life insurance

[LivingAlmostLarge]

How much do you all have? Where did you get it? What did you pay? And how long a term?

I'm starting to shop around.

I'm thinking $1M DH, $500k me, and adding extra on my DH's job which is $250k, making that $500k for minimal

The job I know is only when he's employed, but the $1m we buy outside ourselves.

I would purchase LTD, but he's got company provided at 70% and I talked to agents they said he can't buy more.

[nck4857]

I'm curious, also. I'm just starting to shop around and look for life insurance, very comparable to what you are thinking.. Has anyone used accuquote.com??

[Merch]

I got 20 year term costs about $900 year for a $1.5 million policy. I went through Zander Insurance.

I would recommend 20 year at 8 to 10 times your income.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I don't think I need necessarily that much. I think a $1M policy on DH and $500k on me and upping his work to $500k would be adequate.

I have to start shopping.

[Basic Money Matters]

The purpose of life insurance is to allow your family be able to maintain same level of current lifestyle financially in the event of death. To decide how much is enough, you should consider a few areas:
1. Final expense plus your current income times years left to retire
2. Final expense plus your total financial liability (such as mortgage) plus the amount needed for keeping current living expense
The cheap way to get life insurance is to combine term and permanent, because you don't need big amount all the time. For example, you might want 1 m for 25 years to cover mortgage, kids' education, and replace income, and then 200,000 only for permanent, to cover final expense and estate to leave behind.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Quotes I got were

20 years, $1 M - $400/year
25 years, $1 M - $650/year
30 years, $1 M - $690/year

20 years, $1.2 M - $533/year
30 years, $1.2 M - $882/year

I'm just not sure about the Term if 20 or 30 years is better. We'll go with either $1 M or $1.5 M.

[snafu]

Life insurance income is not taxable income

[elessar78]

I just started shopping around for my term life and checked out accuquote.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND ACCUQUOTE!

I cross checked their affiliated insurers with A.M. Best ratings and their insurers all came in under my A+/A++ rating requirement. Also, now I get two phone calls a day from a recorded message, so I can't even tell them to stop calling—this is the most frustrating part.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Still debating

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I am finding them annoying as well.

[Merch]

Personally, I believe you only need term. I think you need to look at your financial obligation: do you have a house, do you have kids (college), will your spouse need to stay home with the kids or provide daycare?

Generally, speaking, I believe 8 to 10 times your income is a good place to start.

The second piece is whole versus term. I believe in term for 2 reasons. The first is that it is so cheap compared to whole life. You could also take the premium savings and invest that. The second issue is that I plan to be self insured after 20 years. What does that mean?

In 20 years, I will have a paid off house and my kids will be through undergraduate school. So, all of my big expenses will be paid for. I should also have a nice size retirement and investment portfolio, especially if I am putting 10%-15% away for the next 20 years.

Or if you look at the difference between whole and term and were to invest that difference for 20 years, how much extra would you have investments? Probably enough to bury you and leave an inheritance?

Those are just me thoughts but good luck.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yep someone asked me whole life but I had never considered Whole Life. I thought term was the only option.

[elessar78]

The hard part for me is figuring out how much I need. I mean, I just learned that I can cancel my policy and get more or less coverage as necessary. But should I assume that my insurance needs will grow (as my family grows and buy a house) and lock in low rates now while I'm young(er) and healthy?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

no idea. but do you really need sinsurance if you have no dependents?

[elessar78]

No you don't, but I have a baby due in April.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I just decided to go with what I need now and I figure as I age we become more stable we'll need less not more.

[all4money]

If I can piggy back on this thread... I currently have a 30 year $500,000 term policy that I got 10 years ago for $340 a year. Now that it is 10 years later, I just looked into getting a 20 year $500,000 policy and the quotes I got range from $250-$290 a year. Would it be worth it to go through the hassle of bloodwork and a health exam, etc. to save just $7.50 per month or at most $1800 over the 20 years?? I didn't have to do any kind of exam the first time around ... just had to answer a few health questions and that was it, so I'm just not familiar with the bloodwork and stuff that is required this time around.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

it's not a lot of savings is it? I wonder. Is it with a better or worse company than you have? Can your current company give you a matching deal?

[jIM_Ohio]

500k each spouse
I make "more" than my wife- about 50% more (or she makes 33% less- you figure it out).

We established 500k based on what it would take to pay off house and other debts at time we started policies. Depending on which spouse collected the policies, we would each do different things with the money.

Wife would pay off all debts because she thinks her income, without any debt payments, would be enough to live on and still send kids to private schools.

I would have 400k of the insurance money yielding about 4% in a bond fund I like, so that 16k per year funds day care costs and transforms into school costs. I would need more than 4% in early years (daycare alone for us is 13k per year) but that if offset by relatively low costs until kids enter high school.

100k goes to pay down certain debts before I invest the 400k.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Interesting. Did you get 20 or 30 years jim?

I need $500k on myself and probably $1 million on DH.