Things You Didn’t Know About Life Insurance

What do you do when you hear the words ‘Life Insurance’?

Do you zone out, hear nothing at all or just hear blah blah blah about insurance? Well, not to worry: we’ve got the low-down on what you need to know and it’s not boring or overwhelming, I swear!

Here are some things you didn’t know about life insurance:

It’s part of a sound financial plan.

You know about savings, you know about retirement. You might know a bit about investments and long-term financial planning for your health and happiness. And life insurance helps with planning for your loved ones’ long-term health and happiness, especially those who depend on your income, in case something was to happen to you.

There are different kinds.

In addition to employment-based life insurance (which typically only lasts as long as your employment at your job), there’s term and permanent life insurance.

• Term life insurance: You typically pay lower premiums for term life insurance, but your coverage is just for a specified amount of time, say 20 years, for example. At the end of the term, your coverage ends.
• Permanent life insurance: With permanent life insurance (whole, universal, variable) you typically pay higher premiums in the short term, but then these policies generally allow you to accumulate cash value over time. Your coverage is designed to last as long as you continue to pay premiums.

Insurance is surprisingly affordable for most people.

Sure, there are forms of life insurance that get pricier the more features you add on to it, and the price goes up if you’re a smoker or dealing with health problems. But most people think policies costs about three times as much as it really does. For an example, a healthy non-smoking 30-year-old man can get a €250,000 30-year level term policy for about €18.23 a month. Click here for a quick quote.

Key life events are often the best time to get on board.

Getting married? Having kids? Changing jobs? Bought a house? Significant life events are often the time you become most aware of the need for life insurance—and on that note…

You can change your cover.

Perhaps you have a life insurance policy that your parents got for you when you were a baby. Perhaps you have a term policy from when you bought your house but now you have a bigger family and you’re concerned about getting them all through college. Or perhaps you want to bump up your coverage because your overall cost of living has changed. And on *that* note …

You may well need more coverage than you think.

Sometimes people think life insurance is to pay off their own debts and funeral expenses. But a key advantage of having a policy is to ensure that the people who depend on you will be OK with their on-going and future financial needs if something happens to you. Need help figuring this out how much? Go to this online.

Insurance pays out quickly.

Because life insurance doesn’t get tangled up in estate claims, it generally pays out quickly, sometimes in days or weeks.

Protects your family, but only if you let it.

Keep your premiums paid up and your beneficiaries up to date, and the door with your agent open so that your loved ones know who to call if needs be. Keep your paperwork with your other vital documents.

Can be more than just life insurance.

Using a specific kind of policy, life insurance benefits can become “living benefits,” money you can access before you die, or use to pay for long-term care, as two examples.

If you still need help getting a handle on all this, talk to us. We can help you understand the ins and outs and the best policy for your budget and needs. Because of course—the most important thing to know about life insurance is that it’s there to help the people you love the most. Contact us today.