I was reading an article in the Insurance Journal this week about people lying to insurance companies. I was shocked to read that between 16% to 33% people, depending on sex and age, lie to the IRS and insurance companies to get lower rates. People lie about their income to get a more favorable loan status. We live in the information age. How stupid do people have to be to lie to companies and the United States government who can access all of the accurate information they wish to access? Do these people believe that no one checks their facts? And the wildest fact in the article is the number of people that think lying to insurance companies is Okay. What has happened to us as a country?

Our declining integrity is a major concern. The dictionary defines integrity as adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character, honesty. I believe integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is looking. Has getting our way or winning became so important that cheating is now Okay? We have politicians that make speeches that are recorded, get caught in a lie and the media covers the lie up. We have an ex-football star stab two people to death with DNA evidence set free. We have over 7.2 million married couples with secret bank accounts, so their spouse won’t know about their secret spending. We can’t seem to figure out how to stop a 50% divorce rate. According to a Stanford University study, in 1940 20% of college students admitted to cheating versus today 98% of students admit to cheating. This means only 2% of our next generation of college grads are going to be honest. These are only the statistics from the people that admit cheating or the ones that get caught. What happened to our integrity?

The younger the person, the more apt they are to lie according to the article. Also, men are twice as likely to lie and be okay with it as women. So, God help us with young males between ages 18 to 34, they are our biggest liars and seem to be Okay with it. When the article speaks of lying to an insurance company, they speak about lying about miles driven to receive a lower premium on car insurance or lying about smoking pot to get a more favorable rate on their life insurance. The dumbest person has to be the guy that lies about his income for a loan thinking no one will look at his tax return. This is not 1930, every piece of information in our lives can be accessed online. Maybe we have hit a new low in ignorance as well as lack of integrity.

If you have been guilty of lying to insurance companies, banks or the IRS, please stop. We do have the internet and everything can be verified. Tell the truth, pay your fair share and leave the lying to the politicians.

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”. —Mark Twain

Image by Stuart Miles at www.freedigitalphotos.net

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Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, grandfather of 1, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, employee benefit specialist, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger, author and team leader with over 29 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.