I Can’t Afford Life Insurance
That is a statement I hear often. I offer a counter statement though, if you can’t afford life insurance, you can’t NOT afford life insurance. And I don’t just say that because I do sell life insurance, I say that from experience. My brother passed away at the age of 24 due to an aneurism. No life insurance to cover final expenses or to pay off the house he had. I do miss him terrible, however it is because of that incident that I am so adamant about making sure people have life insurance. Even young, single people. But not just any life insurance, the right kind and the right amount.
Do I sell it to every one? No. If you have the assets to cover final expenses, you have NO need for life insurance. If you ask for it will I sell it to you? Yes. You want it for a reason and extra money for those we leave behind is rarely a bad thing.
Now on to why you can’t afford not to have it. Your married, you have kids, both of you work, and you live a decent life style. Now, take away one of your incomes, could you still maintain that lifestyle? How long? A few weeks? Months? How long before the working spouse burns out? That’s what I thought. For most of you, it MIGHT be 1 month. Now there are some benefits with one spouse staying home. They can take care of day to day cleaning and maintenance on the house that you normally wouldn’t be able to do since you’d be working.
You’re probably asking now what that has to do with life insurance right? Well, more than you might think. Take the same situation, but instead of just losing one income, you lost your spouse. On the way to work one day, they get ran over by a semi, killed by someone shooting up the place, had a heart attack, or any of a thousand other events happen. Now in addition to the loss of income (not to mention loss of a loved one), you now have an additional $6k-$10k for a funeral, probably another couple weeks, if not more, of lost wages as you take off of work to cope and take care of everything, and probably another $10k-$25k in final medical expenses. If you’re like most people, you don’t have that much cash lying around. If you were to die today, your family will be the ones having to cover those expenses. In many cases, for several YEARS after you are gone. If that how you want them to remember you by?
Oh, what’s that you say? That wont happen to your family? Let me remind you of my brother, age 24. We never expected that to happen either.
Life insurance is meant to replace your income and cover final expenses for an unexpected event. If your family can’t afford to cover those expenses, then your family can’t afford to NOT have life insurance. Don’t let your family suffer because you failed to plan.