Life Insurance Questions

missyjg · January 2012

We just did our wills, ugh how depressing. Anyway we need to meet with our insurance company regarding life insurance to fill in some of the blanks.

How much Life Insurance do you carry on yourselves/DH? I'm not looking for a dollar amount, just a general amount. Both of our state/county jobs give us 3 years salary to the living spouse and we each carry enough to pay off any outstanding bills (minus the house). I'm thinking we need to increase it to be able to cover the house as well, IDK. Life insurance is insainly expensive for me since I had the big C word, but it's reasonable for DH.

Also, do you carry insurance on LO(s)? I shudder to think about it but it was one of the questions and something we are thinking about doing.

Does anyone do the Gerber Grow up plan? Better/worse?

TIA

Irisheyes1247 · January 2012

DH just recently got a term life insurance policy since he is the main breadwinner in our house and if anything were to happen to him, I would be in a very sorry financial state. He got enough to cover the house, our student loan debt and our cars, plus maybe a little extra. It was a shorter term because I am not super comfortable adding an additional bill right before adding an additional mouth, so we were trying to keep it smaller, but it is kind of comforting to know we have it. I do not have life insurance and we do not have insurance on DD. We also have not done wills, so we are kind of slackers in that department.

Telyco · January 2012

My DH has 1million in coverage. I would never be able to support myself and the kids alone..so it has to be a lot. I don't have any and we don't have any for the kids. One thing we want to look into is an insurance for disabilty of inability to work - I don't even know what it's called. A colleague of DH's had that and ended up getting very hurt somehow and couldnt work. Reg disability is what- $200/week or something? No one can live on that.

jnk062602 · January 2012

We got life insurance the week before I had Ellie - we had talked about it since being married but suddenly I felt a huge rush in case something happened to me during delivery, talk about morbid!

We got just enough term life insurance to cover the house, 1 year salary, and our student loans (I'm not sure if we are responsible for the other person's sl on death, but I didn't have time to check it out). I also have some thru work for myself and kids- i don't even know the amount but it was something like $10 a paycheck so I signed up for it and I figure it should (I'm guessing?) cover funeral costs.

goosh24 · January 2012

We signed up for life insurance last August, we had put it off for over a year after having Jules. I know we both have policies that are $500,000 each, but they're the shorter term ones so cheaper for us to pay now. I wasn't sure if we would get it for me, since I do stay at home and don't contribute financially. But mine is pretty cheap (<$30 a month) and DH would have to cover daycare (for 2 soon) which would definitely be tight on a teacher's salary. DH's is like 3x as much as mine a month, because he smoked (can be re-evaluated after 3 years) and is a man. Basically we wanted to be sure that the house could be paid off, along with any loans. If something happened to DH and we didn't have any life insurance, I would be in trouble. He also has some coverage/benefits from NYS from teaching but unfortunately that money wouldn't last a long time when you look at the big picture.

We don't have any insurance on J, but maybe we should look into it. I remember our agent saying that whatever the rate was that we would pay for her now would be the rate for her forever, so much cheaper as opposed to getting it later in life. We don't have a will either.

Your post reminded me that I need to contact the company since I know our agent left the company and after D is born, we'll add her to receive the benefits too. I've been waiting on sending in that info to NYS until March too.

Irisheyes1247 · January 2012

goosh24:

We signed up for life insurance last August, we had put it off for over a year after having Jules. I know we both have policies that are $500,000 each, but they're the shorter term ones so cheaper for us to pay now. I wasn't sure if we would get it for me, since I do stay at home and don't contribute financially. But mine is pretty cheap (<$30 a month) and DH would have to cover daycare (for 2 soon) which would definitely be tight on a teacher's salary. DH's is like 3x as much as mine a month, because he smoked (can be re-evaluated after 3 years) and is a man. Basically we wanted to be sure that the house could be paid off, along with any loans. If something happened to DH and we didn't have any life insurance, I would be in trouble. He also has some coverage/benefits from NYS from teaching but unfortunately that money wouldn't last a long time when you look at the big picture.

I don't stay at home, but my financial contribution is significantly less than DH's. But like my mom pointed out, DH would have to make childcare arrangements if something were to happen to me, and that would have a big financial impact for him, so that is something to consider too.

missyjg · January 2012

Telyco:
My DH has 1million in coverage. I would never be able to support myself and the kids alone..so it has to be a lot. I don't have any and we don't have any for the kids. One thing we want to look into is an insurance for disabilty of inability to work - I don't even know what it's called. A colleague of DH's had that and ended up getting very hurt somehow and couldnt work. Reg disability is what- $200/week or something? No one can live on that.

Oh yes, disability insurance. To cover 60% of my salary it was going to be over 280 a month. We couldn't afford that. We cover DH through his work so he gets 60% of his pay for 10 years unless he's hurt at work, then it's 70% for life. We do carry sickness/accident insurance which is much more reasonable. That is not a long term solution though. Thanks for posting this. I need to bring this up to the insurance guy as well.

wendyj · January 2012

DH and I both have term life policies. Mine is more because when DH lost his job, we talked with our financial guy, and he lowered DH's so that it was a premium we could afford. Also, because my heart condition was discovered after we created our policies (we got the insurance when we bought our house, so about 2 years before Ian was born), he thought it would be harder to increase my premium if I lowered it at any time. Either policy would be more than enough to pay off any debt we have, except maybe our mortgage. We also have Long Term Disability insurance, which is pretty small amount. Our payment for both the LI and LTD is less than $125 a month.

I also have a life insurance policy through work, and DH would get the death benefits of my Teacher's Retirement System account.

TinyPinkBug · January 2012

DH has a 30 yr policy that we are about 6 yrs into. It is 2 times what we owe on the house, or 4 times annual income. DH also has a policy through work that pays 1.5 annual income plus he owns private stock in his company which would result in an immediate cash payout should he no longer work there for ANY reason, I think right now he owns about $10k in stock. We considered getting more for him, but I decided I could easily get along with that much since our only debt is our house and we have a fair amount of liquid assets. Plus I figure I would probably down size to a smaller house and other things that would decrease our cost of living.

I have none for myself or the kids. I honestly do not see the point in life insurance for kids other than to pay for burial expenses, in which case we could use college savings. (awful thought) But I would rather be putting $$ into an acount for college than a life insurance policy. As for insurance for me, I need to get some. We have decided we should, but I keep dragging my feet. Should something happen to me, even though I don't contribute to household income, I certainly have a lot of financial worth in terms of keeping our expenses down. The kids would need childcare, Tyler will probably need an autism advocate and possibly private therapies, DH would probably need to hire someone to help around the house a few hours a week... DH also can't cook and has no patients for grocery shopping so the food bill would probably quadruple. I also do all the purchasing, clothes, shoes, etc and am very good a finding deals. DH has no patients. So we agreed that my worth is at least $40-50k a yr. Funny how that works, our cost of living would go down without DH but go up without me.

emiliemetcalf · January 2012

DH and I both have 30 year term life insurance policies. His is double mine, but both are enough to cover our mortgage if either of us dies. I don't contribute to our income much, but he would need to cover childcare for 2 kids.

He also just got Long Term Disability insurance (to replace an Aflac policy we had). It costs about the same per week as the Aflac but is better coverage. He has a dangerous job and besides that plays hockey and has had back surgery (at 25) so it makes sense to us to carry more insurance on him. One thing I didn't know about until recently was a clause in the disability insurance that covers you for a few years if you unable to do your profession, but aren't fully disabled. (Like if DH lost hearing in one of his ears he couldn't be a fireman anymore, but he could do another job).

Kristysyr · January 2012

My husband has life insurance that is payable to his business partner because he will have to buy me out of their business as I cannot be part of it because am not a lawyer. They have a contract regarding this matter. Then he has a policy that is for other expenses. I have a term policy ( that I was lucky enough to get before the melanoma) for $500,000 to help with child care because as a single parent you need more child care then as a two parent family.

Hope this helps.

DeniseM21 · January 2012

You should look for additional coverage in term insurance to help cover the mortgage since it?s not already covered with your other policies. Additionally, you should factor in any additional liabilities so they are covered as well. If you?re determined to purchase life insurance on yourself despite your health history, I?m sure you can find carriers that specialize in high risk cases. If your prognosis is free of cancer for one year, insurers will cover you. You may want to look at a whole life policy with a long term care rider with a company that insures people with some cancer history.

A whole life policy (which is how Gerber?s plans work) is a good investment to make when your child is young, especially if you need a disciplined way to invest for college expenses.

You might want to do some looking around for the best term life insurance rates to cover the mortgage, whole life for your child, disability insurance on you and DH before you purchase any. You could start at an aggregator website like AccuQuote.com that offers them all. Good luck!

Denise Mancini
Disclaimer: I work for AccuQuote and this is my personal opinion.

DeniseM21 · January 2012

You should look for additional coverage in term insurance to help cover the mortgage since it?s not already covered with your other policies. Additionally, you should factor in any additional liabilities so they are covered as well. If you?re determined to purchase life insurance on yourself despite your health history, I?m sure you can find carriers that specialize in high risk cases. If your prognosis is free of cancer for one year, insurers will cover you. You may want to look at a whole life policy with a long term care rider with a company that insures people with some cancer history.

A whole life policy (which is how Gerber?s plans work) is a good investment to make when your child is young, especially if you need a disciplined way to invest for college expenses.

You might want to do some looking around for the best term life insurance rates to cover the mortgage, whole life for your child, disability insurance on you and DH before you purchase any. You could start at an aggregator website like AccuQuote.com that offers them all. Good luck!

Denise Mancini
Disclaimer: I work for AccuQuote and this is my personal opinion.

Want a personalized experience?

Life Insurance Questions

Re: Life Insurance Questions

Choose Another Board

Search Boards