The never-answered question I have for Colonial Penn Life Insurance

 

(Never answered by Colonial Penn in any of their ads, anyway....)

According to this spokeschoad, the ONLY thing anyone is ever concerned about when purchasing life insurance (or any other insurance, for that matter) is Price, Price, and Price.  As in "how much does it cost, can I afford it, will the rates ever change?"  But of course, this is NOT the only item a consumer should be concerned about when purchasing insurance.  There's another P that Colonial Penn only hints at in all of it's ads, and that word is "Payout."  As in "Payout Amount."

In every single one of these noxious, fetid commercials- and especially the ones that feature actors who would be a disgrace to any neighborhood drama club- we get nothing but hints concerning how much Colonial Penn will hand recipients of their "$9.95 plan."  We see people off-handedly comment on how the payments "can help" pay for this and "contribute" to paying for that.  Kind of like Endurance and Car Shield yakking about "Roadside Assistance" and "helping" with car rentals, which could mean anything from "I suggest you call AAA" to "I understand Budget still rents cars, google their number on your Smartphone, dummy."  

What we are NEVER given is an actual amount- as in, if grandma lets Colonial Penn charge her VISA card $9.95 a month for five years and then kicks off having paid a total of $600 in premiums, how much does her son get toward putting her body in a box and dumping it into a hole decorated by a carved piece of Vermont Granite?  

Turns out that Colonial Penn sells life insurance by the "unit," and each "unit" is $9.95 per month.  And how much coverage do you get for $9.95 per month?  For two years, none at all.  After that- about $700.

Considering that Colonial Penn itself likes to remind us that "the average funeral can cost $30,000,"  you're going to need to buy a lot more units if you want to come close to covering your fancy party followed by dirt nap.  But Colonial Penn caps the number of "units" each customer can buy at 12- which would cost you $119 per month, and pay out-- about $8600.  And remember, there's that 2-year waiting period to prevent people from spending their final seconds on Earth- maybe during a heart attack- from buying insurance with their last gasp, because you know people will do that.  People are scum.

So in fact, there's actually no way to use Colonial Penn Insurance to cover the cost of a funeral.  A cremation, sure, but that's cheap anyway- why even bother with insurance to cover the cost of cremation?  Don't send Colonial Penn any money- just set aside $10 a month in your own, interest-bearing account.  And live a few years, which Colonial Penn's own plan requires in any case.

So yeah, Colonial Penn, your price is the selling point- your ONLY selling point.  It's the "As Low As..." scam that anyone who has ever pulled up to Jiffy Lube expecting to get an oil change for $29.99 is very, very familiar with.  Of course, nobody who wants actual coverage is going to sign up for that $9.95 plan because it's basically worthless- your company plans on people hanging up the phone confused and a little distressed that they called you willing to invest ten bucks a month and ended up agreeing to eight or nine times that because the nice young man you hired to take the call took them on a polite but firm guilt trip.  I have another P for you- "Pass."