In August of 2008 I had what seemed to be a routine follow up meeting scheduled with Ed and Ronda Kahaly. I had met with them once before to review their current situation, goals, and objectives. Upon learning Ronda was preparing to take an early retirement in a couple months, because they wanted her to be home to raise their kids, their financial situation would soon be changing. While they had four children, 2 of them, Elijah and Rosalie, were still under 10 years of age. Like most families their children's well being was the most important thing to them. After analyzing the information they shared from our first meeting, I realized that with Ronda no longer bringing in an income, the family would depend completely on Ed's earnings to support them. Although he had a 100,000 dollar policy (with MetLife) and some group term insurance I realized that if something were to happen to him his family would have to make some major changes in the way they lived.
Together, Ed, Ronda, and I went through a hypothetical situation to see how their current savings would last if something were to happen to Ed. We all agreed that Ronda would be forced to go back to work and not be able to spend time raising the kids if something did happen to Ed. I recommended they purchase Ed an additional 250,000 term coverage to help protect their family for the remainder of Ed's planned working years. Although no coverage is without a price we all agreed protecting the family was the most important thing. Ed gave the first months premium and went through the necessary underwriting and was approved. Soon after, the policy was issued and we had set a date to meet to deliver the policy.
The morning we were scheduled to meet, I got a call from Ronda that I would never forget. She was crying and told me Ed passed away yesterday and wanted to see if the coverage was in place. I told her that I would double check and give her a call right back. i though how could this be possible given he had just got a healthy rating within a month and feared the company would give us problems.
I made the necessary calls and confirmed that both policies were in force and called her to tell her this information. I told Ronda I would be here for her to help process the claim and not to worry about the coverage right now and instead to focus on Ed and her family. Later that week I attended Ed's funeral and had met several of his colleagues, family, and friends. Listening to them speak I began to cry realizing how well respected and loved he was. I realized how his family was not going to have financial struggles and could focus on mourning the sudden loss of his life. This is the first time I saw how life insurance can truly have a positive impact on a family’s life.
I later delivered both of the checks to Ronda and advised her not to make any immediate decisions with these funds, I advised her to be patient and over time as her situation calmed down she could begin to look at how to best uses these funds to take care of her family.
Over the course of the next year I continued to do whatever I could to be supportive of Ronda and her family in any way possible. During this time we've grown extremely close and every time we see each other she thanks me for coming into their lives.
Although Ed's death was sudden and unforeseen his duty of taking care of this family lives on. Ronda now lives near her sister and other family members in Georgia, but we still talk regularly and will be friends for life