Obtaining life insurance can be daunting – you might think you’re too young to be purchasing life insurance or it might seem like an overly expensive and unnecessary purchase. It’s also an uncomfortable topic to think about when considering why you’d ever need life insurance in the first place, which leads to people delaying their purchase or putting off the thought altogether.
However, life insurance is an important financial planning and risk management tool to secure the financial interests of your loved ones after you’ve passed away. It is a combination of financial protection for your family in the event of your early death, and a means of saving.
There are multiple life scenarios that might benefit from your getting life insurance – death keeps no calendar and you being young or uncomfortable thinking about it may prevent you from planning ahead.
In fact, the best time to buy life insurance is actually when you’re young and at your healthiest – the policies are generally cheaper unless you work a high-risk job or are a thrill-seeker embarking on adrenaline-filled adventures.
So, why exactly should you get life insurance? This is what we’ll be breaking down for you in this article.
You’re getting married
If you’re getting married, obtaining a life insurance policy is an expression of love. When you’re single, no one depends on you for financial support, but when you’re married, this changes. You should both get life insurance to make sure that the other remains financially afloat. The loss for either of you would be heart-breaking, but a life insurance policy makes sure that an untimely death won’t also change the course of your or your partner’s financial life.
A life insurance payout can cover things such as funeral expenses, household bills, and planning for the future without the pressure of being a single-income household.
Discussing a life insurance policy with your spouse for the first time could potentially be distressing, but you should apply the same level of importance to it as you’d apply to discussing finances and savings. Being married means that your lives are intertwined, both emotionally and financially, which is why you need to prepare for any challenges you or your spouse may face in the future. You wouldn’t want your spouse to suffer in the future for the sake of wanting to avoid an uncomfortable conversation in the present.
You’re having a child
Having a child means that you have a person who is completely financially dependent on you and will be for the next 18-plus years. Most parents plan to leave money behind for their children and/or spouses, but when you’re still young, building that kind of cushion isn’t your top priority, because you have other bills and more immediate savings goals to worry about. A life insurance policy can act as a stand-in in the earlier years.
A life insurance payout will replace the family income and add more financial security for children who are still at home. It awards peace of mind, especially since an insurance payout can finance your children’s upbringing, education, and quality of life in general.
Furthermore, a life insurance payout can also make sure that your children can enjoy everything you intended them to receive in the event of your death. It can cover the tax bill when receiving their inheritance, along with immediate expenses, settlement, and other costs.
You’re buying a house
A big purchase such as buying a house leads to a lot of financial responsibility – you need to make sure you can make the loan payments as required by the bank for the next 25 to 35 years or so, if not more.
More often than not, you’re buying a house with your partner. Your untimely death would mean that your partner is now responsible for paying the debt that was once paid using two salaries – meaning that your partner might not even be financially able to pay that amount of money. On top of the emotional turmoil, the last thing you’d want for your significant other is to have them struggle financially and possibly end up without a home – especially if there are children involved.
If you’re buying a property on your own, your beneficiaries may choose to take on the loan repayment for themselves. However, they’d have to check if they can even afford to pay that money for your property – they’d probably have to sell it and then use the proceeds to repay the debt. That’s always if the proceeds match the debt in the first place.
A life insurance policy handles your financial liabilities such as debts, loans, etc. This means that your family can stay put and continue to thrive.
You support ageing parents
Knowing the sacrifices your parents have made for you and the love and finances they’ve poured into your upbringing, you want to repay them and make sure that they’re living comfortably in their later years – including in terms of care options such as a home, or a live-in carer. These aspects of their lives can be costly and require a salary to maintain. A pension wouldn’t really cover such things, and it could be that your parents, for some reason or other, don’t have their own insurance policy or the funds to pay their own way and live out their retirement in a safe and restful environment.
Supporting your elderly parents up until and including their death can be a stressful financial responsibility and one that can make you anxious about what could happen after your death. There might be no one else to take on the responsibility for their care. Even if you have a spouse, your spouse might struggle to make ends meet for themselves, any children you may have, your parents, and maybe even their own parents.
A life insurance policy gives you the peace of mind you need that all the loved ones in your life, young and old, are covered and cared for in the event of your death.
You have your own business
Running a business is tough work. The family business provides food and shelter for your family and loved ones. You can never know what might go wrong – a good example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic. No one saw it coming and family businesses took the biggest hit, because they were not prepared for a scenario such as this. If your family is also then hit by a tragic death, you will need something to protect the family business and ensure that the system keeps on running smoothly.
This is where life insurance comes into play. Life insurance will give you the security and ease of mind you will need when running a business. There are so many things that occupy a business owner’s mind, and ticking financial security off that list will help you and anyone around relax a bit more. Peace of mind is not something to take lightly, as it will unburden a lot of your stresses and worries knowing that you are covered for something that might go sideways.
Unfortunately, you can never know what will happen in the future. If you pass away, your partner or loved one may need the life insurance money to buy out your shares and manage to keep it running. Make sure to think about all possibilities in the future and how life insurance can help your family and loved ones recover from a tragedy and keep the family business.
You work a high-risk job
If you work a high-risk job, it’s a good idea to get a life insurance policy because you never know what might happen. Everyone needs to work in order to support themselves and their loved ones, but many end up having to work a job just because they need to get paid. Some people do not have the option to just up and leave their work and a high-risk job is their only opportunity to make money. Although working a high-risk job can be rewarding in terms of payment, if something goes wrong, the consequences can be dire, especially for the people in your life that are relying on your monthly wage.
Be sure to be prepared for every outcome. A small slip up, bad weather, or just a bad mood can cause accidents and have consequences that will leave your family in a bad financial situation. ‘It probably won’t happen’ or ‘what are the chances of that happening’ are just some of the arguments you might want to make for yourself, but imagine that if it were to happen, you’d have created a safety net that secures the people around you.
You like extreme sports
Hobbies are an important part of life, as they keep you healthy mentally, and with certain hobbies, also physically. This extends your overall quality of life and allows you to enjoy more meaningful time with your loved ones. However, some hobbies are more dangerous than others; there is no arguing that accidents in extreme sports can have really bad consequences. But this shouldn’t strike fear into you as someone who loves these types of sports; don’t let it stop you from investing time in them and enjoying what you love.
However, you should be aware that activities like scuba diving, paragliding, bungee jumping, parachuting, and other such activities with a high level of risk are more prone to serious accidents that can wind up in you passing away. Even if you practice something over and over, you never know what might go wrong in the next try – you might reach a limit you were not able to handle.
As mentioned in all the previous examples, life insurance offers peace of mind that your loved ones will be cared for in the event of your death, and will allow you to enjoy yourself a bit more knowing that the risk you’re taking on won’t affect your family financially should things go wrong. This might ease some of your pressure and fear regarding the future for your loved ones.
Final words
This article has given you solid reasons as to why you should subscribe to a life insurance plan. There are many more, but the main take-home message is that you should not take a risk on the behalf of your loved ones. By opting for a life insurance plan, you can put your mind at rest that the ones around you will never want for anything should something happen to you. You’re securing the future for your partner, child, parents, or any other persons you wish to take care of after you’re gone. This gives you peace of mind to live a full life and do everything you’ve ever wished to do without having to worry about whether your loved ones will suffer for it – from having a child, to opening a business, engaging in high-risk but very fun sports, and other such life choices.
With IVALIFE, we have made it as easy as possible for you to buy a life insurance plan with only a few clicks. We have two life insurance plans available: IVAprotect and IVAsecure. The IVAprotect policy is a decreasing term one, where the cover decreases annually throughout the period of insurance, and is therefore cheaper. On the other hand, the IVAsecure policy is a level term one, which means that the cover is fixed throughout the period of insurance. This means that it tends to be more costly. You can find out more about our plans here.
Our website details all the services we provide and a range of products you may need. We also have a sum-insured calculator that helps you estimate the sum insured based on your dependents, needs, and lifestyle. If you need any help with your life insurance plans, don’t hesitate to contact us on (+356) 2226 9500, or email us at [email protected], and one of our representatives will get back to you shortly.
Atlas Healthcare Insurance Agency Limited also provides these services as an insurance agent of IVALIFE, and APS Bank plc.