By: Jay Scheiner, CEO, ASG
Every crowdfunding campaign to pay for a funeral means that someone was unprepared!
GoFundMe has raised $30 billion since its inception in 2010 – and just recently, it was revealed that more than 125,000 memorial fundraisers are created on its site – totaling more than $330 million raised each year.
While we can certainly see why people are willing to help, each GoFundMe campaign proclaims that someone, somewhere, was very unprepared. It’s not how we should live our lives or how we should take care of those we love.
The simple and amazingly effective antidote to GoFundMe is planning – and life insurance. Marc Cadin, CEO of Finseca, in his piece titled, Saying goodbye to GoFundMe (Insurance Newsnet April 2024), states: “The reality is that financial security for Americans – no matter where they live or how much their family earns or what degrees they have or don’t have – is very much within reach. There’s no mysterious magic formula.
The process is simple and straightforward: It is you. Again, while I am deeply grateful for the generous nature inherent in the American people who give through GoFundMe, I think we need to have an honest conversation about our GoFundMe problem. There is a better way. When your clients work with you, a trusted financial security professional, they will never have to crowdsource their future again.”
Life insurance, rather than GoFundMe, empowers people to protect themselves and those they love. In this way they can live with the knowledge that their loved ones will be financially secure if they die prematurely.