A good friend of mine has been an insurance agent for a little while now. She shares so much information on insurance. Things I never knew before. I know we all “know” that we need life insurance but often it’s pushed aside as an expense we “don’t need right now” or “Or I have insurance through work so why do I need to pay for additional insurance?”
Well I’ll tell you my story. One from the working world and one from being on the other side of someone not having insurance.
I’ve been working with the same hospital for 15 years now. For many years I was able to get life insurance through work. When I was full-time I was able to get up to 4X my income for a very affordable rate. I opted to do 2X my yearly income and paid only a few dollars per month. Well after I had my 3rd son, and talking with my husband, I cut down to part-time. Cutting down to part-time I was able to keep all my benefits EXCEPT that the life-insurance was reduced to a maximum of $10,000 and I had to pay a little extra if I wanted that $10,000. I did that because I thought, well, at least it will bury me. Then a few years after our hospital was bought out and became for profit I lost every single benefit except my 401k. That included my life insurance. For the first time in 13 years, at that time, I found myself without any life insurance. The reality is, companies don’t have to offer life insurance to employees. It’s often one of the first things to go when cutting costs.
On the other side of the story. My father in law passed away in November. He was in his early 60s. He did have a chronic and progressive disease but he never set up a will, POA, Living Will, or had life insurance. When he passed away my husband had to figure out everything. We had to hire an attorney to help walk us through the process because he had a house, 2 vehicles, etc. Thankfully my husband is a good saver and we were able to pay some expenses out of pocket until we set up administrator accounts for his bank accounts. I didn’t realize how many expenses there were when someone passes away. It’s not just burial but paying utilities in his house until we were able to sell it, hiring an attorney, hiring an auctioneer to get rid of the tools, furniture, etc. There’s estate tax, there’s more I just can’t think of it all in this minute.
Had my husband not been able to prepare us financially it definitely would have been a hardship for a while. When you set up an administrator account for the estate every penny has to be accounted for and have to do with the estate. We have to provide every receipt to our attorney for utilities bills, property taxes, hiring a cleaning service, etc. This continues until the estate is dissolved which we are finally getting close to doing. Reminder my father in law passed in November. There was no life insurance. Had he had life insurance we could have received the payment from that within a month or two.
So please, do yourself a favor, do your family a favor and at least look into getting life insurance. There’s different kinds and amounts so you can find something to fit your budget or set your family up the way you want to.
It only take a few minutes to get an idea of what you want and can afford for the future .
OMG Angie thanks so much for this post! People don’t realize just how important life insurance actually is. That money does so much more than just pay for your funeral and burial expenses. Like you said, it pays for attorney fees, taxes, bills, and utility costs. I definitely need more on myself but something is better than nothing. I’m so sorry you had to go through this at work. That’s another great example of why people need separate policies outside of their employer.