Wondering if Now is the Time for Life Insurance?

The easy answer to when to buy life insurance is “when you have children.” Everybody knows that! If something happens to you, “the breadwinner,” there will be money for the family’s sustenance and education. This is true but doesn’t speak to the other times when life insurance is a smart choice. The question remains: when do we sign-up for life insurance? The answer is different for everyone, but inevitably involves consideration of what’s coming up in your life. Because life insurance only gets more expensive as we age, it makes financial sense to anticipate your accumulation of responsibilities and commitments and insure accordingly. Here are some common moments when life insurance makes sense.

Before we get down to specifics, there’s one big thing to keep in mind: even though it’s an easy thing to put off, you’re better off thinking about life insurance now. In general, life insurance gets more expensive the older you are. That’s because the younger you are, the longer your life expectancy is. Life insurance is priced based on age, gender and health at the time of application. All things being equal, a younger person will receive a better life insurance rate. In some small increments, that makes life insurance more expensive every single day. Signing up early will lock in a long-term price break while still allowing for a lot of living.

The question remains: when do we sign-up for life insurance? The answer is different for everyone, but inevitably involves consideration of what’s coming up in your life. Because life insurance only gets more expensive as we age, it makes financial sense to anticipate your accumulation of responsibilities and commitments and insure accordingly.

Here are some common moments when life insurance makes sense.

1. You Know There’s More Family in Your Future                                                                                                                          You know yourself, and you know you’re going to want a family. Or looking in the other direction, your parents are getting frail, and you’re at least partially responsible for their future. That’s one of those life responsibilities that fall on us without our really thinking about it, but it’s real. One of the ways we express our love is by performing acts of service. There is no greater act of service than accepting responsibility for the people, places and things around us. We do it without thinking about it. “I’ll get it,” we say; taking on a little more every day. That’s how we make our lives work smoothly: we help each other. We see it not as a burden but as a kind of joy. Anticipating that other people are going to depend on us is part of a life well led. Life insurance helps you be ready for that. GBU Life even offers child term riders that allow you to insure any future children you may have under your policy, so when the time comes for those little ones, you already have coverage for them in place.
2. Debt                                                                                                                                                                                                  You owe things. When you’re young, almost everyone owes more than they own. Odds are some of that debt is tied to other people—co-signers, business partners, people who have helped along the way. It is also important to take into consideration that your loved ones will want to pay proper tribute to your life when you should pass away. The average cost of a funeral is over $7,000. Most of the time people don’t die young; however when this does occur, the loved ones are often left not only with the tragedy but with a financial mess. A relatively small amount of life insurance would eliminate that. Remember life insurance is cheap when you’re young. You could relieve those around you of the financial hardship caused by your death for less than coffee money every day.
3. The Opportunity to Seize Opportunities                                                                                                                                       
   In life, not only does risk happen but there are moments when we welcome risk. Life insurance can change the way you measure your possibilities. An average person’s career usually consists of 12 jobs and 15 homes. Every one of those changes involves risk—a period where you and the people who depend on you are vulnerable. But there are bigger risks to be taken as well. Consider, for example, an entrepreneurial opportunity. You and a friend have an idea for a company. You’re weighing the risk versus the reward. It is a sound idea for you and your business partner to purchase additional life insurance should either of you pass away unexpectedly. This additional life insurance would allow the other partner to purchase the entire company, while at the same time, it will protect your family financially. All the steps you’ve taken up the financial ladder mean there’s more to insure, a better lifestyle to be protected and more risk to be measured. Life insurance can change that equation. Adequately insured, your risk is lower. You can spend down your capital or absorb a start-up period at lower pay because if the worst happens there’s insurance to take care of the people you love and the responsibilities you’ve accepted. And that’s liberating. 

Of course, none of us know what’s going to happen. But by buying insurance early, at a comparatively low rate, you can proceed with more confidence. That is the ultimate power.