[Life Insurance Spotlight: This series showcases famous people and their little-known connections to the life insurance industry]
We’re nearly halfway through September. The National Football League season has begun. Fall is around the corner. And Life Insurance Awareness Month is going strong.
To help spread the word about the importance of life insurance, ACLI will be joining Life Happens for its industry-wide Twitter chat Thursday, September 15, at 1:00 p.m. ET.
Life insurance plays an essential role in building a secure financial future for millions of American families – NFL players and owners included. In fact, a couple of notable NFL personalities are undoubtedly very aware of the benefits of life insurance.
Seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady is among them. But the Tampa Bay quarterback’s awareness of life insurance didn’t come from being the oldest player in the league at 45, or from having three children under 16. It’s because Brady almost became a life insurance salesman.
After playing college football for the University of Michigan, Brady wasn’t sure if he would get a shot in the NFL. In the 2000 NFL draft, 198 other players were selected before New England finally picked Brady in the sixth round. Upon getting drafted, Brady’s first thoughts were: “I don’t have to be an insurance salesman, you know!”
If the NFL hadn’t worked out, Brady was thinking he’d have to work for his dad, Thomas, who owns a firm that provides its clients with estate and business planning solutions, including life insurance.
Not that there’s anything wrong with following in your father’s footsteps. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones started selling life insurance while he played football at the University of Arkansas. His boss was his father, who founded Modern Security Life Insurance Company in Springfield, Mo. After graduation, Jones continued to work for his father before making his own fortune in oil-and-gas and real estate ventures.
Jones bought the Cowboys in 1989 for $140 million. That turned out to be quite an investment. According to Forbes, the Cowboys are now the world’s most valuable sports team, with an estimated value of $8 billion.
David Nielsen is Senior Director, Strategic Content/IMPACT at the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI). His responsibilities include IMPACT and other ACLI publications, notably News Now & News Now International. A former bank examiner, business analyst and journalist, he joined ACLI in 2013.
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