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Life insurance....yea or nay. Do you have it?

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Do you have life insurance?

  • Yes and I wouldn't live without it

  • Yes but it's just a employer based policy I wouldn't pay for myself

  • No. I live for today.

  • No but I've thought about it often.

Results are only viewable after voting.
I used to buy up from work but decided to go out and bought a term policy 10x my salary which isn't tied to my job. Work includes 1x salary as benefits. My policy should run at least until my youngest hit 20. That should cover for my 3 kids education and enough time for wifey to stay at home and figure things out instead of getting booted out on the street. I'm at that age where I've heard of people that can just drop dead from heart attack or cancer and it's the responsible thing to do to make me sleep better at night knowing the family is taken care of.
 
I have three policies that don't cost me hardly anything. I have one through my employer that's a years salary for free. Another through a professional organization I'm a member through for another years salary if I'm killed on the job, and a personal policy for $100k at $20/month.
 
sixone said:
You should have at least enough life insurance to pay off any debts you have. If you have a spouse and/or kids, it should cover your income for several years, so that they don't suffer losing you AND their home.
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The only debts I have are student loans.
Do I need life insurance? :hmm:
 
Just got the paperwork for my policy. Work only does 10k, got 1mil 30 year term for 940 a year. Oldest is 2 in December, youngest is -1.5 months. Waited too long already.
 
Drako said:
Where is the "No don't need it, it's a waste of money" choice?
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If your employer provides it for free, how is it a waste of money?
Why would you knowingly leave money on the table?

I only go up to the level my company provides for free. I don't do the "pay extra for increased coverage" thing.
 
lothar said:
If your employer provides it for free, how is it a waste of money?
Why would you knowingly leave money on the table?

I only go up to the level my company provides for free. I don't do the "pay extra for increased coverage" thing.
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You're assuming his employer provides it in the first place.
 
My wife makes more than double what I do. Got two kids, mortgage, ect. I picked up a million dollar term 30 on her for around $450 a year. It's a lot of money, but there's no way I can come close to paying bills on just my income alone without really disrupting standard of living.
 
Turin39789 said:
Just got the paperwork for my policy. Work only does 10k, got 1mil 30 year term for 940 a year. Oldest is 2 in December, youngest is -1.5 months. Waited too long already.
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A $1million coverage for $940 a year for 30 years? That's a hell of a lot.
At that point, I would consider just investing the difference rather than waste money on it.

Are you the breadwinner in your family?
Is your wife a stay at home mom?
 
Nah, just get the 2X annual salary my company gives for free.

I'd rather have even a small amount of extra money alive, than be a rich dead man.
Don't want to give my beneficiaries too much reason to conspire my murder either.
 
I've got the 2x salary that the company gives for free and since we had a kid this year I got a 500K 20 year policy. It was like $250/yr or something. I have to get my wife a similar one as well but I'll have to do all the leg work on it or it'll never get done.
 
Life insurance is to protect your family from the loss of your income. If no one is dependent on your income, you don't need any if you have enough savings to cover your final expenses.

Term is so cheap that people who should be insured would be crazy not to have it.

I have a friend in her 50's who lives with her mother (age 78). My friend has no other family so didn't have any life insurance, but now she finds out she has cancer, maybe a year to live, and realizes her mother will end up in a poor quality care home because her mother will have to go to one that takes Medicare. She never imagined her mother could outlive her, and it's too late to get insurance. She's come to terms with her prognosis but is devastated about what will happen to her mother. All because she didn't spend a little on life insurance when she could have.
 
I have some life insurance from my company but I can't even remember how much it's worth. I have no wife & no kids so I'd certainly never go out and buy a policy. If I died my parents would actually get a small windfall from my house & retirement savings.
 
kranky said:
I have a friend in her 50's who lives with her mother (age 78). My friend has no other family so didn't have any life insurance, but now she finds out she has cancer, maybe a year to live, and realizes her mother will end up in a poor quality care home because her mother will have to go to one that takes Medicare. She never imagined her mother could outlive her, and it's too late to get insurance. She's come to terms with her prognosis but is devastated about what will happen to her mother. All because she didn't spend a little on life insurance when she could have.
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It's crazy how much you sober up to the realities of life as you have kids and get older. In my early 20's the thought of dying early wasn't even on my mind. It wasn't an invulnerable thing, it's just that it never really seemed to be something to worry about.

At 34 and with two kids, it's not something that I worry about per se, but I'm much more aware at how many people do die early and from oddball stuff that you'd never expect or could really significantly prevent. Cancer is a big one. But I've known a couple people (men and women) to cash out in their early 50's with massive strokes. Just normal people that get up and go to work, walking back to their desk from the coffee machine and collapse. Brain stem bleeds. Dead.

I'm still 10-15 years out (45-50 years old) from when people my age really start to cash out early but I'm much more aware of how short life can be than other people my age. To make things even more complicated my wife works in a hospital and is working daily with some very nasty chemicals and with some very sick people. Plus she works a lot of nights and driving home when the drunks our out. It's not like we live every day fearing for life, but there are risks.

I've run the numbers on what things would look like if my wife was no longer around and it wouldn't be pretty. We both decided to take out a larger policy that would cover paying off the house, all college worries for the kids, and a decent padding left over for whatever other emergies could come about later on.
 
I think I have a 1.4 million dollar policy. I pay about $70 a month (should go down soon with my recent weight loss, etc. generally a healthier lifestyle.)
I'm married with 2 kids and another on the way.
I wanted enough of a policy that if I die my family could live decently enough off the interest. That should get them through for a long while.
 
My wife and I have term life insurance. She wants to also get whole life insurance to cover funeral expenses but I am against it. I say it is better to invest money myself than pay for whole life insurance. I am only worried about paying off the mortgage and raising kids. After that i have no need for death benefits. A lot of people with whole life insurance end up cashing out the policy before they die anyway.

But if you do buy it, get consider the amount, we originally quoted $100K worth of insurance but to go to $250K was either negligible or cheaper since the policies are sold in $1 million incrementals.
 
vi edit said:
My wife makes more than double what I do. Got two kids, mortgage, ect. I picked up a million dollar term 30 on her for around $450 a year.
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Does she know about this policy? 😉

I don't have any dependents, so I don't carry life insurance. Besides, my fiancee also makes more than double what I do.

As for getting life insurance to "cover your debts", if your estate can't cover your debts, your next of kin won't have to anyway, so...
 
vi edit said:
My wife makes more than double what I do. Got two kids, mortgage, ect. I picked up a million dollar term 30 on her for around $450 a year. It's a lot of money, but there's no way I can come close to paying bills on just my income alone without really disrupting standard of living.
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I don't think 1mil 30 yr term for $450/yr is a lot of money. You're lucky/smart for taking out the policy while you're still young and healthy and the cost is still low.
 
JimKiler said:
My wife and I have term life insurance. She wants to also get whole life insurance to cover funeral expenses but I am against it. I say it is better to invest money myself than pay for whole life insurance. I am only worried about paying off the mortgage and raising kids. After that i have no need for death benefits. A lot of people with whole life insurance end up cashing out the policy before they die anyway.

But if you do buy it, get consider the amount, we originally quoted $100K worth of insurance but to go to $250K was either negligible or cheaper since the policies are sold in $1 million incrementals.
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You're absolutely right.

In general, it's best to get the longest term available (usually 30 years), so that you don't have to prove you're still healthy in 10 or 15 or 20 years. You might not be.
 
sixone said:
You're absolutely right.

In general, it's best to get the longest term available (usually 30 years), so that you don't have to prove you're still healthy in 10 or 15 or 20 years. You might not be.
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Not necessarily. For my policy (which is term 20) it has a guaranteed renewable rate. Now, this rate is substantially higher than what it is for the first 20 years, but if I have significantly decreased health at that time it'd still be worth it.

I have 20 year term (2 years is), but after 5-10 years I'll probably get a new 20 year term and be done after that. I just want it to last until my kids finish university, and after that I'll substantially reduce the amount insured for.

My wife and I both have 750K policies and one year's salary through work.
 
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