Life: Insured By The USA

Your Life Is Insured By The USA

By Roy D. Follendore III

January 13, 2002

A couple of years ago when I started a company I had a life insurance policy for a half million dollars. That is no longer true. I certainly can't afford it right now. Insurance rates are high. There are very few people in America with a million dollars in life insurance because no one can afford it.

Now I consider myself patriotic. I served in the military and I served in Federal Government. But I have never seen the Federal Government get into the life insurance business before. I frankly don't understand it. I certainly don' t understand the economics of it. Most of the poor souls that died tragically in the World Trade Center did not work for the Government, and they had insurance. These were well paid people! I went up in the World Trade Center Towers, and you can not tell me that these people did not at least have an initial apprehension about working so high in the air. It should be obvious that if there is danger, you might get trapped and die. The job and the great view is the tradeoff for working in a skyscraper and the fact is that every single one who worked there knew that.

It is terrible that so many died. It is horrible the way that they died. But to be perfectly frank, more people died last year in their family cars. When my sister in-law died in an automobile accident, I did not see the Federal Government passing out money to her family. I didn't hear about other victim's families whose fathers and mothers died in horrible accidents get a ton of loot from the Federal Government. No one in the Government ever offered to pay my family a huge sum if I was killed in the line of duty. I never expected them to because that was what life insurance policies offered. And when my Uncle died fighting when his ship was sunk by the "Japs" in WWII, his mother, my Grandmother, certainly did not get rich. To my knowledge, Federal payouts have never worked this way before. But the problem is not just the fact that it is happening, it is the amount.

I don't know about other people, but I happen to think that $1,650,000.00 is an awful lot of money. That is the announced estimated average amount that the families of the World Trade Center attack can expect from the Federal Government. Some will get more, and some will get less. Like I said, I am not sure why they are getting anything from the Federal Government at all. Has anyone sat down and actually thought this thing out?

Why does the American Government hold the liability of terrorism? Did the Government do something wrong? Maybe our leaders didn't do something that they were supposed to have done? If so then I should think that more than a few people in Government should go to jail. I don't see that happening.

For families to be fighting over who gets more money is just greed. They are arguing in the news about what is "fair." How about all of the people who lost their jobs and are losing their homes and life savings as a result of the attack? My family is one of those. Is the Federal Government going to give us money? I don't think so. What about the CIA employee who was shot down? Does his family get $1.65 million?

Maybe a hundred thousand dollars might be in line for the victims families to get them situated. Maybe a loan for a hundred thousand more might be order. But $1.65 MILLION BUCKS? No amount of money can make up for a lost one. So why is our Federal Government trying to do it?

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