Shawn Meaike, Founder, President, and CEO of Family First Life Insurance, shares the story of the day that changed his perspective on everything, and what makes the relationship between FFL and Southwestern Legacy special.Hear Shawn's full interview in Episode 55 of Let's Talk Legacy.
Full Episode
Selling life insurance is social work. That was the thing for me when a guy named Jim Godwin introduced me to the business. I said, what do we do? And he said, we call people up and we protect them and their families. I'm like, well, I do that over here. And he said, yeah, but you don't make enough money to live the life you want to live for you and your kids. And he was right. It struck me.
I was like, okay, cool. But I really want to do things that are making a difference. The money...
will come i want to make a difference and i'll never forget i was selling life insurance part-time about two and a half months and i went to a home in warregan connecticut lady's name was lisa never forget it and she answered the door and she said you won't be able to help me and i said why not and she said um because i have stage with stage three or four pancreatic cancer like i'm dying
And she said, can you help me? And I said, no. I didn't have any graded products at that time. I couldn't get her insurance. Now, I'm not going to lie to anybody about anything. I was like, ma'am, I won't be able to help you. She was in her early 30s, and her husband came around the corner, big old dude, started yelling at me, cussing me out.
And I sat down with them for about a half an hour, and I got him a $250,000 pulse. And he was healthy as a horse. I mean, big guy, great. I mean, big guy, meaning 6'4", 230 pounds. great shape, not a partier, not any medication. And 48 hours after I wrote him a policy, died in a motorcycle accident. And then she died shortly after that.
And the only money the kids had was the quarter million dollars I got from him. I think, Gary, after that happened, my whole perspective on insurance changed. The whole thing changed. Everybody's life is fragile, I realized. You never know when it's your time.
And I realized that middle class and lower middle class and lower class people weren't taught what wealthy people are taught about life insurance. Nobody taught my wife insurance when I was growing up. I'm a smart person. My mom's not dumb. She's smart. But we never talked about it. And I realized that when wealthy folks died, it was like an event.
Nobody wanted it to happen, but they had everything. People got paid. They actually planned for these things and put money in place and developed legacies. The first time I heard the word legacy that meant anything to me outside of sports was in life insurance. And I'll never forget a guy said to me, Sean, when you meet with people, they're already going to leave a legacy.
All we're trying to do is help you be a positive one. But if they do not have life insurance. And they leave their wife and children, you know, encumbered with bills, got to pay for their funerals. They leave a negative legacy. So I really wanted to not only help them leave a positive one, but prevent them from putting their families in a terrible position.
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