Are you financially prepared if your husband or wife dies? Based on the results of a study commissioned by New York Life, the answer is a resounding No! 68% of women survivors and nearly half of male survivors reported significant life changes following the loss of their spouse with financial concerns topping the list.
You’ve worked long hours to fulfill a dream and build your company from a surviving business to a thriving, successful business. Have you given any thought to succession planning; who will succeed you, and how it will be funded? Or maybe you’re a partner in a company and you want to protect the business you’ve helped build, but what if something happens to your partner?
I met with a young couple six months ago. They were expecting their first child and the husband wanted to talk about life insurance. The arrival of a child is a time when many couples explore life insurance and I was honored and delighted to be consulted to assist them.
I’m helping a couple in the Southlake / Colleyville area with their insurance policies. We redid their home policy and are discussing options on the husband’s life insurance. We began the process by reviewing what he has now and discussing what he wants to accomplish. I ask three questions in all life insurance discussions (see http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/shopping-for-life-insurance-answer-3-questions-first/):
N Money profiled a couple, Steve and Pam West, on December 13, 2012. Steve was diagnosed with ALS in 2008, a progressive disease that is always fatal. At some point, Steve will literally be unable to breath. As it was at the time the article was published, ALS had taken from Steve the use of his arms and legs.
I had lunch with a friend of mine the other day; we’ll call him Bill, not his real name. He needed someone who’d listen and provide some feedback to make sure he was on the right track. The conversation started with him letting me know he’d just gotten laid off from a managerial position he’s had for several years. The pain was obvious as we talked.
There’s one option no term life policy should be without and I didn’t mention it in last Friday’s post: 4 Term Life Options Worth Exploring (http://50.87.248.161/~wiseinsu/4-term-life-options-worth-exploring/). No, I wasn’t sand bagging, but some term life policies automatically include this as a “feature” of their term life policy while others add it as an option. What is it? It’s usually referred to as the Accelerated Death Benefit and what it does can be profoundly important.
All insurance policies have options: home insurance, car insurance, umbrella policies, health, and commercial policies. Every one of them has options. Even life insurance has options available to anyone who’s interested. Most people are surprised to learn this, but I believe it’s important to cover each one when I discuss life insurance. There are 4 primary life options including …
One of my clients in the Frisco / McKinney area emailed me last week. Beth (not her real name) asked me if I write credit life policies because she was looking into it. I replied to her email letting her know I don’t sell credit life and then asked her what she was trying to accomplish. Beth is a single mom with three kids and her goal is to pay off her home and leave it to her children in the event of her death.
I was talking with Jason Hull a couple of weeks ago after the April meeting of the D/FW FinCon Chapter. Our local band of merry bloggers, which is led by Philip Taylor (www.ptmoney.com), and founder of FinCon, meets once a month to discuss blogging issues related to personal finance. Jason’s a friend and fee only financial planner in Crowley, Texas (www.hullfinancialplanning.com/) and we were discussing blogging topics. He suggested a topic to me that was framed in a question, “Can you get a legitimate on-line life insurance quote?” He was smiling and even I knew that meant he was asking me a question he already had the answer to.
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