September is Life Insurance Awareness Month.
Its a great time to check your Life Insurance to see how much you have and whether you need more.
Why You Need Life Insurance
- Pay off your Debts
- Provide for your Children
- Fund your Funeral
- Leave an Inheritance for your Heirs
- Invest Extra Money
Let’s look at these reasons one by one.
Pay off Your Debts
If you die prematurely, you would not want your family to inherit your debts.
You do not want to be remembered as “that Stiff that left us in Debt.”
Here are debts that you need to make sure are covered by Life Insurance:
- Mortgages and Equity Loans – leave them with a paid up house – not with a mortgage they can’t afford to pay.
- Auto Loans – don’t make them sell the cars to make ends meet.
- Credit Card Debt – let them start with a clean slate.
- Personal Loans – especially ones secured by property
- Student Loans -you borrowed it, now pay it back.
Provide for Your Children
Your Children’s Education – whether College or Trade School, give them the gift of Education
Your Children’s Welfare – make sure there is money for a roof over their heads, food on their table and clothes that fit them.
Your Children’s Disability – many of us have children that need extra help with their mental or physical disabilities.
Fund Your Funeral
As morbid as it sounds, we should all plan for our deaths.
When we die, our families will be in a time of crisis.
The last thing they need is to decide is what to do with your corpse.
Plan now how you want your remains treated, and what kind of funeral you want.
And then fund it with the proceeds from a Life Insurance Policy.
Leave an Inheritance for your Heirs
Even if you are not a multi-millionaire, you can still act like one.
Leave a substantial inheritance to your loved ones using the death benefit of your Life Insurance policy.
What would your heirs think of you when they find out you left them a million dollars?
This can easily be done through the use of Life Insurance.
Invest extra money
Through the use of Cash Value Life Insurance, you can invest extra money.
Also called Whole Life or Universal Life, part of your premium pays the Death Benefit and the rest is invested.
You can even pay more than required for extra cash value build up.
This money builds up tax free and is protected from creditors while it’s in the Life Insurance Policy.
The extra money can be borrowed (lowers death benefit) or withdrawn (tax must be paid).
How much Death Benefit should you buy?
Here’s 3 good methods to arrive at a good Life Insurance death benefit:
- 10 times your annual income- 10 X $75,000 annual income equals $750,000 in Life Insurance.
- 10 times your income plus $100,000 each child for college. With two children, 10 X $75,000 = $750,000 plus $200,000 = $950,000.
- DIME Formula – Add the following, Debt & Final Expenses, Income x 10 years, Mortgage Amount, plus Education Cost for your children.
$25000 Credit Card Balance + 25,000 Final Expense, +$750,000 Income Replacement, + $250,000 Mortgage, +$200,000 Education
$1,250,000 Death Benefit.
Take some time during September’s Life Insurance Awareness Month to check your Life Insurance Death Benefit.
It might be time to buy more.
Contact Cronin Insurance Agency with any questions you have about Life Insurance.
We represent dozens of Life Insurance Companies for both Term and Cash Value Life Insurance policies.
Low rates, choice of companies and personal advice,
Cronin Insurance is the Wise Choice.
