With proper strategies, you may be able to maximize your opportunities and help manage stress and confusion for your loved ones. Learn the critical details to address when creating your own estate strategies. We're here to help.
Navigating the intricacies of life insurance can be a daunting task, but at Trilogy Financial, we believe that understanding the basics is crucial in making informed financial decisions. Life insurance, in essence, provides a straightforward solution to a complex question: How can your family be financially safeguarded if the unexpected were to happen to you? Whether it's covering immediate expenses, sustaining a business, or planning for future needs like education and retirement, life insurance offers a safety net. At Trilogy, we're committed to simplifying the complexities of life insurance, empowering you to make choices that secure your loved one's financial well-being.
Life insurance is actually a simple answer to a difficult question: How will my loved ones manage financially if I were to die? If anyone depends on your income or the unpaid work you do, they would most likely struggle if you were to pass away. Life insurance pays cash—also known as a death benefit—to your loved ones when you die. It replaces your income and the many non-paid ways you support your household. Your family can use this cash to help pay for immediate and ongoing expenses like funeral costs, daily expenses, a mortgage or rent, and keep a business afloat. It can also be used for future expenses like college tuition, retirement and more.
The good news is, life insurance may be less expensive than you think. The cost depends on four main factors: your age, your health, the type of policy and how much coverage you buy. In general, you’ll pay less the younger and healthier you are. To put the price in perspective, a healthy 30-year-old may be able to buy a $250,000 20-year level term policy for about $13 a month.1 That means if you purchase that policy and pay the $13 a month without fail, your loved ones would get $250,000 if you were to die at any point during those 20 years.
Life insurance generally falls into two categories:
Term life insurance provides protection for a specific period of time (the “term” is often 10, 20 or 30 years). This makes sense when you need protection for a specific amount of time—for instance, until your kids graduate from college or your mortgage is paid off. Term life insurance typically offers the most amount of coverage for the lowest initial premium, and is a good choice for those on a tighter budget.
Permanent life insurance provides lifelong protection for as long as you pay the premiums. It also provides “living benefits” like the ability to accumulate cash value on a tax-deferred basis, which you can tap into to help buy a home, cover an emergency expense and more. Because of these additional benefits, initial premiums are higher than what you’d pay for a term life insurance policy with the same amount of coverage.
Sometimes getting a combination of term and permanent insurance is the best answer.
The amount of life insurance to buy depends on who you want to protect financially and for how long. As a very general rule of thumb, experts recommend having life insurance that equals between 10 to 15 times your gross income. But you may need more or less than that. An easy way to get a working idea of how much you need is to use an online Life Insurance Needs Calculator.
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There are some great advertisements that show you retirees traveling, gardening and enjoying their hard-earned reprieve from the workforce. It gives a great glimpse of how good retirement can be, giving folks something to strive for. However, it’s not the only reflection of retirement. Sometimes there are valleys to go along with those peaks, and one of the most distinct valleys that are experienced in retirement is mounting health care costs.
The financial weight of health care can start off with small steps, or small pills to be precise. Nine out of ten people 65 and older have commented that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last 30 days.1 As health issues progress, so can treatments, with some people having multiple medications and continuous appointments, not all being covered by private health insurance. According to an annual estimate conducted by Fidelity, the average retiring couple “will need $280,000 to cover health care and medical costs”.2 While many expect to rely on Medicare for their health care costs, the program is not comprehensive. Fidelity’s figure includes deductibles, cost-sharing requirements for certain medications, as well as services and devices that Medicare doesn’t cover, like hearing aids. For the unprepared, these figures can be staggering.
Those who are unprepared can, unfortunately, find themselves sliding into practices where they are not taking care of themselves in retirement. According to the 2018 Economic Well-Being Report, a quarter of adults went without needed medical care because they were unable to afford the cost.3 Those who do go in for medical care can be overwhelmed by mounting medical costs. According to a study done by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “43 million Americans owe a medical debt.”4 Stress-induced by medical issues combined with stress over mounting medical costs is not what people expect to experience in their retirement.
The key to good retirement planning isn’t to plan to maintain your current lifestyle. It is to plan for possibilities and scenarios that may not seem likely today, but that statistics show could impact your tomorrow. While these statistics can be very overwhelming, if you start saving early and work with a trusted financial professional, you can be fully prepared to enjoy your retirement. In the end, you need your finances to be in good health for those moments when your body can’t be.
https://www.iris.xyz/advisor/9-facts-about-retirement
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-tips-keep-medical-debt-overwhelming-174638865.html
