From Pet to Marriage Insurance: Good Deals?

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Muser,
Call me old fashioned but I'll wager that if you ask anyone headed toward the altar if they've chosen a "quality girl/guy", the answer will be a definitive "Yes". Yet, of the millions of people that will marry this year, more than half will divorce in the next 20-25 years. Is the other half THAT much smarter? Or lucky?
And what's worse is that 44% of families in the US that suffer thru divorce will go below the poverty line for some period of time and at a 50% failure rate you're far more likely to divorce than be involved in a million dollar car accident with you at fault.
The fact is, our policies WILL be priced in such a way that every policy holder will benefit one way or the other. Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done. And I'll be happy to discuss the pricing with you so that you understand why financial planners call this a "no-brainer". My contact information is on the home page of our website.
Sincerely,
John Logan
CEO
SafeGuard Guaranty

John Logan of NC 12:10AM August 28, 2009

that marriage insurance will never be priced in such a way that buyers actually make any money on it. That's because the combined "risk" of EITHER divorcing OR staying married (say, for 25 years) is simply too high for the insurance company.
The examples above are misleading. The cheapest policy, they say, would cost about a dollar a day. That's $9,125 paid in over 25 years. You think they're gonna give you $100,000 back for that? You'd be lucky to get $20,000. Oh, you wanna pay $5 a day?
How about just marry a quality girl/guy?
As for insurance, never buy it except on what you cannot afford to lose. Your life, your house, a million-dollar medical bill, a million-dollar car accident with you at fault. Etc.

Muser of NM 4:00PM August 26, 2009

When I think of "elective insurance policies" I think of Accident insurance or Disability insurance. And Pet insurance and Travel insurance, though maybe not as mainstream as Accident or Disability, they're certainly not what I'd call "exotic". Now Salary Gap insurance on the other hand is clearly not something that sounds like it will ever be ubiquitous, so maybe exotic is a good fit there. Marriage Insurance however, while clearly new and different sounding, doesn't appear to fit into a "small pool of people who are at high risk" since 9 out of 10 people marry in their lifetime, and according to stats I read from the US Census, more than half of marriages that happen this year will eventually fail. Considering about 44 million people will marry this year in the US alone, that's not what I call a small pool and at a more than 50% failure rate, that means people who marry today have a lot bigger chance of getting divorced in the next 20 years than they do of dying. So by that logic, Marriage insurance ought to be more important than Life insurance for newlyweds today, like it or not. I never EVER thought I'd get divorced until my lovely ex-wife decided the grass was greener somewhere else. I'll admit, I'm probably biased because I'm divorced but I know exactly how painful it was to my bank account. Where was this 10 years ago? With only so many descretionary dollars available to pay for insurance programs, I'll be interested to see if some of these insurance programs erode the market for others. Curiouser and curiouser.

Devaland of OR 4:19PM August 25, 2009