Be Careful What You Hear About Buying Life Insurance

Awhile back I found a page on the internet that, unfortunately, I'm unable to share for fear of being sued, that stated that you only need to have life insurance that equals to three times your annual salary. This disturbs me and no, not because I believe that folks should buy more than that as a guideline but because everyone and their families are unique and have unique personal and family needs and obligations. There's simply no way that a qualified life insurance agent would intentionally lead you to believe this to be true. Why? Read this.

Here's a brief example of why this won't work for most people.everyone. Let us say that we have a family of four where the children are young, ages five and seven, respectfully. The mother is a housewife and has no job experience other than working at KFC as a teenager, which was a long time ago. The husband earns the majority of the money and makes a decent income of around sixty thousand per year and, like most of us has bills to match that annual income.

They live in a nice family home that they're buying, have two vehicle payments, Health Insurance which, even though he gets it as a job benefit for himself (after deductibles), he still must is required to} pay to cover the family. They also must pay auto insurance for two cars, life insurance for 4 people in multiple amounts, homeowners insurance, dental coverage and of course all of the other regular expenditures such as food, clothes, utility bills, ect. Also, they need to send money each month to pay for his mother who is in a elderly home.

There are many other things that could be added into this and I could easily add more and more monthly expenses, but do you see how the bills add up for this family?

This could be similar to your own circumstances, give or take. In case of this man's untimely death do you really believe that three years worth of his annual income would be an adequate amount of life insurance for this family? Let's do the math.

With the man of the home bringing home an annual paycheck of $60,000.00, that times three years would give this family $180k benefits of life insurance. This may be stretched into four years worth of living expenses considering that the breadwinner is now gone, but that only brings the children to the ages of 9 & 11, what then?

It's feasible that the man may have allowed for this happening, even beyond a normal life insurance policy, by also purchasing a "Mortgage Life" policy that would pay off their home in the event of his death. He may have also made arrangements in the vehicle contracts. But what if he didn't? Even though he had done this it still would have stretched the family living expenses another 3 or 4 years, depending on how much they cut out unnecessary things. That would bring the children to the ages of thirteen and fifteen now. What happens the next five years until the younger child turns 18? What about college for both of them? Do the couple's parents have burial insurance? They might not if this couple is already sending money each month for the mother's care.

This is all simply an example of a common family but I wanted you to take a minute and really think about these things. The only way that you can determine how much life insurance will be enough for you and your family is to actually sit down and look at every bill that you currently have, the bills that you know you'll be paying in the future, all of the variables that might happen (if these didn't happen there might not be a need for insurance) and then when you think you've got a good number add an additional 20% just in case. It's always better to have too much than not enough.

If you are the breadwinner of your family wouldn't you want to know for for sure that your family was going to be taken care of in the event that something happened to you, no matter what happens? I thought so, me too. The only point that I'm trying to make is to not let someone else pitch to you how much life insurance you need. Sit down with your spouse and then call or email a qualified agent. Get it right the first time because, unfortunately, there are no second chances in these life and death circumstances.

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Joe Stewart is a Webmaster and former Life And Health Insurance Agent. He's made understanding life insurance simple for consumers. You can read detailed explanations about life insurance at his website TheLifeInsuranceGuys.com or by clicking on How Much Life Insurance Do I Need