The Finance Blogger

Many people ask themselves this question every day, Do I need Life Insurance and if so how much. Then there is what kind of life insurance and how expensive is it. As I dig into this more and more, I am finding that it is a very personal decision based on your own circumstances. What do we mean by circumstances? Well here is a list of factors that a consumer may want to consider as part of their decision process.

• How many dependents do you have
• How long will you need to support those dependents
• What about education requirements
• How much debt do you have
• What income level will remain from pensions, savings etc
• What will your burial costs be
• How long will your dependents live e.g. your spouse
• Will your estate owe substantial taxes
• How quickly will your assets be turned over to your dependents

There may be other questions, but these are some of the big ones that many people try to take into account as they try to decide how much insurance they need or if they even need any life insurance. We will tackle a few of these issues in this post  about, Do I need Life Insurance. Several future posts as we try to figure this out for ourselves as well as trying to give our readers a different perspective on life insurance.

When Do I need Life Insurance

I guess that if you did not have any dependents. If you did not care if your estate could pay any outstanding debts or not. Or if you had enough to pay for a burial service then you would not need to consider purchasing any  life insurance.

Most people want to make sure that their debts are paid for and that there is enough money to pay for a decent burial service. This could be life insurance as low as $5000 for a burial with a no debt situation to the sky is the limit if there are a lot of debts. Where it really gets complicated is when there are dependents who depend on you for their quality of life. No one wants to think about their dependents suffering after you are gone. Who are the dependents?

Well they can be:

• Your spouse
• Your children
• Elderly parents you are looking after
• Children that are disabled

These are people who depend on you to be there and to pay for housing, food on the table, clothes, education and special needs that run the gamete from nursing homes to special equipment. Each has their special needs. We all should give some thought as to how much life insurance we need to make sure these dependents have enough to live on after we are gone.

Baby Boomers – Do they Need Life Insurance

Again this is a personal situation that depends on pensions, savings and retirement savings. Can your spouse live on what you have and will have after you are gone? This is the question you really need to answer for yourself.

Do you atill need insurance? Once your house is paid off, the car is paid for and you have sufficient income to pay for the daily expenses?  It can get actually quite complex even for baby boomers.

Young Couples with Children

You are busy trying to make a living and looking after your kids. You really do not have a lot of time to think about something like life insurance and perhaps not a lot of extra money to pay for life insurance.

But what would happen if one or both of you passed away with no life insurance. How would your spouse and children survive? Who would look after them? Who would pay for the basics such as food, clothing and shelter let alone getting an education?

These are the types of questions all parents need to ask themselves and the answers vary depending on the age of the children, the savings that you have and your aspirations for your kids and your spouse.

As we explore this subject in more detail we will discuss what baby  boomers need to think about concerning life insurance. Also what young parents need to consider in subsequent posts. If you have comments or would like to contribute a post please let us know. All helpful comments are welcome.

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