I hear it all the time when I talk with people about life insurance.
“I am good because…”
There are many of these excuses and I made many of them myself. The most common misconceptions are also the most dangerous because they leave people assuming they are good when usuallly they are not. Here are the top 3 “I am good” traps people fall into.
- I have a policy through work
- I am young and healthy.
- I can’t afford it/I don’t need that much.
I have a policy through work
I have heard this numerous times from people. Many medium to large companies offer life insurance to their employees as a work benefit. While this in itself is all well and good, the policies are often very small and if the employer pays the premium they control the policy, meaning that if you seperate from them ever your life coverage vanishes.
Even if you carry the policy with you when you move on they are typically only good for replacing a year or two salary and the premium typically doubles or worse. This is not good news for a family, like many I work with, who rely on both incomes to run the household . It is even worse if one spouse brings in most or all the income. I was working with a client, I’ll call him Dave, who brought home 90,000 of the household 100,000 income. Dave’s work policy pays 200,000 upon his death. Like a many young families, he has 2 little kids and a mortgage. I asked him one question. “How long…?”
How long does your wife get to keep the house, the kids fed and clothed, and maintain some sense of normalcy before she is out of money?
We opted to get Dave a supplemental policy to fill the gaps left by the work policy.
I’m young and healthy
20-30 year olds without major health issues often feel as if they don’t need life insurance, espcially if they are not married and don’t have kids. The truth is this is the best time to get life insurance for 2 reasons.
- No other time in life will it be this affordable or this easy to get.. For young adults that are still single, they don’t need much coverage but it is good to get a start while you can breeze through underwriting.
- It guarantees insurability. You never know when disaster will strike, in fact the best case scenario guarantees that you will get older, have health problems, and die. By getting life insurance before that time you are ensuring that you have available protection that can be converted into more long term solutions that meet life’s changing needs.
I can’t afford it
This is perhaps the dumbest excuse ever. i know because it was tbe one I made until it was too late. My wife and I got married in 2008, 2 years later I started showing symptoms of what would eventiually be diagnosed as a progressive neurological disorder called Cerebellar Ataxia.
Hindsight is 20/20. Had I known then what I know now, I would have made room in the slim budget for enough life insurance to fulfill my marriage vows to protect my wife. I should have done this on our wedding day or at least heeded the symptoms 2 years later before being rendered uninsurable by the diagnosis. I was given another opportunity in 2015 to get a policy through work that because I paid into it was mine for keeps. I opted for a minimal policy to cover burial. I simply didn’t think through how my wife would be affected financially by the likelihood of my early death.
Having made such agregious mistakes myself, I am passionate about helping people avoid the pitfals I fell into. If you or a loved one are unsure about the state of your life protection or if you have been assuming you’re good, Take a few minutes to contact yoour insurance advisor to make sure you are good. If you need help feel free to contact my office at 719-247-0008 or fill out the form below.