{"id":2510,"date":"2010-09-20T11:15:12","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T15:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/?p=2510"},"modified":"2010-11-24T09:44:44","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T14:44:44","slug":"insurance-company-thinks-youre-bad-at-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/09\/insurance-company-thinks-youre-bad-at-math.html","title":{"rendered":"Insurance company thinks you\u2019re bad at math"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Are you pessimistic, paranoid, and unable to perform a basic compound interest calculation?\u00a0 Then maybe divorce insurance is for you.\u00a0 After all, the future is uncertain, and nothing says, “I’ll love you forever,” like cutting that monthly premium check.<\/p>\n

A company called WedLock<\/a> is now offering a cash payout should the day ever come that you can’t stomach living happily ever after anymore.\u00a0 It’s a little something to soften the blow, or so it seems.\u00a0 Prices are just $16\/month per $1250 unit.\u00a0 That is, $160\/month will net you $12,500 upon your decree.\u00a0 But don’t order yet.\u00a0 There’s also a $250\/unit bonus for every year you manage to stay hitched after the 4-year mandatory waiting period for the policy to go into force.<\/p>\n

Time magazine thoughtfully did some of the math<\/a> for us using this hypothetical 10 unit purchase and assuming the marriage lasts 10 years.\u00a0 The $19,188 you paid in premiums will get you $27,500 in divorce-dollars.\u00a0 Should you manage to stay together for 20 years, your $38,400 investment will get you a cool $78,400.\u00a0 Of course, should you screw up and pull off the whole “til death do us part” thing, you get nothing.<\/p>\n

While it may seem like you are getting decent return on your investment, consider that over 10 years the policy is only yielding 6.8% APR.\u00a0 Granted, in the current economy that looks like a good return, but historically it’s a pretty conservative investment return. The stock market has consistently returned an average of over 10%<\/a> APR for the last century.\u00a0 Over 20 years, the return drops to 6.45%.\u00a0 So the longer you stay married, the more money the insurance company makes.\u00a0 It should be comforting to know that at least someone has the incentive for you to stay with your spouse.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneur John Logan is responsible for this new financial product and says even he is surprised how much\u00a0 insurance his customers are buying.\u00a0 He says some are spending more than $1000\/month in premiums.\u00a0 This certainly causes you wonder how someone comes by $1000\/month in disposable income while being so profoundly bad with money.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that you are much better off to simply invest the monthly premium yourself.\u00a0 Not only is your return likely to be better, but should you celebrate your 20th anniversary together, you can use the nest egg to take the whole family on a great vacation rather than lamenting all the cash you’ve tossed down the drain to preserve your happiness.<\/p>\n

The mere existence of insurance like this is validation for the USA being ranked 24\/30 countries in math ability<\/a>.\u00a0 While the sale of this product is not criminal, the fact that’s it’s selling is certainly a crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you pessimistic, paranoid, and unable to perform a basic compound interest calculation?\u00a0 Then maybe divorce insurance is for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-madscience","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2510"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2512,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2510\/revisions\/2512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}