In my 14 years in the insurance profession, the hardest person for me to win over as a client was my very own mother. There is an underlying reason my mother was so challenging. When she got pregnant with me, my father wanted her to terminate the pregnancy. Because my mother did not comply, the relationship between my mother and father ended before I was even born. Faced with being a single parent, my mother made it her life’s mission to take care of her only child. Although we were very poor, she did her best to provide for me, even with things that she didn’t give herself, including a university education.

I am the only one in my immediate family who went to university, but when I decided to become an insurance advisor, my mother was angry. She believed that I was wasting the golden opportunity of the good education that she worked so hard and sacrificed so much for. She would have preferred that I become an owner and operator of my own marketing company or manager of a large corporation.

She didn’t want anything to do with insurance, yet I convinced her to take on critical illness coverage. I would pay the monthly premiums, and all she had to do was complete the required forms. As fate would have it, six months later, my mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The same insurance that she gave me a hard time about providing for her ended up saving her life.

My mother was diagnosed in January 2009 but did not disclose this information to anyone in the family, including me until the following month. Through the public health care system, she would not have been able to start treatment until six months after her diagnosis. She also assumed this care was her only health care option and that her insurance coverage only paid out when she died.

“Do you remember the insurance I forced you to complete?” I asked her. “It pays out a lump sum in case of critical illness, and cancer is one of the illnesses it covers.”

When she heard those words, her disposition changed in such a positive way, it seemed as if half the disease had disappeared. That same day, we visited her doctor and advised her that my mother had critical illness insurance coverage. “Why did your mother never say that before?” the doctor said. “She can do the required treatment through private medical facilities, and she can start tomorrow morning.” My mother started treatment the following day, and after six weeks she was cancer free. To date my mother is happy, healthy, strong and continues to live a normal life. 

I had another client who was a firefighter. He had been holding his insurance policies for about two years, and one day after evaluating his income and expenses, he said he intended to cancel all his policies because he couldn’t afford them. I discouraged him from doing so and told him to find other expenses to cancel. He trusted me and knew I had his best interest at heart, so he reconsidered. 

Unfortunately, just a couple short months after that conversation, he was in a life-threatening motor vehicle accident that ultimately left him a paralyzed from the neck down. The same insurance he had intended to cancel became one of his biggest lifesavers. The policy paid him a lump sum due to his disability and included a payor waiver feature that keeps the policy active while he is alive without the payment of premiums. 

These two experiences showed these clients what I already knew, which is why I do what I do. Being an advisor who can help people go through challenging life trials is part of my identity, and just as my mother and firefighter client were relying on me, there are so many people relying on you. Understand that there are certain things only you can do; there are certain places that only you can go; and there are certain people that only you can reach. We must realize that we are all part of a bigger picture, and the longer we take to wake up, the more people are left exposed.

So, if you know who you are and why you do what you do, act like it.