September is National Life Insurance Awareness Month

I know what you are thinking: Isn't there something more exciting, like watching lettuce grow? In our culture, we like to pretend death will never happen, but there have been few that have avoided it. This is why life insurance is important. This coverage is designed to help your family cope with the loss. Money can not replace people, but it can help through the transition when they're no longer here.

What life insurance does is either create an estate or protect an estate. It is not for the dead but for those that are left behind. (I once had a person tell me he "did not believe in life insurance because he would be dead, so he did not care." I turned to his wife and said, "Now you know what he thinks of you, don't you!" Then, I got up from the kitchen table and walked out.)

There is a place for life insurance, and it is part of planning for your family's security and future. Remember, it is to create an estate or protect one. One of my clients passed away at age 32 with four young children. He had $1.3 million in coverage, which will never replace the love, care, and compassion that goes with being a father to his children and a husband to his wife. But that coverage did give them options that the family would never have had otherwise. Since he was young, the term coverage he had was cheap. We were taking care of the family needs first — which meant term at that time because of cash flow, as there really was not a permanent need for that much coverage.

Term life coverage is like rent. You probably rented an apartment at some point, and perhaps even do today. So, you are basically renting a death benefit.

All the different products have their place. Sometimes, we will use several different coverages to meet a family's needs. For example, a small permanent plan with a larger term coverage can help cover families in certain situations.

People and family needs change as we get older, and so does the various needs for life insurance. I had an older client with permanent life coverage — so, it was in place when he died. This gave the family not just burial coverage, but also money to cover medical expenses that their medical insurance did not cover and money to fly the family members back home (as they were scattered around the country) so they could support each other in their time of loss and celebrate the life that was lived. It was not just about the loss, but also appreciating what they had been given in life through this person. (Note that medical plans do not cover experimental procedures.)

So there is a place for life coverage, depending on where you are in life. We have a number of different products that can be set up to cover a multitude of situations. Like most insurance products, you need to get the coverage before you need it. Just as I can't get you auto coverage for hitting a tree after you hit it, you've gotta get life insurance ahead of time.

Perhaps we can go out for a Guinness and see what your options might be. Call Colgrove Financial, LLC at (480) 830-2595 for an Arizona life insurance quote.

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