Skip to main content

Building a Family Life Insurance Strategy

If you can reduce it to the basics, people buy life insurance for one of two reasons. First, is to create an estate and second is to conserve an estate.  Generally people will work for their entire career in an effort to provide their family with what is referred to as their life style. In the event that a person dies, they most often want the family to be kept in the same life style they are used to.

Life insurance is most often the solution to this problem. Life insurance creates tax free dollars which can be used to replace the breadwinner’s income, and thus replaces life style.

Beyond this, if an individual has worked long and hard enough before he/she dies, then the need changes. The need is no longer required to “create” an estate, because it has already been created by your hard work. For example, the home is paid off, the cottage is paid off, and there is some money in the bank. At this point, life insurance is most often used to conserve the estate rather than creating one. This need is often reduced when compared to the need at the start of your career. When conserving the assets, the insurance proceeds are now used to pay bills and taxes so that assets are not required to be sold.

In the beginning of a career, the bulk of insurance is a temporary need and diminishes. In the long run, the need is permanent and never goes away. The products required to solve the needs, are often a combination of Term (temporary) and Whole life (permanent). The amount of coverage depends on your life style and income earned.

People buy products as the need develops, and as the finances dictate. If permanent products are out of range, then term insurance most often fits the bill as a short term solution. A unique feature of some term polices is the ability to change or (convert) the policy to a permanent policy at a later date without the need to show evidence of good health. Thus a proper solution might be to incorporate group insurance, with personally owned term coverage, along with some form of permanent insurance. It’s never an all or nothing answer.

Buying life insurance is a process and not an event. People generally purchase coverage on average seven times in their life. Seldom does anyone buy everything all at once. The need changes and the cost of insurance has also decreased in recent years because people are living longer. Also, a review of your insurance often creates unexpected savings.

A good piece of advice is to develop a relationship with someone you trust, and work with them over the long term to build a strategy.

If you are in Nova Scotia and would like some insurance advice, please contact Corry Collins:
corry@maritimewealth.com
902-444-7000


Please like, share and comment on my newest post!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Attend MDRT as an Aspirant or Manager

The Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) holds its annual meeting this June in Orlando. Members from around the world will be in attendance. The annual meeting is the flagship event for the MDRT. Top advisors from over 70 countries meet and share world class ideas on how to grow your business and how to develop a thriving practice. The main platform is always full of motivation, business ideas and stories that may change your life. Ten thousand people are expected this year. The focus sessions are detailed sessions drilling down on the specifics of specialized subjects. Members and non-members are invited to speak on their area of speciality. Networking with leading industry people (who become friends) is one of the highlights. The mentoring program at MDRT provides a chance for non-members to attend as a guest.  The rules can be found at https://www.mdrt.org/membership/mentoring/ , but here are some of the particulars: The MDRT Annual Meeting scheduled for June 4-7, 20...

The Importance of Financial Planning for the Future

I spoke with a physician client recently who’s family income was over half a million dollars per year. They have a good amount of cash built up in the RRSP (over $1,000,000) lots of cash in their corporation, and over $2,000,000 in real estate. They plan on working for at least 10 more years. A rough estimate of their worth would be between $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 by age 65. We were dealing with some insurance issues that needed to be solved and in the process I asked the question about retirement and asked what planning had been done. The plan was to keep going until retirement age, and then to assess the situation, she said. This was not an uncommon response as my experience shows many people spend more time planning a Christmas party then they do planning their financial future. My comment was this; if you were running a multi-million dollar corporation with very good cash flow, one where assets were growing compounded every year, would you want to have a business pl...

Critical Illness of Non-Employed Spouses

A fact of life is that people do get sick.   While disability insurance is a financial product used to replace an income for a working spouse, a non-employed or stay at home mom or dad does not qualify for disability income protection. This is when a Critical Illness policy can add value.  Aside from medical expenses, child care expenses or medical related travel costs, the working spouse often suffers an income loss when their spouse suffers an illness. Critical Illness coverage can provide a tax-free lump sum payment to help the family financially, and premiums are more affordable than one might think. For example, a non-smoking 30 year-old stay at home mom or dad can purchase a $100,000 policy covering over 25 illnesses for about $30 per month. In comparison, Halifax Metro Transit charges $78 per month for a bus pass, and cable TV and internet cost over $150 per month for a basic plan. A Critical Illness policy offers peace of mind, so you can recover with fa...