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NWM "salesweasels" aggressively get "in" with graduate medical education offices. This gives them access to program directors, program admins, and email listserves. I get an email about once a month from them promoting a "financial seminar" for trainees... always at a fancy steakhouse. Our program admin once forwarded one of these emails to the entire residency (they had been emailed directly with a personal appeal by NWM) thinking it would be helpful. I responded with an immediate rebuttal and steered them instead to the WCI. My only regret is not using the term "saleweasel"...
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I find it amazing that medical programs are so over the top with HIPAA and other "privacy" measures that doctors can't look at their own medical records, yet residency directors and other academics freely give out email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information about med students, residents, and attendings. So much for protecting privacy and the best interests of people who aren't commissioned sales{somethings}.Comment
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They give me 10 hours of free CLE every other year. It's supposed to be estate planning but it's unsurprisingly just a 10hr life insurance party. Unfortunately my firm attends every 2 years and every 2 years I get 2 or 3 green NWM salesmen trying to setup appointments to sell me insurance.Comment
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I find it amazing that medical programs are so over the top with HIPAA and other “privacy” measures that doctors can’t look at their own medical records, yet residency directors and other academics freely give out email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information about med students, residents, and attendings. So much for protecting privacy and the best interests of people who aren’t commissioned sales{somethings}.
I imagine they troll this info from AMA and the other associations as well.Comment
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I find it amazing that medical programs are so over the top with HIPAA and other “privacy” measures that doctors can’t look at their own medical records, yet residency directors and other academics freely give out email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information about med students, residents, and attendings. So much for protecting privacy and the best interests of people who aren’t commissioned sales{somethings}.
I imagine they troll this info from AMA and the other associations as well.
Ugh other concerns about AMA and other associations aside I find it obnoxious how they sell your info for profit and "partner" with crappy companies and insurance productsComment
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In my residency program, gme had partnered with nwm and that was the disability insurance the program paid for. So you could get it from someone else but you'd pay out of pocket for it. Then when you graduate from residency the agent meets with you to sell you additional insurance ( as you get to keep the DI from residency and it's pretty cheap). I went ahead and bought more DI from them. It's probably not the best policy but it's not too expensive so I have yet to look around for a different policy. He did try to meet with me again a year into being an attending, for financial planning, where he tried to sell me on whole life. Luckily I knew from reading here not to buy that! Since then I've declined any further meetings.Comment
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My wife's residency program offers up free advising from NWM for the duration of residency. We met with him once and I felt like he had some good boilerplate information, especially for my wife who has never really thought about retirement, but he was also teeing himself up for the big WL pitch. "Term life is like renting a house, Whole life is like buying one" he says. I fortunately got a copy of WCI and have since educated myself.
I have another meeting with him next week. Armed with what I've learned I am returning to see if the relationship is worthwhile, even at no cost to us. Suffice to say, I'm glad I found the book/website/forum to keep me from being sold something I don't want or need.Comment
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Even with disability insurance,you want a company with true own occ.
I can’t think of a reason why you want the relationship. You will constantly need to fend off sales of things you shouldn’t purchase.
Thanks for the follow up. My only hesitation in cancelling the meeting outright is (or perhaps was) to discuss student loan payoff strategies. He suggested a RePAYE with Federal interest subsidy, which at the time I wasn't aware of. After doing some research we may want to just bite the bullet and pay down the loan ASAP. I created a thread for this here, so I won't rehash it.
I think it also will give my wife some amount of peace of mind, so we're not making loan payoff and retirement decisions based on "stuff I read in this online forum." Nevertheless, I don't expect NWM will get a $ of ours, and we'll be pursuing DI for her on our own.Comment
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Avoid NWM like the plague.
If for some reason you do go to the meeting, you might want to offer the following questions:
1. What's a fiduciary?
2. Are you a fiduciary?
3. How do get paid?
4. Why am I still at this meeting?Comment
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Avoid NWM like the plague.
If for some reason you do go to the meeting, you might want to offer the following questions:
1. What’s a fiduciary?
2. Are you a fiduciary?
3. How do get paid?
4. Why am I still at this meeting?
:lol: Part of me wants to print this out and just keep it in my stack of papers I bring to the meeting to see if he catches a glimpse.Comment
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One other question;
Have you ever heard of The White Coat Investor?
PS Do this after eating the meal.Comment
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My wife’s residency program offers up free advising from NWM for the duration of residency. We met with him once and I felt like he had some good boilerplate information, especially for my wife who has never really thought about retirement, but he was also teeing himself up for the big WL pitch. “Term life is like renting a house, Whole life is like buying one” he says. I fortunately got a copy of WCI and have since educated myself.
I have another meeting with him next week. Armed with what I’ve learned I am returning to see if the relationship is worthwhile, even at no cost to us. Suffice to say, I’m glad I found the book/website/forum to keep me from being sold something I don’t want or need.
This is the problem here. NWM has somehow infiltrated residency programs like the plague, pretending to offer "free information" in return to peddling their products to the uninformed. How residency programs allow this I don't understand, but I think it highlights how financially naive medical professionals are.Comment
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For what it's worth, Northwestern is one of the strongest, best rated insurers. Last time I saw, their comdex was 100, only matched by NY life and maybe Berkshire or USAA. If you buy a northwestern policy, you can rest very well assured that when you die, they're going to pay. And that's a legitimate concern when you're buying a policy in your 20s or 30s and need the company to still exist and be solvent in 60 or 70 years' time. It's blue chip.
That said, you're paying for that comdex score, and all of those free steak dinners, and free seminars, and aggressive marketing, in the form of higher premiums. And a company with a 95 rating without all the free dinners is going to be a better buy.Comment
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An insurance company failing is a low probability, high severity event. Yet one more reason not to put all your eggs in one basket.
If you initially need $3M in coverage, then three $1M policies of 10, 20, and 30 years of duration makes sense. You have coverage from your state guaranty company for each of the policies. Barring a Crixus type event, it's unlikely that even one of the companies would fail, much less all three.
If three highly rated insurers fail, there's probably something bigger happening to the economy or geopolitics that we need to worry about.Comment
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An insurance company failing is a low probability, high severity event. Yet one more reason not to put all your eggs in one basket.
If you initially need $3M in coverage, then three $1M policies of 10, 20, and 30 years of duration makes sense. You have coverage from your state guaranty company for each of the policies. Barring a Crixus type event, it’s unlikely that even one of the companies would fail, much less all three.
If three highly rated insurers fail, there’s probably something bigger happening to the economy or geopolitics that we need to worry about.
Exactly.
I think a few of the posts struck me as "Northwestern is horrible, why would anybody buy their products." Their one redeeming quality is that they are well funded and well managed. Insurance companies do fail with some regularity, thought they are typically companies that you've never heard of.
Splitting your policies is an interesting concept, and would hedge against the possibility of your insurer going Enron on you. But outside of fraud, in theory the same market factors that would cause one highly-rated firm to fail would probably have wiped out the others too (Crixus event).
Easy solution is just not to buy whole life to begin with.
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