When I am helping someone come up with a plan for their financial future, the choices are ultimately up to the client. I will take their wishes and come up with a plan for them, but I won’t push them in any direction. I’ll show the options and let them decide. Except when it comes to life insurance. Now, obviously, I can’t make anybody do anything. This is their money after all. But I will be more direct and strong in suggesting that they get life insurance right away. Just about everybody needs life insurance and too many people don’t have it. We insure our cars, our houses, even some of our toys, but we don’t insure our lives. And there is one guarantee in this life, everybody is going to die at some point. So why should you have life insurance?
First, it helps pay for your funeral. You may think you don’t care about that but I see far too many families either doing car washes, begging for money on the street, or starting a gofundme to bring in the funds to pay for their loved one’s funeral. The only thing a family should be doing when a loved one dies is grieving. Instead, they are stressing about the ever increasing cost of burying that person, the cost of which is $10,000-$20,000 on average. Don’t make your family go through that. Make sure they are protected.
Second, life insurance provides for the income that your family is losing by you being gone. Yes, I made a general statement. One thing people may not think about is the cost of them being gone when they don’t have a job anyway. If you don’t have a job but you are the primary caretaker of the kids, then how is your significant other going to replace that? They will either have to quit their job and take care of the kids or hire someone to do so while they still work. Life insurance can give them the ability to make the choice to do either. You bring value to your family even if you don’t have a job. Make sure they are covered.
Third, life insurance can help pay off any debt you have. Now that your family has lost you and your income, any debt left behind is an extra burden on them. With life insurance, they can pay off all of that debt and have one less thing to stress about.
Life insurance is not as expensive as most people think it is, especially if you are young and in good shape. A financial planner can help you find the money to pay for it. There are other things that you can easily sacrifice (Starbucks every day) in order to pay for it, and your family will be grateful if the worst happens. Don’t go another day without life insurance. It’s not worth it.
