25 Mar Smart Planning With Insurance Saves the Day

Bill Reid Case Study: Smart Planning With Insurance Saves the Day

New Year’s Eve for the Reids is a family affair. So when Bill Reid didn’t show up at his sister Michelle’s home, everyone was worried. Around 9 p.m., a call to an area hospital confirmed the family’s fears. Bill had been in a horrific car accident. Another motorist hit Bill’s car head on, driving it through a brick wall and trapping him in his car for 90 minutes.

Bill, then 32, sustained multiple bone fractures, lacerations to his liver and colon, and a brain injury that put him in a coma for five weeks. He underwent 13 surgeries and spent seven months in the hospital and rehab center. It took almost two years for him to walk unassisted.

The brain trauma, however, left Bill with chronic, shortterm memory loss, which made it impossible for him to return to work. Fortunately, he had planned ahead with the help of his brother-in-law, James Hasley, CFP, CLU, ChFC, an insurance professional.

James had sold Bill an individual disability insurance policy when Bill was just 26, and later helped him add more coverage as his earnings increased. When Bill changed to a job that offered an employer-paid disability insurance benefit, he kept his individual coverage for the added protection.

Because of Bill’s wise decision, his income is roughly the same as it was before the accident and will continue until age 65, allowing him to stay in his home and lead an active life.

Before the accident, Bill had also purchased two life insurance policies. Because they included disability waiver of premium riders, the insurance company now pays all of Bill’s premiums. The whole life policies are accumulating cash values that will provide Bill with financial security later in life.

Would you be OK financially if an accident or illness prevented you from working for a month … a year … permanently? An insurance professional can help you protect your paycheck with disability insurance. Start your smart planning with insurance and consult with an expert today.

Smart Planning With Insurance Saves the Day – Video Transcription

Pat Reid (Bill’s Mother): Bill is my only son. He is a good person, he has a good heart. Everybody loves him.

Michelle Hasley (Bill’s Sister): Bill is a caring person. He’s a fun person. He’s a lively person, happy to be alive kind of person.

James Hasley (Insurance Agent): Met Bill around 1996. He came in, he was introduced to me by Michelle, and we sat down to assist him with some IRA rollover and some investment planning. Michelle and I happened to marry after I met Bill. Bill is Michelle’s brother.

Bill was interested in planning for his future. When Bill and I sat down we realized that he did not have any disability insurance so he purchased some. Later, as he earned more money, he purchased more disability insurance. Later, he then was offered group benefits including health insurance, disability insurance, and some group life insurance. We discussed how keeping his individual insurance would fill in the unprotected income that his group insurance didn’t cover. He thought it was a good idea to keep it and he did. Turns out to be the wisest recommendation that we ever discussed.

Michelle: Bill was on our way to our house and he had called at 4:30 to say, “I’m on my way and I’ll be there in a little bit.”

Pat: We had the television on and I saw a news break come in about a terrible accident.

James: Bill was coming home from a grocery store in the afternoon and a car crossed the median and hit the car that he was driving head on.

Michelle: The car flipped, I think more than once, and hit a brick wall and he was upside down. A trauma ‘chopter came to get him and took him to the hospital. There was a time when there was no way that we thought that he would make it through the night.

James: He remained unconscious for several weeks. When he woke up he lost the ability to speak, he had a lost the ability to uh.. a lot of motor skills. He lost the ability to move his arms and legs. So he had to relearn all of those things. He has difficulty standing in one place, sitting for a long time, doing things like addition or anything that requires short-term memory are skills that he just doesn’t possess anymore. Although we knew we had rough times ahead that I wasn’t ever worried and was able to assure his family that they need not be worried where money was going to come from. He really just had to focus on getting healthy.

Bill’s group insurance covered 60% of his salary. The individual insurance that he receives is on top of the group disability and he receives that income tax free. The combination of the group insurance plus the individual insurance and then the additional benefits that he gets from social security has provided him with a household income that meets what he was earning prior to his disability.

In the life insurance planning we added a rider called “Waiver of Premium.” Waiver of Premium in the event of a disability waives the premium for the insured. In this case, the premiums on Bill’s whole life insurance is being waived. The dollars that are going into his life insurance policy are building substantial cash values so that when his disability insurance runs out, he’ll have some sizeable dividends to help supplement him through his later years.

Michelle: Bill’s future is bright. He will have his disability income for a long time. He’ll be able to do all the things he wants to do in life. There’s nothing that’s gonna slow him down.

Bill: I have good people around me. I had a family, I had friends, and the most important thing for me was keeping a positive attitude. Having a long-term disability insurance have helped me to be able to go on and afford the things that I have.

Michelle: He’s our miracle man. He’s the hospital’s miracle man. There’s no way he that should’ve lived, we don’t know how he lived. But he did.