This week CP and I met with the company that handles my Roth IRA and life insurance. It was quite an eye-opening meeting. I have never thought about what we would do if one of us got sick or disabled and couldn’t work for an extended period of time. How would we pay our bills? What about if one of us died? Both of us have whole life insurance policies, but because our parents took them out on us when we were young, we are not each other’s beneficiaries.
These are not easy topics to think about. No one wants to think about these scenarios. But it is the WHAT IF that scares me. You don’t think that these things are going to happen to you, but you have no idea what is going to happen in the next five minutes, let alone five years down the road.
So CP and I have made the decision to purchase long term disability insurance. Both of us could purchase it through work, but the plans are not as comprehensive and if we switch jobs we are still covered. Thankfully because of our ages and because we are healthy, the cost is low. We are also contemplating purchasing term insurance on each other for the next few years while we move more money into our retirement accounts.
While I would love to not have to pay for these things, both of us don’t want to leave each other in a lurch in case something happens, especially now that we are out of debt. It’s also a bit easier to do this while we don’t have any kids.
Do you and your spouse have long term disability insurance or life insurance?
5 comments:
Yep, we both have both It is hard to think of a time when it he won't be there but at least it will be one less thing tow orry about.
As a wedding present, to "pay back" my parents for constant dog-sitting, their neighbor (a financial planner) gave us a year of free services. BEST.GIFT.EVER. As part of it, we had to guess when we would die, when we would retire, who would die first, what % of income we'd need after we retire etc. It was the best thing as newlyweds. That was a long way of saying yes, we have all of that, including short-term disability. We've also upped our 401k contributions to 25%! Painful, but worth it.
It's an interesting and necessary exercise that every adult should go through, regardless of whether they are married or have kids. Of course, I waited until I was married to begin worrying about it. Just last year, we upped our insurance amounts in case of death ... so the one left living can care for our child without worry.
This is really random and unusual, but taking life insurance policies on each other after moving into our townhome was almost a bigger sign of a life commitment to each other than getting engaged was. And we didn't get engaged until a year or so AFTER we had those life insurance policies in place. I wouldn't have thought to do such a thing on my own, but Husband is 7 years older and very financially savvy and he knew it would be a good idea since we were purchasing a home together and wouldn't want one of us to be left floundering financially in the wake of a terrible event.
At this point we have a few policies now that kids are in the mix and some of them earn interest and will be retirement savings (they pay out at a certain age - 60? Can't remember). It makes me feel like such a grown up!
We have life insurance policies. Disability insurance is a great idea...might have to add that!
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