Keep that Life Insurance Personal
I know this is far from an entertaining topic but I’ll do my best to keep things saucy. Life insurance is something most of us should have in good order. With open enrollment season coming up for many employers I wanted to address the life insurance issue many people should consider. I was looking over a friend’s budget and noticed they we’re not paying out on any monthly life insurance premiums, since they have two young kiddos in the house I thought I would ask a couple questions. Turns out they’re both carrying life insurance through their employers. I asked why they went that route instead of carrying policies separate from their jobs. Apparently they saw they could buy it so they did, that’s about all the consideration they put into the decision.
So the good news is they did have a reasonable amount of coverage in place and they were getting a heck of deal on it since the company covered most of the premiums. The bad news is they have no insurance in place if outside of the company. The main problem I see with this situation is that if they leave the company they’ll lose the coverage. True, as long as they remain healthy they could likely replace the coverage with a new term policy at that time but they also run the risk of not being able to get coverage at that time too (due to medical issues or the cost of a new unsubsidized policy.) I think having life insurance other than your employer’s plan is vital especially with two little ones at home. How many people nowadays are going to be at the same job 30 years from now…put a bullet in my head now please! It may be a good idea to look outside of your employer’s policies and see what all your options are.
So we decided they would look into getting a couple new 30 year term policies that they can carry with them no matter what happens to their work situation or their health. They’re also going to keep the current employer policies in place as since it’s costing them less than $4 per month each for $350,000 in coverage (told you they had a hell of a deal!). Like I said, work insurance can often be a pretty sweet deal, just make sure it’ll meet your needs if you get canned or decide it’s finally time to tell your boss what you really think of him!
Do you carry life insurance through your employer? Do you have outside insurance? Do you even have life insurance at all?
...."so when I got home we had a talk and decided this money situation had to change. I didn’t know how I was going to change it, we were barely making enough money to cover the monthly payments so how the H-E-double-hockey-sticks was I going to fix it?"