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Life Insurance Through the Ages

Written by Aaron Pinkston, Tue, Feb 16 2010

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Some of you may know that even though Clarifinancial is a new-fangled website thinga-majig, I have a bit of a history with the insurance market. While I work to introduce the next generation of insurance sales, we can look to the past to learn lessons from the days of yore.

My grandfather on my dad’s side, Pink Papa, was an agent and a manager for Met Life for about 20 years. This wasn’t how I got my start in insurance, but I remember him telling stories about being an agent in small-town, North Carolina. He would go door to door each week on his route, collecting a nickel or dime from his clients. (This is also the same time my dad says he could go to the air-conditioned movies and get a soda and gigantic Tootsie Roll for a nickel, to give you an idea of inflation.) A friend of mine at New York Life collects the old tins agents would use at the time. They resemble a small lunch box with key lock and a slot in the top. It was a blast from the past to hold these in my hands. Thanks Louis.

This method posed a few limitations on the agent because they could only travel so far in a given week and had to repeat the route the very next week. Another one of my friends, Shirish, who has been in insurance for over 50 years on three continents, came up with a solution to this solution. He told his clients that instead of going to their door, he would wait on a prominent neighborhood corner and they could come by any time during the day to pay their premium. Because he would only have to spend one or two days in a neighborhood, he was able to build up a client base in a few neighborhoods instead of just one.

When I started in insurance, the phone was my friend. I was able to reach more people in a week than either Pink Papa or Shirish. And John Hancock (Manulife) handled the ongoing payments allowing me to focus on more important needs of the people I was able to help.

But still, we are moving into a new age. Not one where the speed of information is the problem. From standing on corners, to mail, to telephones, to the internet, we have solved the problem of moving information quickly. Just like when there is too much news in the world, we need better coverage, not more of it. With all this insurance information, we need to solve the problem of quality and relevance.

We don’t need more websites that allow us to get more information, just faster. We need to get quality, relevant information. How do you get the best information to the insurance shoppers who need it while minimizing the junk? How do you focus on what’s important without getting bogged down in the jargon? It would have to be a place that makes choices clear through an ultra-competitive but low-pressure environment, where the good naturally floats to the top. It would have to look a lot like Clarifinancial. Welcome.