Probability as it pertains to life
insurance is misunderstood. In
fact, our brains not well-suited to
understand the probability of certain
occurrences happening. We see this
in our fear of flying and our embrace of
driving for example. Maybe
we don't want to correctly analyze the
probability of a catastrophic event
occurring in an effort to somehow avoid
it happening. Let's look at
probability and how we can protect
against the unforeseen with term life
insurance.
Our
brains just aren't built to correctly
understand probability. There's a
very interesting book called "The
Drunkard's Walk" which delves into this
mismatch. Unfortunately,
probability is all around us and we need
to protect ourselves and our loved ones
from financial, medical, and other
catastrophes are at their foundation,
are based on probability. Let's
take an example to help correctly frame
our understanding of the need for
purchasing term
life insurance.
There
are three closed doors. Behind one
door is a great prize and behind the
other two, nothing. You are asked
to choose one door. You randomly
pick Door A (which remains closed).
A host then opens Door C to show there
is nothing there. You are then
given the choice of keeping your current
choice (Door A) or switching to Door B.
What should you do? The answer is
counter intuitively that you should
always switch. Most
people will assume the odds are 50-50
now between the two remaining doors and
decide that there's no reason to switch.
That is incorrect and if you're like
me...it will take some time and a great
deal of disbelief to understand why.
Computer models have randomly run this
experiment and show that Door A in this
example has a 1/3 chance of being
correct while Door B has a 2/3 change of
being correct. That's double the
probability that the prize is behind
Door B and you should switch.
Why?? The probability that
your original choice was correct is 1/3
in the beginning of the experiment.
The probability that it's incorrect was
(and is) 2/3. Opening Door C does
not change this initial probability.
The fact that the host has revealed Door
C just shifts the probability for Door B
to 2/3.
What
does all this have to do with the
need for life
insurance? One reason
many people put off buying life
insurance is their perceived sense of
the probability that something will
happen. We constantly hear "I'm
healthy, I don't need life insurance".
That's now probability works. We
all have a chance, unfortunately, of
passing away early. Let's face
it...it's scary. But that's the
issue...we must FACE it. When
people hear statistics, they tend to
assume they will be on the "good" side
of fate. This is especially true
when it saves them money each month on
life insurance
premium. It's natural.
Unless you have a "glass half empty"
mindset, given a statistic that 4% of
the people in your age band will pass
away in the next 10 years, you mentally
place yourself in the other 96%. I
admit that I do it as well and I see the
need for life insurance coverage every
day with our clients! Our brains
just aren't well-adapted to the world of
probability and risk. In the
example above, everyone (translated
EVERYONE) has a 4% chance of triggering
a
life insurance
policy. It may seem
like a small percentage...one we can
safely avoid or sweep under the
rug...but it's still there. If it
we're 50%, the
life insurance
rate would be $500 instead of
$50 monthly.
It doesn't make sense to avoid this
risk. The better move is to use a
tool like
affordable term
life insurance to address it
and THEN we can go back to the safe
pastures of knowing we'll be in the 96%
(while addressing that nasty 4%).
Let's switch to Door B where the
protection of term life and piece of
mind awaits us.
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