Identify Your Needs for Life Insurance

Most people need affordable life insurance. It's that simple. No matter your age, marital status, or whether you have dependent children or not, life insurance is an important safeguard to consider for you and your family's financial future.

To help you identify your needs for life insurance, review the life scenarios below to see how life insurance may benefit you and your circumstances.

Single Parent

Raising the family on your own requires you to look out for so many things. On the day-to-day, you make sure the kids are healthy, happy, and doing well in school. Then, there are your long-range goals for them, like college. Being a single parent, there is so much to consider for your family's future. This is why having affordable life insurance in place to preserve your family's quality of life in the future is just as important as the day-to-day care you give them today.

Single Supporting Loved Ones

Do you provide financial support for your parents, brothers or sisters? Do you have significant debt that you do not want to pass on to your family members? Most single people typically do not consider purchasing life insurance until these factors are considered. If you have loved ones who depend upon you financially or you want to protect your family from any of your own debt or final expenses, you should have life insurance coverage.

Married with (or without) Children

For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, affordable life insurance is an important part of your financial plan. Consider what the future would look like without your financial contribution to the household.

• Would your spouse's income alone provide support for ongoing living expenses?
  

• Would your spouse be able to cover your final expenses (e.g. funeral costs, medical bills, taxes, household or business debts, legal fees, etc.)?
  

• Would your financial plans for the future be realized or diminished by your untimely death?

Married couples with or without children should have affordable life insurance in place to protect what you have today and to care for your loved ones in the future.

Stay-At-Home Parent

Being a stay-at-home parent doesn't mean that you are not making a financial contribution to the household. Providing around-the-clock childcare and managing the day-to-day household activities equate to valuable services that would otherwise need to be paid to support and preserve your family's quality of life. Your life insurance coverage can continue to support your family in the way you care for them today.

Empty Nester Free and Clear of a Mortgage

There's a sense of financial freedom when you get to the point where you raised your kids and find them now on their own and self-supporting. You own your home free and clear of any mortgage payments and look forward as you near retirement. Unfortunately, your retirement plan savings and social security may not always cover living expenses for your spouse and other dependents if you were to pass away suddenly.

• What would happen if you experienced terminal illness later in life where medical bills chipped away at your nest egg?
  

• Are your spouse's living expenses accommodated for the next 10, 20, even 30 years?

It's never too late to consider term life insurance to protect what you've worked so hard to achieve over the years and to pass on to your spouse, children, even grandchildren in the years to come. Life insurance rates do increase with age. Affordable term life insurance may be an option based upon your age and health class.

Retired in the Golden Years

In preparation for retirement, you probably addressed planning for your estate so everything is in order. Having piece of mind at retirement means enjoying what you worked hard for and setting up your family for what you leave behind. Having a life insurance policy in place early in life ensures your family can take care of estate taxes, final expenses, and other debts down the road. Additionally, the proceeds of a life insurance policy are generally income tax free and can be structured to avoid probate and mitigate further estate tax liability.

Small Business Owner

There's so much to consider when you're your own boss. Life insurance can protect your business in the event of your death, the death of one of your business owners or key employees. Life insurance can protect you, your family, and your business in a number of ways, for example:

• Buy-Sell Agreement - Ensures that the remaining business owners have the funds to buy the company interests of a deceased owner at a previously agreed upon price. The owners assume the business interests/shares and the family gets the financial proceeds from the buy-out.
  

• Key Person Insurance - Provides the owners of your small business with the financial flexibility to protect your company's solvency in the event of losing a key employee or founder. Safeguarding your company and minimizing the disruption of your operations not only makes good business sense, but lenders and investors also generally require that a business carry key-person insurance to protect their loans and investments in your company.