Looking After Your Family Financially Should You Die: Life Insurance AD

When you are young, free and single the last thing you will ever think about is life insurance. Why would you? I clearly remember being in my twenties and one of the most overwhelming beliefs I had was that I was indestructible and that nothing could happen to me. It’s strangely a very normal thought, but sadly misguided because when you get a bit older you will probably get married and have children and this is a game changer.

It’s a wake-up call and will instantly change your thought pattern. You will realise that in-fact you are not indestructible and a new responsibility has entered your life and you will then realise that you need to make sure if the unthinkable happens and you are no longer around that your loved ones are financially looked after.

A couple of years ago I had a close call with my health which certainly woke me up to the importance of having adequate life insurance.

While I was sitting down watching television with my wife one evening I started to feel very strange and unwell. I knew something was really not right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. My wife called an ambulance and to cut a long story short I was taken to hospital and told that I had suffered a stroke. I was fortunate to recover fully without any lasting impairment to my health, but it could have been a very different scenario for me. You can read the whole story of when I had a stroke in more detail here.

This episode of serious ill health focused my mind on how important it was for me to make sure my family were looked after financially, especially being a husband and a dad of five children.

What is life Insurance?

It really is very simple. You take out a policy that in the event of you passing away results in money from the policy being passed onto your beneficiaries. This could be your wife, partner or your children if of course they are old enough. What most people don’t realise is that the earlier you take out a life insurance policy the better because premiums are much lower and more affordable. So taking out a life insurance policy when you are young and healthy is definitely a plus.

There are many different types of life insurance that will suit everybody’s individual needs. For instance:

Level Term

A level term policy pays an amount of money that will last for an agreed amount of time. For instance until the children have finished university and they are financially stable themselves.

Decreasing term

Decreasing term policies are perfect for paying a debt such as a mortgage which will decrease over time and generally the premiums are lower for the life of the policy. The potential payout does lower over time.

Parents joint policy

You can if you want take out a joint life insurance policy as parents. This will work out cheaper, but will only pay out once, so it’s always recommended if you can afford the extra to have separate policies to make sure you are adequately covered in the event of one of you passing away.

The importance of life insurance

I cannot emphasis enough, should you or your wife/partner pass away unexpectedly this in itself is going to be so difficult to deal with. The grief and grieving process can be long and at times unbearable. If you add to that the stress of paying bills and well, quite frankly just living and buying food will be overwhelming. This is where life insurance is perfect to take the stress out of daily living and allowing the family to grieve the loss of a loved one.

Are you adequately covered should the unexpected happen and you pass away early leaving your partner, husband wife to bring up your children alone? I would love to hear in the comments below.

This is a paid collaborative post.