Life Insurance Policies

Girls

I've decided to dedicate this site to you, telling stories or events that come to mind that you can read some day. If someone else reads them...oh well...but it will be meant for you.

As we've probably told you recently, mom and I have updated our will, POA and associated documents. Since we're closer to 70 than not...we wanted to get some of those things in place so you wouldn't have so much to worry about years from now. In the process of looking through our file cabinets and safe, I found a couple of old life insurance policies that mom and dad took out on me when I was little. After some research I found out some interesting info.

One policy was taken out on January 11, 1954, when I was 10 days old. The value of the policy appeared to be $176 and the premiums cost mom and dad 10 cents per week. I found out that back in those days, insurance guys would come by the house, knocking on your door, trying to sell policies and if they did, they'd come by every week or so to pick up the premium. I suppose back in the '50s, $176 was enough to bury a child if they died. A second policy was taken out in 1964 when I was 10 years old with a value of $400. Both of them were taken out with Western-Southern Life, a company that is still around today, in fact there is an office down the street near the IGLOO. I stopped by last week to have the agent see if the policies were still good and had any value to them. It took them awhile to look back in records that were 60+ years old but they found it at last. 

For some reason, one of them had been turned into the Ohio unclaimed funds in 2013. I later called them about it and was told that I would be getting a check for $365 for the policy what had a value of $176. I guess all those pennies in interest over the years added up. The other policy did even better and has a value of over $1000 with a current cash value of $884.93. 

To keep you guys from having to mess with all the paperwork of trying to get the $1000 after I was gone, I decided to cash it in so I will also be getting a check for that in a few weeks. 

I hope that mom and I can use the $1000 from the two combined policies to help pay for the motor home we'd like to rent this spring or summer to do some traveling with friends.

Hopefully, mom and dad will travel with us in spirit as we spend their money on foolish things (ha!) 

Be talkin' to ya.

Dad