Question : What kind of life insurance do we need? and what is a good company to buy from?
My husband and I are 28 years old, have three children and plan to have one more child in the near future. We live in Virginia (DC area). His annual earnings are about $70k; I also work part time earning annually about $35k. We currently have life insurance through our employers, but we want to get policies on our own. Can anyone recommend a good company to go with and a type of policy that we should get?Also, should we get life insurance on our children? if so, what kind?The goal that I want to accomplish with the life insurance is this. If my husband or I was to die, I would want my children to continue the same financial life that they would have had with both parents living. For this I am calculating that we need about a $2 million policy. After our children are grown, I would like for us to have a lower policy; just enough to cover the cost of bills and a little something to help the kids, I am thinking something around 200k.
- asked by LISA
All Answers:
Answer #1
Yes! You should definitely have life insurance. Ask yourself this: If my husband were to suddenlydie, how would I manage to keep my home, pay mybills, and provide for my (and the children's)living expenses today and in the future? Theanswer to that is life insurance. While it'simpossible to replace your husband's (or your)life, the value of his income and other things hedoes (yard work, shuttling kids to ball games,etc) can be estimated and covered by insurance. Most financial experts agree that the best thingis to buy term life insurance. Although it doesexpire after a certain number of years (typicallycomes in terms from 5-40 years), it provides themost protection for every dollar spent. The bestthing is probably to purchase one term policy foryour husband with riders for you and yourchildren. Insurance companies use riders to addextra features and conditions onto a policy. Thisapproach is generally more cost effective thanpurchasing separate policies on each person. Ialso live and work in the northern VA area. I'm anewly licensed insurance agent with a large,reputable firm and I would be very interested inmeeting with you to discuss this further. Ifyou're interested in working with me, please sendme a message at slcekala@yahoo.com. Otherwise,good luck and take care.
- answered by Sherry C
Answer #2
Make sure whoever you sit down with does acomplete financial needs analysis for you. Bythis, I mean they look at ALL of your finances.They ask you questions of what is the state ofyour finances now, what do you want to achieve forretirement, do you want to help pay your kids waythrough college. Then there are about 4 questionsto ask about life insurance. Level term insurancewith riders for both spouse and children are thebest way to go.
- answered by Mark S
Answer #3
What GOAL do you want to accomplish with the lifeinsurance??? Need to know that.Also, I NEVER EVEREVER recommend life insurance on children. Don'thave any on mine. I think it's a waste of money.
- answered by mbrcatz17
Answer #4
Life insurance is a pretty name for what it reallyis, death insurance. It is in this case at leastto replace income of the one who died, so havinglife insurance for children makes no sense, unlessthey are child stars or something.Your $2mil foryou and your husband sounds in the ballpark - Ithink that assumes about a 4.5-5% annual return onthe money, which is about in-lines with therisk-free savings accounts and T-bills returnsright now.Sorry, I don't know enough to go throughthe term vs whole vs convertible thing. From whatI understand, whole is basically a savings devicecombined with insurance, so if you just wantinsurance, you are probably looking at some sortof term insurance. Note that insurance agentsearns tons on whole life, and love to sell it, notso much on term.
- answered by heart_and_troll
Answer #5
Get term insurance as you can get the coverage youneed at the lowest possible cost. The best way tofind a company is to shop around based on yourhealth information to get accurate quotes. Onceyou have the quotes, you can compare thecompanies, financial ratings, etc. and choose acompany.As far as children are concerned, i wouldnot get policies on them. If you are worriedabout burial costs, etc.. you can add them as arider to a term policy, cost would be about$50-$80 per year and would cover 4 kids for$10,000 each.In addition, on the term policies youcan do a conversion to a permanent insurancepolicy later on in life if you still needcoverage, or you can compare rates for new termpolicies at that time to get the coverage youneed.
- answered by LifeInsuranceAgent
Answer #6
I found interesting information about your answer here.
http://all-insurance-online.blogspot.com/2007/08/life-insurance.html
- answered by Rony
Answer #7
I'm a retired life insurance agent. Here's myadvice:[1] The early child-bearing years of amarriage are the ones in which you need thegreatest amount of life insurance. However, thoseyears are the ones in which your income is not asmuch as it will be later on. In later years whenthe kids are all grown, your house is paid for,etc. you don't need as much coverage. So yourgoal is going to be to get the greatest amount ofcoverage now when you need it the most, for theleast amount of premium payment.[2] Since terminsurance is much less expensive than regularwhole life insurance, let 60% of your lifeinsurance expenditure be for term life insuranceand buy regular whole life for the other 40%. Over the years the term insurance premium willincrease periodically until it finally reaches anunmanageable amount . But by this time the kidswill be out on there own, etc. and your financialposition will be greater so that you can afford toreduce or terminate the term life insurance. Theregular whole life should be adequate coverage foryou then.
- answered by doncunn8
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measure and fulfill your financial needs
