LIFE Happens
If you have an accident and have a total loss of your new car or SUV that you never insured, you will have to cover the cost to replace it out-of-pocket. Hopefully, you have enough saved in your bank account to cover the expense. What about your LIFE and your ability to earn an income to support your family?
What if the unthinkable happened tomorrow and you did not come home from work, the store, the gym, or whatever? Did you insure your life? If not, will your family be able to survive on what is currently sitting in your checking and savings account for the rest of their lives? Most likely they will not be able to make it long on that. And you can not purchase LIFE Insurance once you are gone.
We as insurance agents all see too many times, the family breadwinner or even the spouse; they insure all the things that can be easily replaced. They insure their cars for over $30,000 each. They insure their home for over $250,000. They insure their jewelry for $15,000. However, they never get around to insuring the most important thing! The thing that can NEVER be replaced – their LIFE and their ability to provide future income to their loved ones. And you can not purchase LIFE Insurance once you are gone! Yes, you read that same sentence word-for-word from the previous paragraph. But that is how important LIFE Insurance should be to you and your loved ones.
Planning for the unthinkable should not be thought of as a doom and gloom topic. If we can spin the topic and turn it into something positive. Knowing that if the breadwinner never walked through the front door again; that at least financially, everything will be ok or at least better!
But where does one start? Well, some of the simplest things to consider if there were an untimely passing:
- How much income does my spouse/family require annually for the next five years? The next 10 years? The next 20 years?
- If you have kids, do you want them to have a secondary education? What will that cost when the time comes?
- Do you have a mortgage? How much do you owe? How much longer will your loved one have to continue with payments on the mortgage until they own the home?
- Can they afford the taxes? Can they afford the insurance?
- How much of a monthly shortfall will my spouse be faced with after they get my last paycheck when I am gone?
These are all things you and your loved one need to discuss with one another. From there you can set some goals and discuss with a qualified LIFE Insurance agent. A qualified and licensed agent can discuss your wants and needs and develop a safety net tailored to the needs of you and your surviving family.
The two most frequently utilized types of LIFE Insurance are Term Life Insurance and Whole Life Insurance. To give the Reader’s Digest version of what each one is:
- Term Life Insurance provides a death benefit to a designated beneficiary(s) for a fixed period of time. This time is generally 10, 20, or 30 years. If one does not die during the “term”, the coverages stops and no one receives any policy payout. TERM Life insurance is the lesser expensive these two types of policies.
- WHOLE Life coverage on the other hand, offers a death benefit for a PERMANENT period of time and insures you until you die, no matter how long you live. WHOLE Life insurance, unlike TERM Life coverage, also builds some cash-value that can be borrowed against or even surrendered if you need to tap into those funds later in life. WHOLE Life coverage is generally a more expensive option than TERM Life coverage. But, there are more benefits to WHOLE Life coverage.
Consider all these things and talk about them with your loved ones. Call your insurance agent and let them know you want to discuss strategies and options. If you do not have an agent, find one. If you have read this entire blog post and still don’t know where to start, contact us and we will point you in a direction. We are Hoosier Insurance Agency; and we help families like yours every single day. That is what we do…And we can help you. You can email us anytime at info@hoosierinsuranceagency.com or call us at 219-865-8090.