I’ve always thought life insurance was a silly thing. It’s a gamble that you are going to die young. Plus I’ve never wanted to be worth more dead than alive. Now that I’m nearing 30 and about to get married again, my fiancé is pushing me to get life insurance. At first thought, I always say no. On deeper pondering, I think that yeah I probably should have life insurance. Then I start looking into it, and I start to see what a rip off it is. I don’t plan on dying any time soon. Yes I know that I CAN die, but chances are really good I’m not going to die in the next 10 to 30 years. So, I come to smartest group of people I know. Should I get life insurance?
Short bio:
30, male, smoker, 2 kids (1 lives with his mother out of state, +2 that are my fiancés that I am the sole male role model for), a little more than 50K a year, home owner less than a year, no genetic disposition to early death, fairly healthy, a little over weight, and nothing high risk (sky diving, cave diving, etc)
If I should get it, what kind? Term? Universal? Term seems like the worst deal odds wise. Universal is pretty expensive though. Neither my family nor my future wife’s family is poor, it’s not like my wife or any of the kids is going to be on the street and starving to death. She would probably lose the house though
Well the advice I got was price term and universal. Then get term and invest the difference between the two. When the term is up you’ll have something to help with retirement and to be there for when you die post term.
My husband has 20 year term in case some horrendous thing happens. I’m a stay at home mom and would never be able to get a job to come within a quarter of his paycheck. We figure the 360 a year is worth the peace of mind that the kids would still be able to go to college and grow up in their home should something crappy happen. Hell we blow more than that on video games a year
The thing to remember is that if something happens, it’s likely going to be unexpected. Life insurance can’t bring you back, but it can help your family not have to worry about losing their home while they’re dealing with another loss (no, I don’t sell insurance or work for an insurance company).
I don’t know a lot about the different types of life insurance. I carry term, because it’s a little cheaper for me. I’d sit down with an insurance agent, along with your fiance, and figure out what you need. Don’t make any decisions on the first visit, but gather information about the different types and about suggested amounts, then go home, talk it over and decide how much and what kind.
The LadyVor, when working, makes less than 1/4th of what I do. Damned straight I have life insurance.
BTW, watch the length of the term. Your age when it’s time to renew it determines how much it’ll cost to renew it, and you’re kinda at a tweener age, where if you renew a 5 year term at 35 it would probably be cheeper than renewing a 10 year term at 40 in the long run.
My husband and I each have $500K 20 yr term, which will take us into our 50’s. We will probably overlap a second 20 year policy around year 10. Not to be paranoid, but the men in his family either live forever or croak early.
Our reasoning- we own a house; one of us would have to take over all responsibilities of the other, and might need help; our kids need to be taken care of in the same style as if we were both alive; kids need to go to college if they want to.
For example, if hubby dies, I will be able to pay off the house to get out from under a huge payment. Whatever’s left will go towards the kids’ education. We just bought a new house though, so we are thinking of upping the insurance to $1 million each to cover the higher mortgage.
I used to be an insurance agent, and I think term is best. You smoke, so you will be paying a much higher rate. You would need to be smoke free for at least 1 year to lower the rate (and with some preferred policies, more like 5).
I used an online service called Quotesmith to get our policies. You can really only get info online, though- you will still have to slog through the process!
IMHO, if you own a home and have children, you should have a will/trust and life insurance. If you don’t it seems irresponsible.
The husband of Mrs. Kunilou’s college roommate felt the same way. He wouldn’t carry any insurance. He was murdered in a carjacking. Completely random. Ms. roommate was left with three kids.
If you think your wife would lose the house, imagine her trying to put your kids through college and put something away for retirement on her income alone.
My advice, get term insurance for you and your wife that will keep one of you going until your kids reach the age where they would graduate and leave home.
Gotta chime in the on term. That’s what I’ve got, that’s what the wife’s got. With her back problems, working full time would be a problem if I croaked, so I’m covered for a little more than she is. But, if I DO croak I’ll go knowing that the mortgage is paid, the college is paid, and that Welbywife can semi-retire on the insurance money.
Get something, anyway. You don’t want to leave your fiancee and her kids nothing.
I have a small whole-life policy. Not much, but should the worst happen, it will leave Spoonette in a position where she is able to pay all my outstanding debts, including funeral expenses. With what is left over, I have told her to throw a megaparty for all of my friends, or look after other expenses, as she chooses.
It doesn’t cost much, and with the automatic deductions from my bank account, I don’t even notice it.
I hate to be the spoilsport, but have you thought about getting long term disability insurance? Unfortunately, you’re probably more likely to need that than life insurance. You should check and see what your health insurance covers.
It might be worth it to mosy on down to the evil megabookstore one sunday with the spouse and browse through the personal finance section – many people have lots to say on the subject of insurance. I highly recommend perusing Stephen Pollan’s Die Broke. But don’t bother buying it; read it there in the store for free.
Yeah… you really want disability and I’m not sure of much about this as we haven’t gotten to look into it too much but there is also a beast called long term care insurance. Sounds hokey but my FIL at 54 got diagnosed with early onset alzheimers and they don’t have this care insurance so my in laws are trying to figure out now how to provide the care for him without leaving her with nothing to retire on. (he’s not to the point of needing much care yet but the disease is interfering with his ability to work and do some day to day stuff already and he’s only 55) My FIL’s father is now in a nursing home… and even with the fact that they have no assets (no home or car) and almost no money it is the cut rate of 1000/month. Some places wanted 5000/month.
