Risk Management Consultant – helping you minimize your spiritual, financial and physical risks!
Your children want to help with your care so you can stay in your home. But you worry about their lost income from time off work. How about a long-term care policy that pays them for taking care of you?
You buy a long-term care policy that offers “informal caregiver” benefits.
Continue reading “Will Your Family Get Paid for Taking Care of You?”
Mortgage protection life insurance is an important financial planning tool that allows families to stay in their home after a loved one dies.
Most homeowners understand having life insurance is important to protect the family when they are gone. Most homeowners also want to make sure their homes are safe should they die unexpectedly. Continue reading “What Is Mortgage Protection Insurance? Do I Need It?”
If you’re one of the 25.8 million people in the U.S. with diabetes, you might think you can’t get life insurance … but think again!
If your diabetes is under control, you can get affordable life insurance to protect your family.
If you’re staying healthy and seeing your doctor for regular check-ups, we can help I can help you get affordable coverage.
Top 5 Factors for Diabetic Life Insurance: Continue reading “Do You Have Diabetes? Think You Will Never Get Life Insurance?”
We have all struggled with this one important question: How much life insurance should you buy? I can help you answer that question in 2 easy steps.
1. Cash Now
If you passed away, your family would need an instant infusion of cash to pay for any last medical expenses and a funeral. But how much will that be?
The average cost of a traditional funeral is between $7,000 and $10,000. That’s not counting any doctor or hospital bills your spouse may be left with after you’re gone. If you’re in doubt, leaving $10,000 to $15,000 to handle these expenses is a good place to start.
Continue reading “How Much Life Insurance Do You Need?”
You know that you need life insurance. However, with the wide variety of insurance policies available, you may find choosing the right one difficult. It’s really not as confusing as it seems, however, once you understand the basic types of life insurance policies. Continue reading “Types of Insurance Policies”
I have been a pastor for more than 25 years. I understand the pressures and stress of financing a church ministry or any other non-profit organization. Churches and pastors completely depend on the tithe and offering of those we serve in our congregations.
Well, there is! It’s called Charitable Giving through Life Insurance! Continue reading “An Easy Way To Leave a Financial Legacy”
Are you looking to leave behind more than memories to the ones you love?
Continue reading “Are You Looking to Leave Behind More than Memories?”
Meet Kiara…..
Most of my childhood consisted of hospital waiting rooms, bad cafeteria food and doctors’ names I couldn’t pronounce. I became inevitably involved with my father’s illness at age 9. I gave shots and dosed medicine. Not the definition of a “daddy’s little girl” others would expect, but that was my childhood.
My father’s illness took his life when I was 11, leaving behind his wife and five children. Soon after, we woke up to the bitter realization of our deteriorating financial situation. The burden that was placed on my mother’s shoulders is one that nobody should have to carry alone. If my dad had had life insurance, it would have taken away the constant financial worry.
I’m now the only child in my family to have graduated from high school. And although the financial struggle to go to college continue, and I will use my trials as stepping stones and my education will be the foundation on which I build my life.
I wish I could say it better, but I can’t form a sentence that expresses how much my family would have benefited from life insurance. Although setbacks have struck me when I am down, I’ve found that true failure lies when I stop trying. I refused to give up then, and I refuse to give up now.
WHY DO I NEED LIFE INSURANCE?
If someone will suffer financially when you die, chances are you need life insurance. Life insurance provides cash to your family after your death. This cash (known as the death benefit) replaces your income and can help your family meet many important financial needs like funeral costs, daily living expenses and college funding. What’s more, there is no federal income tax on life insurance benefits.
Most Americans need life insurance. To figure out if you need life insurance, you need to think through the worst-case scenario. If you died tomorrow, how would your loved ones fare financially? CLICK FOR INSTANT QUOTE!
Would they have the money to pay for your final expenses (e.g., funeral costs, medical bills, taxes, debts, lawyers’ fees, etc.?) Would they be able to meet ongoing living expenses like the rent or mortgage, food, clothing, transportation costs, healthcare, etc? What about long-range financial goals? Without your contribution to the household, would your surviving spouse be able to save enough money to put the kids through college or retire comfortably?
The truth is, it’s always a struggle when you lose someone you love. But your emotional struggles don’t need to be compounded by financial difficulties. Life insurance helps make sure that the people you care about will be provided for financially, even if you’re not there to care for them yourself. CLICK FOR INSTANT QUOTE!
To help you understand how life insurance might apply to your particular situation, I’ve outlined a number of different scenarios. So whether you’re young or old, married or single, have children or don’t, take a moment to consider how life insurance might fit into your financial plans. Click here to review your scenario.
NOT EVERYONE NEEDS LIFE INSURANCE. FIND OUT WHETHER YOU DO OR NOT.
Life insurance has long been a part of estate planning in the United States. Although life insurance does not need to be a part of every person’s estate plan, it can be useful, especially for parents of young children and those who support a spouse or a disabled adult or child.
In addition to helping to support dependents, life insurance can help provide immediate cash at death. Insurance proceeds are a handy source of cash to pay the deceased’s debts, funeral expenses, and income or estate taxes.
People who have no minor children or financially strapped dependents may not need life insurance. Below you’ll find questions to ask yourself to help evaluate your life insurance needs. If you decide to purchase insurance, you should know exactly why you are buying it and choose the best type of policy for your needs. And, of course, you should buy no more than you need.
To determine whether it makes sense for you to buy insurance to provide financial help for family members over the long term, consider these questions:
How many people depend on your earning capacity? If the answer is “none,” you probably don’t need life insurance.
How much money would your dependents need for living expenses? One way to determine this amount is to look at the earned income that you bring to your dependents on a regular basis. From that amount, subtract the worth of property they would inherit from you and any amounts that will be available from public sources or private insurance plans that already provide coverage. Social Security survivors and dependents benefits will probably be available, and you may also be covered by union or management pensions, or a group life insurance plan. Also subtract any other likely sources of income, such as the help reasonably affluent grandparents would provide for your children in case of disaster.
How long would it take for your dependents to be come self-sufficient? If your children are almost out of college, they may not need much additional income. If they’re younger, remember that dependent spouses caring for young children can usually return to work at some point, and some kids may get at least partial scholarships.
Once you perform this exercise, you may find that your dependents may need little additional income from life insurance. But if you have young children, you may find that it makes sense to buy an affordable amount of life insurance.
Now, assess whether you need life insurance for short-term needs:
What assets will be available to take care of your dependents’ immediate financial needs? You might leave some money in joint or pay-on-death bank accounts.
After you die, how long will it be before your property is turned over to your inheritors? If most of your property will avoid probate, there’s usually little need for insurance for short-term expenses, unless you have no bank accounts, securities, or other cash assets. By contrast, if the bulk of your property is transferred by will and therefore will be tied up in probate for months, your family and other inheritors may need the ready cash insurance can provide. While a probate court will usually promptly authorize a family allowance or otherwise allow a spouse or other inheritor access to estate funds, it can still be nice to have insurance proceeds available.
Will your estate owe substantial debts and taxes after your death? Lawyers and financial advisors call cash and assets that can quickly be converted to cash “liquid.” If your estate has almost all “non-liquid” assets (real estate, collectibles, a share in a small business, jewelry), there may be a significant financial loss if these assets must be sold quickly to raise cash to pay bills, as opposed to what they could be sold for later if there had been enough liquid money from insurance or other sources to meet all pressing bills. Obviously, if your estate has significant funds in bank accounts or marketable securities, you won’t need insurance for this purpose. Fortunately, federal estate taxes aren’t due until nine months after death, so cash to pay them doesn’t have to be raised immediately.
Avoiding probate. The proceeds of a life insurance policy are not subject to probate unless you name your estate as the beneficiary of the policy. If anyone else, including a trust, is the beneficiary of the policy, the proceeds are not included in the probate estate and can be quickly transferred to survivors with little red tape, cost, or delay. Except when your estate will have no ready cash to pay anticipated debts and taxes, there is no sound reason for naming your estate, rather than a person, as the beneficiary of your life insurance policy.
Avoiding estate taxes. If you own your insurance policy at the time you die, the proceeds are included in your taxable estate. If your estate is large enough to face estate tax liability (at least over $2 million), your life insurance proceeds will be subject to estate tax. On the other hand, if you don’t legally own your life insurance policy, the proceeds are excluded from your taxable estate. This can significantly reduce your death tax liability.
If you’ve determined that life insurance is right for you, contact me to learn about different types of insurance policies. Or, if you already know the type of policy you need, then let’s talk.
If you are the sole owner of a business, how much cash will it need when you die? Do you want and expect that some of your inheritors will continue the business? If so, do you think there will be enough cash flow for them to successfully maintain the business? You may need insurance proceeds to cover any cash flow shortage of the business. Will there be liquid funds to pay estate taxes?
Alicia owns several valuable pieces of real estate and a profitable antique store, but she has very little cash and no life insurance. When she dies, she owes debts of $90,000 (aside from mortgages) and estate taxes of $120,000.
To raise this money, her beneficiaries (technically, her executor) must sell some of her real estate or her interest in the store. Unfortunately, the country is suffering a recession, and the market value of both antiques and real estate is down. To make matters worse, canny real estate people spread the word that this is a “distress sale” to raise money for estate obligations. As a result, the price the beneficiaries receive when they sell one of the pieces of real estate is far below what they would have received had they been able to choose when to sell. Had Alicia purchased an insurance policy with a payoff at death of $210,000 or more, they wouldn’t have been forced to sell.
If your inheritors won’t continue the business, the questions are different: How much is your death likely to affect the value of the business? Will there be enough cash to keep the business alive until it is sold?
If you are one of several co-owners, life insurance proceeds can be used to buy out co-owners’ interests. For more information on using life insurance to fund buyouts, contact me.
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