A few months ago, I wrote a post about how to figure out whether you need life insurance. I stand by the post, but I also got some really great feedback about one thing I missed.
There’s one very good reason to get life insurance that I didn’t cover in that post, because I was focused on when you need to get life insurance.
Life insurance — ideally term — is a must if you have anyone who depends on your income to maintain their standard of life, like a kid or a partner. But just because people aren’t relying on your income doesn’t mean you might not want to leave them something if you died.
That’s where wanting, not necessarily needing, life insurance comes in.
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Provide for family and friends
Even if you don’t directly support your loved ones — the way you share responsibilities with a partner or take care of a dependent — that doesn’t mean you can’t get life insurance to help them manage in the worst-case scenario.
As a personal example, I’m an only child, and my mom and I are basically the Gilmore Girls. If I had died young and had life insurance, that money could have given her the space to take time off work and deal with the loss.
Luckily, that didn’t happen, especially because I didn’t have the foresight to think about that in my early 20s. (Please, I didn’t even have renter’s insurance. I was basically living outside of the law.)
But it’s just one example of how term life insurance might have made sense even before I had a partner relying on my income.
How this idea might fit into your life is also personal, but just because it doesn’t fit the cookie-cutter reasons people Definitely Need insurance doesn’t mean it’s not a good reason to get it.
Sidebar: This might include covering the costs involved in end-of-life celebrations, too. Traditional end-of-life celebrations can be a big comfort to family and friends, and they aren’t always cheap depending on your cultural or religious customs. Term life insurance could be one way to make sure that those celebrations are taken care of financially before you have the assets that would otherwise cover it — like if you passed at 75 and had savings set aside for it.
Make your wishes known
If you do have grand plans for how any life insurance money will be used after you’re gone, you need more than just a policy — you definitely need a will, too.
We got ours set up in truly less than 15 minutes using Willful, and the entire process was seamless (and heckin’ affordable, too).
While we both have our term life insurance set up to go directly to the beneficiaries in different situations, we used our will to stipulate that if we both pass away, whoever cares for our dog gets a chunk of money to cover his care, even if they’re not specifically a beneficiary of the policy.
Because you know when I sat down to make a will, my dog was top of mind.
Remember, this is term life insurance
Before you dive in and buy a policy because this sounds great, it’s important to read up on exactly how term life insurance works. Don’t freak: It’s very affordable and doesn’t have any complicated weird terms like some other insurance products.
PolicyMe has some great primers, so you’ll understand things like how much coverage you want to buy and how long you want to buy that coverage for.
Then, with a bit of information, PolicyMe can walk you through the whole process and find the best rate available. If you get stuck, you can schedule a call with a licensed, human adviser, free of charge.
Most of the big decisions will impact your monthly premium, so you’ll want to make sure you’re making the right call based on why you’re buying a policy — especially if your reason falls outside of the “typical” reasons to get it.
