor all previous memberships. Kind of like Settlers recently....no new customers but honoring all present policy holders.

Greg, I have to respectfully say...you have lost your mind. There is no way (Zero Way) that they are buying the caskets for each person when they buy the policies. They buy caskets today to handle this years deaths. That is normal.

If you think 50 year old Mary Smith buys a policy today and they go out and spend $800 ($800/that they don't get until she dies) buying her casket and are going to store it in a warehouse for 40 -years until she dies at age 90 and then ship it to her funeral home, I have some prime INDIANA beach-front property I am going to let you in on.

If there was even a slight chance that would be true, do you know what caskets stored for 40 years in a non-climate controlled warehouse would look like? Just watch any episode of American Pickers and look at any 40 year old sheet metal thing-o-ma-bob looks like. It looks like a tetanus farm!

No Greg, the only legit way that you, me, Legacy Assurance, or anyone else can guarantee today's price for any item that will be delivered 20, 30, or 40 years in the future is to invest the money to hedge against inflation. When companies set up a program like LA has in which they don't receive the money until time of death, and the insurance company is selling a fixed benefit policy, (not one that grows like a true funeral PreNeed policy does) history has shown that it will crash and burn every time. It takes quite a few years so the insurance company can make out like bandits in the mean time.

Look at the history. Look up the old Browns burial plans. Look up Commonwealth. Look at the Huff-Cook Burial Association. Look at the AmVets sponcered Celestial Burial Case. These were all houses of cards that promised goods later at a cost quoted when they bought their policies. All worked fine as long as people died soon enough after they bought the policy. But as the years went by and inflation was unavoidable, they all crashed and burnt.

I hope I'm wrong Greg. Only time will tell. But I predict that after a couple of decades of leveraging this "benefit" to sell life insurance policies that are on the higher priced side of the niche, LA will quietly go out of business and everyone's guarantee will do exactly as the contract says. Nothing. No recourse for the consumer. They will simply get the death benefit that they bought. Nothing else.

 

[rousemark]

Worse case scenario: LA would stop selling memberships and honor all previous memberships. Kind of like Settlers recently....no new customers but honoring all present policy holders.

You cannot not in any way compare the continuing existence of LA with Settlers.. There is a government regulated contractual agreement in force with an insurance policy. No such thing exists with LA..

 

[theinsuranceman]

I would think the storage facilities are climate controlled. Climate controlled storage facilities are not out of the ordinary. They don't store the caskets in some rusted tin barn on a farm in Indiana...lol.

Perhaps the $3 monthly membership collected by LA is similar to receiving interest on investments, like a hedge against inflation?

 

[rousemark]

I would think the storage facilities are climate controlled. Climate controlled storage facilities are not out of the ordinary. They don't store the caskets in some rusted tin barn on a farm in Indiana...lol.

Perhaps the $3 monthly membership collected by LA is similar to receiving interest on investments, like a hedge against inflation?

Greg.. I have no problem with you doing whatever you want to do and recruiting others to do the same. You have never heard me attack you call you a liar, etc. However, you are confronted with what others consider might be a shortcoming you start with all this "supposing" which does nothing to bolster your position. In act, it creates more doubt in some people's mind. Do they buy the caskets when the policy is bought or not? Do they have these huge warehouses full of caskets or not? You state you "believe" they do but not that you "know" that they do. If you don't know, as an agent you should be able to find out with a simple phone call... The answer to these question does not require a long explanation.. Just a simple informed "yes" or "no" should suffice.

 

[shonceman]

Greg.. I have no problem with you doing whatever you want to do and recruiting others to do the same. You have never heard me attack you call you a liar, etc. However, you are confronted with what others consider might be a shortcoming you start with all this "supposing" which does nothing to bolster your position. In act, it creates more doubt in some people's mind. Do they buy the caskets when the policy is bought or not? Do they have these huge warehouses full of caskets or not? You state you "believe" they do but not that you "know" that they do. If you don't know, as an agent you should be able to find out with a simple phone call... The answer to these question does not require a long explanation.. Just a simple informed "yes" or "no" should suffice.

I'm gonna educatedly guess that they don't, in agreement with @Newby . They're essentially resellers, same as a funeral home. You can buy merchandise in a preneed plan at current prices, but the inflation hedge Scott mentioned protects them from future losses when the funeral home actually purchases the product from the manufacturer at time of need. The funeral home doesn't buy the casket and keep it in a warehouse.

But since the LA quoted prices are apparently high for today's market, maybe the extra they're charging plus investment earnings provide an inflation hedge for them.

I'm obviously speculating on that point. I can't ask the powers that be about it, but Greg can!