Do you have life insurance - for your kids?

mysweetpeasWil&Wes wrote: May be a touchy subject because it's something no one wants to even think about, but I'm just curious. Do you have life insurance for your kids? My best friend just lost her nephew in a very tragic accident. His parents did not have life insurance and my friend was appalled at the cost of funerals. They totally nickel and dime you. Even thank you cards printed with his name on it were like invitations for a wedding, expensive. The thought never really crossed my mind, but luckily it crossed DH's...Because I asked him last night and he said we have $10K life insurance for each of our boys. Probably not enough to cover funeral expenses, but at least it's something.

TheOaf66 replied: my kids are a rider on my life insurance

gr33n3y3z replied: we have about 7 policies and the kids are on one of those if I'm not mistaken
I have one and Ed has 6 with the kids are a rider on the one
He can correct me if I'm wrong he is always changing them

momtoMegan&Alyxandria replied:
Now you are asking a question right up my alley. I can't sell life insurance now, but I did in the past. I have a policy on both of my girls and I also have a childerns rider on my mine and my dh's life insurance.

Think about it like this..........You pray nothing ever happens to your children, but if that horrible accident does occur, do you want to have to finance a funeral. Every month you have to write that check and all you do is reopen that hole in your heart and I personally don't think I could do that. The average funeral cost today is between $7,000 and $10,000 dollars for a bare bones funeral. If you want to give your child all of the extras then of course it is more. And my thought is they deserve more than a bare bones funeral.

That is why I have life insurance for my kids. It is cheap too. I just took out a $40,000 policy on the baby with additional riders where she can get more insurance at certain ages and it will be paid for in 20 years. Then it continues to gain cash value after that. I am only payig $26.00/month for that. I have a $15,000 policy on Meg with the additional riders that will be paid for when she turns 22 and that policy is only $15.00/month. I will be adding $25,000.00 for hers so both have $40,000.00. Plus after they turn 20 (Alyx) and 22 (Meg) they already have life insurance in place for when they start a family.

It also show them the value of Life Insurance. There are so many people that believe there isn't a need for themselves. Yeah, they aren't going to be the ones paying for it, but either their estate will or their family will have to.

Sorry, I will get off my soap box now. But yes I think Life insurance for your kids is needed.

mom21kid2dogs replied: Yes, we carry life insurance policies on everyone, even O. Money is not something I ever want to consider, if heaven forbid, I have to deal with such tragedy.

DansMom replied: I'm the only one in my family with a policy. Even DH is not covered...

What you're all saying makes sense, but I can't bring myself to get a policy for my child. My brain just shrinks from the thought.

Cece00 replied: Yes, we carry $10k on each of them. It costs DH like $.88 a check per kid, so the premiums are very reasonable. I only carry it because of the funeral costs.

Hillbilly Housewife replied: Definitely. They are no less at risk of a tragic accident than I am, and their funeral costs would cost the same as mine.

The three of them are covered for 50K each. I covered them that high, because with our insurance policy, we can transfer their policies to them when they are 18, and they won't have to pay higher premiums. Actually they won't ever have to pay higher premiums. And the policy will pay itself by the time they get it anyways. But I might just keep them, to make sure they don't le tthem lapse... cuz really... what adult can get a policy for 50K and double if accident, for 5$?

Jackie012007 replied: right now we have the gerber life insurance for Carly, it's only 5k because that was all we could afford at the time. But Carl just got his benefits package from RiteAid and we can all get tons of life insurance for very little per check, so we will be switching over to that during open enrollment.

luvmykids replied: The kids each have a Gerber $10K policy. I don't know how great those plans are but my grandparents did it so I don't question it. Neither of us has life insurance (I"m working on it) and when we get it we'll probably have the kids on a rider.

lisar replied: I have life insurance on both kids its a rider on mine. DH has so much insurance on him I could pay off the house and both cars and still have money left. I made him up his totals when he started riding the faster dirt bike. But as for the kids its only 20k per child.

Crystalina replied: Yes for DH and I.
No for my kids.

DillsMommy replied: Yes, all three of us have it.

grapfruit replied:
You HAVE to talk to him about getting it for himself and for Dan. Think about it. If something happened to your DH could you keep the house? Send Dan to school? Do the things you want to? Probably not. Your life is your most important asset. Talk to your insurance agent and ask to at least do a Life Needs Analysis. You'd be SURPRISED at what you need.

Statistics say that only 7% of people are properly insured. Just check it out, don't think of it in the scary way. Think of it as a precaution, like putting on a seat belt, or getting a home alarm system.

And I STRONGLY recommend getting one for Dan too. Even if it's just 10K or so. Children's plans are very inexpensive. And then like Cyndi said, you are giving them a gift they can keep even when they're older and have their own family. (As long as you get a Whole Life or Universal Life plan, which you should)

What State do you live in? If it's OH or IN I'd be happy to send you some information!! Just something to help educate yourself on the choices.

DillsMommy replied: Our life insurance increases every year. Every year we'll pay one extra dollar, right now we pay $61 a month for the three of us, but it adds $10,800 worth of coverage for DH and I (I'm not sure how much it adds to Dylan). Is that really nessasary to have it continue to increase?

grapfruit replied:
Hmm...so how much do you have? Or do you not know. What you need to do is a Life Needs Analysis, maybe Cyndi can scan one and put a picture up so you can see what it looks like.

It's a tool to help figure out how much life insurance you need. It's filled with your numbers, and tailored to what you want your insurance to "do" for you. There are LOTS of different types of policies.

Do you know if your policy is a term, whole life or universal life?? Some policies (like the last one) can almost double as an investment policy as well. Who do you have your car and home insurance through??

MyBlueEyedBabies replied: We are all covered by Michaels work at like 60 thousand for him, 40 for me and 10 per kid. We have additional insurance not through his work for us. We were told it was more for the future of insuring them than the amount they have now. through it would be nice not to worry about writing those checks if something were to happen to one of them.

Nina J replied: No, we don't. I don't want to, I've always thought of it like opening a possibility for it to happen. Of course it could, I'm not one of those people who thinks it will never happen to me. We can afford a funeral, hopefully we never have to though.

DillsMommy replied: For Tom and I we have $258,200. I'm not sure how much Dylan has. I'm actually looking at the letter right now and it says "our policy was issued with the inflation fighting Increasing Benefit Rider coverage" So I guess thats why it keeps going up, but its not something we have to keep. We can choose to decline the increase.

I have no idea if it's term, whole life, or universal. I don't know a whole lot about insurances. But our home and car is through state farm. Life is through Primerica.

grapfruit replied:
That's exactly right. You give them a policy (like a whole life) that has guaranteed purchase options on it. They don't even have to answer medical questions. You never know what tomorrow might bring. Including whether or not you can be insured.

grapfruit replied:
Yeah, you don't have to keep the increase but $10K more for $1 is pretty cheap. But if you guys have a term policy then it is kind of throwing your money away.

You can tell if it's a term or permanent by if it has cash value. Also there may be a chart somewhere in your paperwork that shows years and costs. If it always stays the same (save that inflation guard) then it's a permanent, if the price all of a sudden shoots up it's probably a term.

The permanent ones gain cash value as well. The term is kind of like renting, you get nothing unless it pays out.

If you're more comfortable w/your State Farm agent (b/c you see them lots more) then I'd take that paperwork in and have them explain it to you. Make sure it's what you need. They can also do the needs analysis for you.

DillsMommy replied:
Thanks for explaining that. It makes more sense now.

ZandersMama replied: I had insurance on me and Zander, I had to cancel it when Curtis and I broke up because I couldn't afford it. I tried to insure Zavier but they wouldn't insure him because he was a preemie.

grapfruit replied:
now that he's older you can probably try again. Usually if they've been home (and healthy) for 14 days straight they'll take them. I'm about 90% sure we will.

momtoMegan&Alyxandria replied: If any of you have any questions as to whether or not you need life insurance print this form out and fill it in. It will tell you if you have enough or not.

http://s54.photobucket.com/albums/g98/cynd...analysis001.jpg

luvbug00 replied: no & no. can't afford it.

grapfruit replied:
Ok, I found out Primerica ONLY sells term life insurance. So at some time you may want to look into a small permanent policy to cover you and your DH for when the term either runs out or gets expensive.

Typically the way term insurance works is you pick a term (like 10yrs, 20 yrs, 30 yrs) they look at your age, health, if you use tobacco etc. Then they insure you for the amount you chose and the premium and amount stays the same for that term. After the term is over it either cancels, OR the premium goes up a BUNCH!

Life insurance is never going to be cheaper then now (b/c it goes by age). So if you can lock in a small whole life policy now, at this age and medical status, then that's great. That way when you're 80, you're family has something to bury you w/. Obviously nobody is really going to be willing to sell life insurance to somebody that old (at least not making it affordable). So buying now is the key!

DansMom replied: This is food for thought... good thread. I live in Michigan. I'm the wage earner, so I'm covered by a work policy. We've never looked into a separate policy for each family member, although we get mailings about it all the time from AAA, who covers our car and home policies. Partly it's my fear that getting coverage will make something happen, partly it's just that it's on the back burner all the time.

Our Lil' Family replied: DH has a policy through Primerica ONLY because his BIL started selling it. But now that you've explained it WAY better than he did I'm going to rethink that policy...it's paid for by year I think, so we don't have to pay again until next year but it was such a hassle just getting it set up that we didn't like the feel of it anyway.

THANKS CASEY!

grapfruit replied: ah well it's my job Seriously I'm just glad to help. I think insurance has this stigma that it's so complicated. Really it's not, nobody wants to explain it. That's my mission in life. Make sure everyone understands their insurance. LoL

Hillbilly Housewife replied: I'm so confused.

We have whole life and 20 year term policies for ourselves, our kids are only covered with whole life. Should we get them term policies as well? Is it worth getting them term insurance as well?

My3LilMonkeys replied: We all have life insurance.

Chase-N-Paige replied: We have life for both of us through our jobs as well as the Gerber insurance for each child. Is it hard to think about but God forbid we would ever need it we know it would be there to help if needed. I hate to think of the what if's though....

Alli