Did you know that the Fairbanks, Alaska area code was 907? And New York City’s area code is 212. How are those area codes determined? Long before the day of cell phones and push button phones, there were rotary phones, in which you had to put your index finger into the dial and turn it around all the way clockwise to where your finger would rest on a little bracket. When area codes were first instituted, there were larger populations in New York City than there were in Fairbanks, Alaska. So they didn’t want the people to have to move their finger all the way around the dial if they were calling home. Instead, it was simply a 2-1-2. If you were calling Fairbanks, Alaska, you would have to take all the time to rotary dial the 9 and wait for the dial to return all the way back to the beginning, and then put your index finger into the zero, turn the dial, and wait all the while it returned to the starting point. Once again, placing your index finger on the 7 and turning it to the right, and then waiting for it to come all the way back to the beginning. Fewer people meant a little bit more work to get the job done, just to call home. Unless you were in New York City, then it was simple. It was a quick 2-1-2. It was a system that worked.
Let me talk about the rotary phone. The rotary phone is something that still works today. A lot of people don’t realize if you have a rotary phone, you can plug it into your wall. If you have a land line, it still works. In fact, our home still has a rotary phone downstairs in the basement, next to the washing machine, in the laundry room. It’s actually the phone that I purchased prior to when I got married, so this phone is actually over 40 years of age. Think about it, how many cell phones have you been through in your life? It’s not necessarily because of technology change, but how many times have you dropped it? The screen has broken into many pieces, or the phone just simply no longer works. Granted, a phone today is really a mini-computer that happens to have a phone app attached to it, but back in the day when you needed a phone, you just simply bought a phone that would last you literally decades, after decades, after decades, never breaking; always working. That’s exactly the same as how whole life insurance works. It might seem like an old product, not new and fancy, but it’s an old product that has worked literally not only for decades after decades, but it has literally worked for centuries, a way to assure that you have insurance for your whole life. It’s also a way that you can store your safe money with contract guarantees.
In today’s world, where there are so many different venues to place our money, so many different options to invest, so many different strategies to implement, there’s still a product that does what it was always intended to do. Just like a rotary phone’s job was to be able to make a call, and to get the party you were dialing on the end of the phone, securely time after time. Whole life insurance was set apart to be able to guarantee life insurance for a person’s entire lifetime. And it was also a product that was set aside, guaranteed to place your safe money that you wouldn’t have to worry about the ups and downs of the market or the concern of day to day volatility and circumstances in the world. Guaranteed by the issuing company, the money that goes inside of a whole life insurance policy is here today, and here tomorrow, whether it’s an emergency that you may experience or an opportunity that might come your way. Not exciting, just like an old rotary phone, but it does what it’s required to do.
