Life Insurance

Over the years I have started to realise that there are many poignant moments in life. The majority of these are special or endearing moments like memories with loved ones or children, or laughing hysterically while reminiscing over losing ones virginity. Imagine my consuming horror when the simple task of arranging life insurance developed into one of my memoirs.

Simply realising that life insurance was an important and necessary part of my life now and considering the act of organizing such cover, had led to a cascade of dramatic thoughts and emotions, which plunged me into a state of anxiety and despair at the very possibility of my daughter being motherless. My imagination would run wildly into one nightmare after another as I imagined horrendous situations leading to my elimination, or even worse, the eradication of both her parents. This in turn developed into scenes of ghastly children’s homes and/or abusive carers, which naturally became an inevitable life of wasted education, drink, drugs and sexual disease. So you can see how easily this was spiralling way out of control.

As fate would have it apparently I had ‘recently answered a survey’ in which I had ‘expressed an interest in being quoted for life insurance cover’, and so Mr Tim had called me to primarily see ‘how I was this morning’ and to offer to help me in my quest. Obviously this was the best time to agree given it was an hour and a half until I had to have Ali at nursery and neither of us had been showered, dressed or had lunch.

All was going swimmingly and I was enjoying a mid morning flirt with Mr Tim on the phone as he talked me through the initial questions and terms and conditions of the policy. Suddenly I was plunged into desolation as the most dreaded of all questions reared its ugly head. ‘Your height please?’, and there was no mistaking what was coming next. ‘And your weight please?’ A lump in my throat the size of a mammoth rendered me completely speechless – something very unusual for me. My response – ‘is that imperative to the quote?’ (of course it is – they want to know if I’m the size of a whale so they can deduce if I’m going to explode, have a heart attack or die of diabetes or something). Whispering my answer as if it would make it more bearable, depression swooped over me, and the words ‘yeah unfortunately I haven’t lost the baby weight yet’ flew out of my mouth as if pleading for acceptance. Praying for the ground to swallow me up, I swear I heard a change in Mr Tim’s tone of voice. I was no longer the ‘pin up girl’ he was imagining while conversing – it was back to purely business talk. Not even an ounce of flattery.

At the bargain price of £10 a month I get a large lump sum payout in the event of my death and our mortgage paid off in full. My death can be under any circumstances, to include diagnosis of critical illness (ie. cancer) at any point from agreeing to the policy; but excludes suicide, or I’m guessing - death by embarrassment or self indulgent and gluttonous comfort eating in response to sales consultant induced depression.

A tub of Ben and Jerry’s later – decision made to direct all efforts into searching for my original figure no matter how difficult.