Two stories shaped everything about how I do this work
The first is Teddy
In 1996 I was a mortgage broker. Teddy was a blue-collar worker in his mid-50s who had a heart attack and fell behind on his mortgage.
I helped him refinance. I told him to make payments for one year and we would refinance again.
Ten months later he was in foreclosure. A second heart attack. Medical bills he could not pay.
There was nothing I could do.
Years later I learned that a policy existed in 1996 that would have paid Teddy cash when he had that first heart attack, enough to cover his bills and keep his home.
Nobody offered it to him.
The second is John
In 2013 I was on a nonprofit board. The executive director's husband John dismissed some pain, as many of us do, and ended up in emergency surgery.
They found cancer.
His family hit their insurance out-of-pocket maximum in August.
January came, new plan year, new maximum.
March came, the employer changed carriers without reviewing the plan.
New carrier. New maximum out of pocket. Again.
In seven months John's family paid their maximum out-of-pocket three times.
I did not do group benefits then. I did not know about gap coverage. I could not help.
John is alive today.
The financial burden was entirely preventable.
These are the reasons I do this work. I cannot go back and help Teddy. But I can make sure the next employer I work with never has a John.
