Tony Snow should be a lesson for all young-ish DUers..

[SoCalDem]

You may be young NOW and healthy, but you will not always be..

I know that many will pooh-pooh my suggestion, but this issue has touched my own life, so I'm gonna give you this advice anyway..

While you are young and healthy, GET LIFE INSURANCE.. It will never get cheaper than it is right now , in your own lifetime. Every year older you get, it costs more to get a policy, and if you plan to marry and or have children, you can never know just when a doctor will tell you something that will make you UNINSURABLE..

When that happens, it's TOO LATE!!..

I know that most people will advise you to get term life, but every time the "term" is up, you start over with the new age that you are..

Years ago my husband had a universal whole life policy that we allowed ourselved to be snookered out of.. We are kicking ourselves now that he is 65, ill and priced out of the insurance market..

I kept a cheesy little policy that we bought when I was 25, and yep, that little ole $9.85 a month premium is still going strong, and those dividends have mushroomed that policy to 3 times what the original policy was ..

[babylonsister]

1. Excellent advice! It's not expensive, but it's so important!

:thumbsup:

[RB TexLa]

2. We each have enough life insurance to cover any final expenses, that's all we need.

[SoCalDem]

3. Yes..at some point in our lives, that's all that's needed, BUT

if you have an ill spouse, an unpaid-for house, and or children, that might not be enough ..

[RB TexLa]

4. So which one of us are you saying can't provide for ourselves?

And we don't raise children.

[SoCalDem]

5. One never knows when an illness will happen.

or which one will be left behind .:(

[RB TexLa]

6. Which one will be left behind? OK, which one of use do you think can't provide for themselves?

I'd like to know.

[SoCalDem]

7. You, personally, I have no way of knowing..

In our household, it could be either of us.. After a certain age it's rather difficult to keep on working,...and there's no way of knowing when one of us will pass on..

That's why they call it "insurance".. It's there as a safety net.. Not required, but nice to have when the time comes.

[RB TexLa]

8. So you think my wife and I are both stupid enough that neither of us

have planned for the possibility of not being able to work.

I guess the biggest insult is your insinuating that either of us depend financially on the other.

Have a good night.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

14. Your Bitterness And Defensiveness To This Issue Is Beyond Perplexing.

You respond as if being attacked, rather than being given sound advice. To allude for a second to the notion that someone was possibly inferring that you or your wife are stupid makes your response seem knee jerky, irrational, and just plain nonsensical.

Did an insurance salesman beat you up in your younger years or something? Too strange.

[dsc]

15. If you're married, you are financially dependent upon one another for your current lifestyle

I am single and make about 45k. If I get married to another person, who makes 45k we now make 90k with no where near a doubling of expenses. Thus our lifestyle improves greatly (we can chose to use the xtra money to buy better housing, buy expensive things, or save for the future, or something else) but regardless the loss of one income will reduce our standard of living and thus insurance for that income would be wise (even if not totally necessary).

[pipoman]

19. Dude are you

schizophrenic or just narcissistic? I saw nowhere in the OP that the OP singled you out. She didn't say, "RGBolen needs life insurance". In fact don't buy any, I am sure the OP really could care less. Take the advice or leave it but for christs sake shut up.

[Jazzgirl]

10. Here, here!

There is more than enough of a policy to bury me and pay off just about anything else that might be left. I had a friend die the same day Tony S. did....from cancer. He had colon cancer and recently they found spots on his lungs and on his brain. That was just a couple of months ago. He didn't last long and was 53, just like T.S. A year younger than me..... :(

[morningglory]

9. Hear! Hear! You are right. Get a big one. nt

[Gold Metal Flake]

11. A very helpful thread. Good advice for the young people.

Too bad someone had to barge in and rub his dick on it.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

12. I Can Wholeheartedly Agree With You On This.

I try and tell that to whomever I can. It was too late for me when I learned that lesson, but it's a lesson I try to pass on to others. We take far too much for granted and life insurance is something that shouldn't be one of them. It's one of those "it's better to have it and never need it, than to need it and not have it" type of things.

[Clark2008]

13. Some people are denied life insurance.

Hubby is bi-polar and no one will insure him for any amount we can afford.

The insurance companies say it's because people who are bi-polar have a higher instance of committing suicide; however, most insurance companies won't pay life insurance to the survivors of those who commit suicide, so I don't really understand this line of thinking.

Luckily, we have some through his company, but not nearly enough.

[NC_Nurse]

16. Very good advice. I see young people get life-threatening diagnoses a lot,

and once that happens, you CAN"T get life insurance...usually even if you survive cancer or another potentially deadly disease or
accident, no company will sell you life insurance. If they did, it would be ridiculously expensive.

[InvisibleTouch]

17. I can't imagine any situation in which I would ever need it.

I'm not married and have no intentions of getting married. I don't have kids, and have no intentions of ever having kids. I have pets ... and have privately lined up homes for them with other pet-keepers if something should happen to me. They can sell my lifelong-accumulated clutter to cover expenses.

[pipoman]

18. I am a firm believer in term life insurance

it is very cheap and provides good protection. As for the term being up you start over, that is true. Most term life requires the insurer to insure policy holders beyond the term even if the insured is otherwise uninsurable. The term is usually long enough to change the needs of the insured downward when the term expires. For those who are not insurance savvy 'term life insurance' is strictly insurance, no savings or cash value. 'Whole life' or 'universal life' is insurance which part of your premium goes into an investment vehicle of one type or another, the premiums are usually 2 to 5 times the cost of term insurance. If you have a hard time saving money on your own it can be ok. The traditional wisdom is that if a wage earner in the family gets sick or looses their job they may not be able to afford the higher premium. Additionally there are usually better saving vehicles available than those attached to life insurance.

There are two basic types of insurance which anyone who is buying insurance should be aware. Contestable and noncontestable, contestable insurance is usually cheaper than noncontestable and contestable often doesn't require a physical. A contestable policy usually requires the insured to fill out a health questionnaire. When a claim is filed the insurance company pulls the questionnaire and if they can prove any deception or if the insurance company simply doesn't feel like paying they will deny coverage. This leaves the beneficiary in a position of having to legally fight the insurance company for the money. Many noncontestable policies have a contestable period (maybe 1 or 2 years) it is very important therefore not to lie on any insurance document, most policies with a contestable period will pay if the application/questionnaire was filled out truthfully after the contestable period the policy pays no questions asked. Most 'credit life', life insurance which insures that a specific debt will be paid if the insured dies before the loan is satisfied, are contestable policies so beware of credit life. You are usually far better off to increase your term policy or buy a separate term policy to cover the debt rather than buy credit life.

The equation used to determine how much life insurance is needed depends on what the goals of the insured. Generally one would add up all long term debt. Then would determine how much income in addition to the income of the surviving spouse or beneficiary would be needed for the survivor to maintain their current standard of living. Take the latter number times 10 and add to the long term debt. For instance if long term debt equals $250,000 (home, primary vehicle, college tuition, etc.) and the survivor would need $50k per year to maintain their current lifestyle (in the absence of the long term debt), $750,000 life insurance should be adequate assuming that there is also adequate health insurance to pay medical bills which could proceed the death.

Life insurance term or whole life are not savings plans or lotteries, they are specifically for insuring the lifestyle of the survivor(s) and nothing more. If someone is 25 and starting a family the policy is necessarily larger than if the person is 65 with grown kids, no mortgage, a retirement plan, and only a spouse dependent, in which case life insurance is usually too expensive anyway.

So bottom line, buy a term policy which is right for you. Be wary of policies which do not require a physical and READ THE POLICY when you receive it or take it to your lawyer to read. Know what you have BEFORE you need it. But by all means buy life insurance if your significant other is dependent on you.

[Beacool]

20. Good advice!!

Anybody who has dependents should definitely get life insurance.

Unfortunately for Snow he had a cancer marker, he died of the same disease that took his mother at a young age. He may not have been politically on our side, but I feel for his young children. It's terrible to lose a parent at such a young age.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. Very good advice and I LOVE that pic in your sig line

[SoCalDem]

22. Here's the original.. (can't read the crawls in the small sig pic)