I love a good brain teaser quiz from time to time. This was a thought that crossed my mind. With all of the talk about budget cuts and sequester of budgets when we are trillions of dollars in debt, I wondered how much life insurance is in force in just the U.S.? My first thought, one must understand how much a trillion really is. Let’s take a look.
It is really hard to comprehend how big of a number a trillion really is. It is a one followed by 12 zeros, 1,000,000,000,000. If you measured it by money using one hundred dollar bills how would it stack up? A one half inch thick stack of $100 Bills is $10,000 and could fit in your pocket. A hundred packs of those one half inch stacks of $100 bills would be $1 million. All of those packs fit on a standard pallet about three and half feet tall would equal $100 million dollars. Ten of those pallets would equal $1 billion dollars. Now the mind blowing part, a trillion would be these $100 bills stacked on 10,000 of those pallets which would fill a very large warehouse. Let’s look at it from payments over time. If a person earned $40,000 per year it would take that person 25 years to earn $1 million. It would take the person 25,000 years to earn $1 billion. It would take that same person 25 million years to earn $1 trillion dollars.
Now I understand just how hard this number is to comprehend. Let’s look at measuring it in time instead of money. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. One million seconds is 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds. One billion seconds is approximately 31.71 years. One trillion seconds is 31,688 years 269 days 1 hour 46 minutes and 40 seconds. We were just Neanderthals running around what is now Asia and Europe. We can agree a trillion is a really BIG number.
Now for the answer, our U.S. National Debt is approximately just over $16.6 trillion dollars. However, according to Life Insurance and Market Research Association or LIMRA in its most recent numbers from 2010 there is $18.4 trillion of life insurance in force in the U.S. Now, I know what you are thinking. If everyone died at the same time with life insurance, we could wipe out the national debt. But that is a really bad idea. Someone has to be here to write checks and collect the checks for the life insurance death benefits. I agree the temptation is there. Point is, life insurance is a very important product to own and to protect your family. Americans purchase approximately $2.9 trillion in life insurance annually. With $18.4 trillion dollars life insurance purchased, obviously your fellow Americans believe it to be true.
“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”—Woody Allen
Tim Wilhoit is owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN. He is a family man, father of 3, entrepreneur, insurance agent, life insurance broker, salesman, sales trainer, recruiter, public speaker, blogger and team leader with over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing in the insurance and beverage industries.
Thanks Tim – Your closing – “’There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”—Woody Allen'” reminded me of a statement a Broker/Friend would use when starting an insurance presentation with a potential client.
“I’ll make this quick! Insurance people are like fish – they begin to stink very quickly”. He kept his presentations simple, to the point, and brief – he was very successful!
Thank you Philip, I always value your feedback.
Of course if everyone died at the same time no one would be here to get paid or pay. And even in the flood when nearly everyone died there were still a few people left.
Interesting about your post it was very analytical and well detailed…but this video clip – Here’s a visual of a trillion. http://youtu.be/n4-4bvuX7qA made a more emotional impact.
That’s why we use and market a system that enables the agents to sell by using video and internet technology (just like you use on your site) for example –would this be beneficial on your site? http://LeadGenerationQuestion.InsuranceAgentsSuccess.com/ ..look here
http://timwilhoit.insuranceagentssuccess.com/
to see how one of the hundresd of ways you could use it for lead generation,prospect development and client contact.
Den Lobach
http://www.InsuranceAgentsSuccess.com/
Den,
Love the trillion video! Most people can’t comprehend how big a trillion really is, that is a great visual. How much for the lead pop up?
At the end of 2010, there was $18.4 trillion of life insurance in force, a 2% increase over 2009 according to ACLI. I don’t have current numbers, but if my sales vs claims/cancellation ratio means anything, it’s up by even more now.
You are correct Tim. Every indicator I read is life insurance is trending up. Our agency sales are definitlely following that pattern as well. Thank you for sharing
Liked info
Thank you Roger. I appreciate it.
Unfortunately Tim, it won’t be long before it is surpassed!
Michael, that is my fear as well. But we are all good as long as people keep buying more year over year.
Very true, Mike. The current growth rates will put the US debt ahead of life Insurance very soon.
There is nearly $20 trillion of life insurance in force. Life insurers have paid out nearly $59 billion in death benefits – we don’t tell our story well to the consumers!
But we can try harder to educate consumers through campaigns, education, marketing, etc. LIAM and Insure Your Love are terrific examples are ways we can tell that story and engage consumers!
ABSOLUTELY!!!
I feel life insurance has been around since the years of those old western cowboy movies.
back in the days when there were big banks and life insurance companies and no heavy deficits as we face today. In addition, more ethnic groups are selling life insurance today and more people are buying it for a number of educated reasons therefore, I strongly feel Life insurance takes the lead.