Eighty-year old Harold called recently to tell me he had just thrown the agent from the XYZ Company out of his house. I explained to him that we represented the Knights of Columbus, not the XYZ Company.

His response was, "I'm old, not stupid."

I responded, "Sir, I'm not sure why you are calling me."

He said, "Your company lied!"

I responded, "How did we lie?"

"The agent I just threw out said he could take the cash out of your policy and do better with it. I was born at night, but not last night. My granddaddy bought that policy on me when I was born. On the face page, your company said it would be worth about $5,000 by the time I was 80. You lied. It's worth over $45,000 in cash and over $65,000 in death benefits!"

I responded, "I guess that's a pretty good lie, huh? Is that why you threw the XYZ agent out?"

"No," he responded. "I threw him out for another reason. All these years, I never looked past the first page of the policy, but under the second page was a letter my granddaddy wrote to me. 'Dear sweetheart, your grandma and I bought this policy for you. It was all we could afford. Don't ever let anybody try to tell you to drop it. It will be very valuable one day. - Love, Grandpa.'”

“My grand daddy died when I was 3 months old, so I never knew him,” he further explained. “This policy is the only thing I have that links him to me. Unfortunately, I'm uninsurable today and it’s the only insurance I still have in force. The money in this policy is critical to me. I just lost my pension because the company I worked at for over 40 years just dropped me like a hot potato. All we have is our Social Security. The money in this policy might be the difference between whether we have heat. It might mean that I can now pay for the medicine that my company was supposed to pay for. It might mean the difference between my wife and I being destitute. This modest sum of money is all that stands between me and poverty. That's why I threw the bum out!"

He went on to challenge me: “Anytime you sell a juvenile policy, you should have your client write the letter,” he said emphatically. “There are unscrupulous companies out there who only want to destroy, not build. You don’t strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You don’t build up by tearing down. That’s all XYZ Company wanted to do was tear down a good policy.”

“That policy is all I have in this world from my grandparents. I’ll never let anybody take that away from me.”

With pensions disappearing today, the cash buildup a juvenile plan accumulates can provide terrific values later in life. Do the right thing for the kids by purchasing a terrific 20 Pay Life Plan, but you also have to write “the letter.” Who knows? One day the policy may you purchase for a child may be all that stands between them and poverty.