Colonial Penn Death Insurance: The Scam that Keeps on Scamming

 

"Hi, I'm Alex Trebek, and I wasn't satisfied with being a world-famous multi-millionaire cultural icon as a Senior Citizen.  I decided to adopt the philosophy 'there's no such thing as enough money' and decided to sign on with Colonial Penn to scam Senior Citizens afraid of burdening their loved ones with burial costs into parting with some of their fixed income and buy nonsense garbage 'life insurance.'"

Now that Trebek is dead, his grift has been taken over by other aging celebrities who are trusted faces to the television-addicted, mostly lower-middle-class Over-65 crowd.  These cretins show up hundreds of times a day in cheap commercials mainly broadcast during the daylight hours when only Seniors and small children are watching to stoke the fires of anxiety among the elderly who for some reason are concerned about what happens when they die and the kids who never visit get stuck with a bill.  Maybe they are afraid that their ridiculously expensive, selfish burial requests won't be honored and the kids will cremate them or the very most pay for a less-pompous Memorial to their Mediocre Lives than the elderly person asked for, as if it matters one tinker's damn what the stone above the corpse box looks like.  

So the elderly person who regularly complains that their Social Security payments are too low decides to splurge on $9.95 a month to buy Colonial Penn Life Insurance.  This will teach the kids to stop complaining about the weekly scratch-off purchase, as it's an even worse investment than the lottery.  $9.95 buys one "Unit" of insurance, which if purchased at the age of 50 (and NOBODY buys Colonial Penn life insurance at the age of fifty, come on) will pay off a whopping $1600 when the idiot passes away.  Just about covering the cost of the cold cuts, soft drinks and coffee served at the Wake.

Maybe.  That's assuming that Colonial Penn even pays out before the funeral and burial.  Chances are excellent that you'll still be filling out forms and calling automated voice menus long after grandma has been placed under her Very Disappointing Dead Person Buried Here Sign Made out of Stone. If the beneficiaries followed instructions, that tiny amount of money will HELP pay the bills still coming in for the Opposite of Birthday Party.  If the beneficiaries had more common sense than consideration for the wishes of a person who is no longer here to complain and literally has no way of knowing or caring what became of their (hopefully mostly harvested) organs, the check from Colonial Penn makes a significant dent in the debt accrued by the passing of the insured. 

In the long run, the much better option is to just stick $10 a month into a regular interest-bearing account every month and skip the Colonial Penn Middlemen.  If you do this at the age of 60 and live to the age of 81 like the average American Woman (and these commercials heavily target women,) you'll have over $2500 to leave to the person you designate to handle your funeral (you know, the child you like the least.) If you opt for cremation like a sensible person, and I'll really take your "I don't want to be a burden" claims seriously.