HOST DAWN PELLAS: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Central PA Live. I’m Dawn Pellas. September is Life Insurance Awareness Month. I did not know that, but this gentleman here certainly does. Galen Bargerstock is back from Government & Civil Employee Services to talk about it. Galen, welcome back to the show.
GALEN BARGERSTOCK, GOVERNMENT & CIVIL EMPLOYEE SERVICES: Thanks for having me back on.
HOST: So you have been everywhere.
BARGERSTOCK: Yeah.
HOST: I’ve been everywhere man this week. [Laughs.] You told me like four or five cities and probably talking about just this.
BARGERSTOCK: Life insurance, yeah.
HOST: And this, specifically, you’re talking about why people should think twice about purchasing life insurance online. A lot of people buy stuff online these days. Is it dangerous to do life insurance?
BARGERSTOCK: It is dangerous to do life insurance online. I mean, if you’re Skyping with a financial professional, that might be acceptable. But you don’t really want to just go to a website and start buying life insurance right off the bat. That’s not a good idea.
HOST: Yeah. Well, you have four reasons why you should think twice about doing this. First up is you’re not shopping for clothes. Too bad. [Laughs.] I do a lot of clothes shopping online. Explain that.
BARGERSTOCK: I like shopping for clothes, too. But, I mean, look, you’re not up at 4:00 in the morning looking to try to fill your shopping cart with 50 so you get two, three-day shipping. This is a very important thing to decide for your family’s wellbeing. It’s life insurance.
HOST: Yeah. Good point. Okay, next up, people short-change themselves or buy too much. Really? I guess you’re not getting consulted as you could in a personal situation.
BARGERSTOCK: Uh, well…
HOST: Or maybe not.
BARGERSTOCK: Now, Dawn, you’re not buying a bath mat. You know, you’re not trying to match the color of your shower curtain to your bath mat. It is a very important detailed thing that you need to do. And you need to really look into the details of your family’s situation based on needs of what you’re going to buy.
HOST: And you can’t do that with just a couple clicks.
BARGERSTOCK: No, you can’t do that with a couple clicks.
HOST: Not really. That wouldn’t be too smart. Number three is it costs the same if you work through an actual person. Really? So you’re not
getting a deal if you do it online. There’s no deal on life insurance.
BARGERSTOCK: You’re not getting a deal on life insurance, no. It’s trust. You know, what it all comes down to is trust. When I’m sitting at somebody’s kitchen table having a cup of coffee planning their life for them or with them, when I get up to leave that table and we’re shaking hands going out the door, they’re not grabbing their wallet. They know they’ve made the proper choice because they’ve been educated on the topic.
HOST: Gotcha. Okay. And the next one is what happens when you die. That sounds kind of depressing, but obviously that is what it’s all about. It’s called life insurance for a reason. So explain that one for us.
BARGERSTOCK: It is depressing and I don’t have a crystal ball so I don’t know what happens when you die. But what I do know is how to protect a family. You know? So if somebody passes away – and, unfortunately, it’s something that I have to deal with a lot – I walk the family through the paperwork and the process and they know what to do. So when I’m working with somebody and deciding their life insurance with them, they know that I’m going to help care for their family. I’m not their computer monitor. I don’t think they’re going to walk them
through the process or fill out the paperwork. You know?
HOST: True. And you have to feel comfortable, I would imagine, with your representative because you’re going to be dealing with that person or that company at one of the toughest times, you know, ever.
BARGERSTOCK: It is. Yeah, it’s the worst time of your life probably for most people because it’s somebody that you loved very much just passed away. So it all comes back to that trust.
HOST: Yeah. And, of course, a real person can answer the questions. I can just be sitting here talking to you. Yeah, you can do chat and everything, but it’s good to have somebody there to run numbers for you and tell you what’s better, you know, if you have a whole life or term or what have you.
BARGERSTOCK: For me personally, I like to look at a person in the eyes and make them feel that they know that their family is going to be taken care of. So that’s why I don’t like online shopping. Just really research. You really need the one-on-one review with a financial professional.
HOST: All right. Very good. Galen, thank you, as always. If you would like a recap of all the information that he just provided, you can visit our website. And that is CentralPATV.com. Galen, thanks again.
BARGERSTOCK: Thanks, Dawn.
