While I’m certainly not the first person to say it – Congratulations! This is both an exciting and completely nerve-racking time; if you’re thinking about life insurance, then you’re definitely thinking about the future and that’s nerve-racking, too – especially if you’re already stressing about how a baby is going to affect your finances. You can click on this link to visit Suncorp & learn more about their life insurance options.
Well, let me tell ya – a baby is definitely going to do just that. Does that mean that life insurance is an expendable expense? Absolutely not – you need it now, more than ever.
I’ll jump into why here in just a minute, but let’s start by breaking down the necessity for life insurance at varying stages of life to help put everything into perspective.
Pre-Family Insurance Buys – The Early-Bird Gets the Worm
When you’re young, not yet invested into a steady relationship – or perhaps are just at the start of one – life insurance isn’t necessary, but it isn’t a bad idea if you like to plan ahead. At this age, rates are insanely cheap; believe me, they will never be this cheap again.
How cheap? In your 20s, you’re looking at spending maybe $350 on the high-end, for a huge $500,000 policy that will carry you for the next 30 years. That’s a whole lot of life to get through and the chances that you’ll have a family within that time are significantly high.
Also, the chances that you’ll develop medical conditions increases every year that life ticks by – we can’t all have super genes – don’t you just hate those people?!
Statistics show that most young people in their 20s want to have a family of their own within 10 years and perhaps that’s where you – new dad – are finding yourself in the thick of. Perhaps you’re in your 20s right now – great! Run out and grab a policy – it’ll be cheap! Much cheaper than if you had this baby in your 30s. No offense, though, if you happen to be in your 30s – if you are, though, the time is also now.
Golden Rule – Buy When You Start a Family
This is a golden rule for a reason – anytime you’re wondering if it’s necessary to purchase insurance, the only question that matters is – are you starting, or do you have, a family? If the answer is yes, then the answer is yes – buy life insurance.
Don’t buy it as an investment – establish a 401k for that – buy it as a safety-net for your loved ones. There’s no telling when something is going to happen to you; none of us have any idea what awaits us the second we step out of bed in the morning. You might think you have everything in place, all of your ducks in a row, but what if something comes up after you’re not around to take care of it? Your family ends up paying for that out of their own pocket, while grieving and trying to replace the income they lost when they lost you.
Unfortunately, it’s a sad fact that in the United States 64% of families don’t have life insurance protecting their financial future. A further sad fact is that 11-million of those families have children under the age of 18 – that’s a staggering number of young ones that might have to forgo college, because they weren’t provided for after a parent passed away.
These are real statistics – provided by the insurance research outfit LIMRA – and they reflect a 26% drop since 2010. Maybe the economy is to blame, maybe the life insurance companies are getting a bit carried away with their own competitive nature and sales pitches – whatever the case may be, nothing takes away from the fact that life insurance is important. Our jaded, over-scammed, society needs to wake up and realize that they have a future to protect.
Preach it brother! I like term4sale.com as a place to get quotes. I found it to be incredibly accurate, and they’re not trying to sell you anything.
I just have a funeral cover but no life insurance so far. Maybe before starting a family to get the cheap(ish) quote.
Life insurance is something I need. If something were to happen to me I’d want to leave my girls a little money. However, I have very little debt and I’m divorced. I just don’t know who I’d make the beneficiary and who I could really trust to use the money the way I see fit.
I do the life insurance buy up through my employer. I have enough on me to pay off the house and replace my gross income for 3 years. This would allow C to finish his BS and have plenty of time to find a job without worrying about money (especially since with the house paid off, the biggest monthly bill would be gone). I have enough on him that I would not need to worry about additional child care costs and it should still cover college for our daughter (if she chose to go).
I know a lot of people don’t like work policies because you change jobs, but we looked at personal policies while I was out of work and the expense for two people in their late 30s is significantly higher than what I pay for coverage through work.
I agree with you that life insurance becomes important when you are starting a family. It is sad to know that nearly 64% of families do not have insurance. We do have a family insurance coverage and we just did not have second thought when we had plans of starting our family.
While working in the funeral industry for the past six years, I witnessed the devastating effects of not having life insurance. If you aren’t covered and you die unexpectedly, your family is often left to pick up the pieces. It happens more than I ever thought possible.
When I found out my wife was pregnant, buying life insurance was on my to do list. I checked out term4sale, mentioned by Matt. We were going to get the physical examinations and get the life insurance but my work offered a supplemental insurance on top of the group policy. I know I know…work life insurance is a little risky because what if you quit or are let go…but I work in government and felt my job was safe. I’m still thinking about this issue…
I have a good group policy through work, but am working right now on expanding to my own.
We bought life insurance a couple of years before our son was born, while i was still younger and in good health. Better to buy it early when it’s still affordable – than later when you find out you’ve got health issues!
Amen to that, Peter! The health issue is one that people never consider when they decide to wait on insurance.