Dear C,
Now that the oldballandchain is about to hit the big 4-0, I’ve noticed he’s started huffing and puffing a tad more in the throes of passion (with me, anyway), which is why I felt it incumbent upon me to march him down to the bank this am, to discuss the delights of life insurance. Seems you get some kind of coupon or discount for signing on the dotted line before the clock chimes and you are Officially Old; hence the sence of urgency – nothing to do with my recent fascination with knives, you understand.
Let me be the first to say that this visit turned out to be a surprisngly uplifting experience. Not only was the chap at the bank skilled at the art of drawing pictures of buckets and writing upside-down; there is also something refreshing – nay, cheerfully – blunt about an entire industry devoted to calculating how close you are to snuffing it. Ten years on, they expect you to be alive and kicking; by the time you hit 65, however, you are basically considered to be the insurance equivalent of a ticking bomb. I was particularly gratified to see that suicide is now covered, having feared accusations that I might have driven him to it, and that untimely deaths are only investigated for the first two years of the policy. Nevertheless, a couple of troubling questions remain:
1) How would one’s (purely hypothetical) decision to switch off the spousal life support machine affect coverage? Is proof of brain death enough, or does one physically have to unplug?
2) I keep trying to convince the obc that no amount of money could ever replace him, but in the meantime does twenty times annual income sound like enough?
Given your stellar legal background, I hope you can advise.
Faithfully,
P.
