Your Personal Life Insurance Portfolio

You May Do Well To Start Building Your Portfolio Early

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Personal life insurance. You have been hounded by life insurance agents from your senior years in college. You just didn’t see the need to buy a personal life insurance policy or may be you just felt you had no need for the product period. You graduate and it doesn’t take you too long to get established in a good job. You have a nice apartment and some money in the bank. A life insurance agent is referred to you by a friend. He calls and you allow him to come to your home to discuss your personal life insurance only because he was referred by a friend.

You feel you have no need for life insurance but you decide to listen to what he has to say anyway. You have a small group policy on your job that is sufficient to put you six feet under and get rid of you. After a little small talk the life insurance agent begins to ask some questions.

• Are you married?
• Do you intend to get married sometime in the future?
• How do you feel about single people having life insurance?
• what about children – do you plan on having children in the future?
• Do you plan on going into business in the future?

You can’t see the relevance of the questions as they do not apply to your present situation but you answer them anyway.

The life insurance agent goes through between 30 and 40 questions. Some seem to hit home but mainly for some time in your future…not now.

The life insurance agent then explains that you have sufficient life insurance for now. your group policy will be sufficient to bury you and pay off whatever outstanding debts you now have. Based on the answers you give him this life insurance agent knows that you will need some type of personal life insurance in the future.

• MarriageIn another 5 years or so you plan to be married. It would certainly be your responsibility to guarantee that your wife can maintain the same standard of living she enjoys at the time of your marriage even if you died shortly thereafter. It really doesn’t matter if she works…you will need some life insurance for that.The big problem is that the younger you are the cheaper it is so it may be wise to buy it now. Additionally, if you should develop some illness in the future you may not be able to qualify for your policy. If you have it from now they cannot take it away from you. You agree to buy $1,000,000 of term life insurance to start.
• Home – MortgageFive years down the line, exactly as you planned it, you get married. You had met your wife in college. She also has a job that pays well. You are now age 35 and so is your wife. You both agree that it would be a good thing not to wait too long before having a child. You both agree to buy a house first. As you had quite a bit of money saved you start house hunting. You wife also had some savings so you both put down a substantial down payment and you own your house…After buying your furniture something occurs to you. What would happen if you died tomorrow? Would your wife’s earnings be sufficient to make the mortgage payments? You decide to buy a decreasing term policy sufficient to pay off the amount owed in the event of your death.
• ChildrenYou wife gets pregnant. You are shortly going to have an addition to the family . Not to worry; if anything happened to you that original $1,000,000 life insurance policy will take care of them. Special attention should be paid to the rising cost of living, however. What a dollar can buy today it certainly cannot buy a few years down the line. In your case you increase your personal life insurance a little when the baby is born.
• 25 Years Down The LineYou had one other child and they have done well. They graduated from college and are looking forward to a happy and prosperous future. Do You still need the life insurance you bought over the years? It is very likely you do. You still want to provide that income for the one you love…even though your investments have done very well and you are pretty well off. If your estate is a large one the Federal Government will have to be paid what is known as Estate Taxes . The Federal Estate Tax Law has been repealed but that does not mean you have no Tax to pay.