What does BG think about Life Insurance?

[Kalmado]

To be up front, the reason for the topic is I have been hired by a company to focus primarily on life insurance, which is something slightly new to me. The topic is always touchy when talking with people in person or even on the phone so I figure here we can just be blunt and say what we want.

Most people that I have talked with that aren't interested immediately have the same objections. I don't need it. Can't afford it. Work has it. These answers I find are typically used by those that do not want to be "sold" or feel insurance companies are just out to screw people (this is my opinion). When bringing up what their spouse, kids, or other family would do in a tragedy people seem to get mad or defensive. What I'm trying to do is figure out how to bring down these walls to show the importance of that and I think BG could share some great points on what they feel about the subject of life insurance.

1: Do you have it? Why? Why not?

2: Have you just never looked into it?

3: How much do you have? How did you come to that figure? (If not wanting specifics, just say something like a lot or what we need and like, mortgage, college, etc). What type of policy(s) do you have?

4: Have it through work. Do you know what type of policy you have? No? Why? What happens if work drops the benefit, goes out of business, etc?


EDIT: Should've mentioned, I also do auto and home. If you're in Michigan and would like to chat privately, feel free to PM me.

[tyven]

Life Insurance is one of the most important and valuable products american families have toward securing their financial future.

Selling anything to anyone is hard, especially when you need to talk about the potential loss of a loved one.

Whole Life Insurance policies, when opened early enough, become incredible savings vehicles in addition to a financial safety net. Parents of newborn children could do a lot worse than opening a whole life insurance policy on their child and then cashing it out to put toward college when the child turns 18. Should you not cash out you can borrow directly from the Inside buildup, they literally allow people to be their own bank.

Term life insurance is an affordable safety net for home owners and parents, especially in today's economic client where the vast majority of people do not save for retirement, live paycheck to paycheck, and live longer.

1) Hell yes boy but didn't bother with it until were buying a house

2) A lot of people never look into it, which is understandable when majority of americans are living paycheck to paycheck

3) My wife and I each have term policies through age 80 that would cover our mortgage and higher education should we ever have a kid. Should the kid come along we would open a whole life policy for them.

4) My work offers very basic LI that we do take advantage of. I don't actually know a ton about life insurance policies offered by employers but they usually aren't great.

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk a bit more about your career and some professional development opportunities. I'm also curious as to what company you are working for

[Zetanio]

Have LI through work.

It's a pretty high $ short-ish term life policy.

Looked into a GUL 121 policy and decided against it. Super expensive and low benefits.

[Kalmado]

Damn Tyven are/were you an agent?! You hit it on the head though. I'm trying to get that "be your own bank" mentality going. We have a Return of Premium policy that I think is awesome that I want to really push. Either 20 or 30 year term (depending on age) which the client can either choose benefit amount or how much per month they want to spend. I'm doing $125/m and will receive $260k coverage (age 36 male) and my wife (34 female) will do $100/m and get $360k in coverage. Here is the kicker. Should neither of us pass we'll get a check at the end of the policy for $90k, unlike regular term where if you outlive the policy term you receive nothing. I can't think of a better way to protect my wife and assets/debt should I pass. She either gets a payout to cover herself or we get a nice extra retirement check.

If anyone has a child they should absolutely get some type of whole life. It's stupid cheap and as Tyven said, builds cash value that can be used for college or other needs later on. I like our 20 pay. For say a 5 year old, a 20 pay (you pay for 20 years and after that you pay nothing but keep the policy for life) cost around $25/month.

I hope more chime in on their position on life insurance.

[Zetanio]

Those RoP policies are essentially small bonds issued by you to the insurance company in a way. They are definitely interesting.

[tyven]

Damn Tyven are/were you an agent?!

I've been a part of the financial services lobby since college and have spent almost a decade working to protect the tax treatment of inside buildup and death benefits. Life Insurance is the 2nd largest safety net in this country behind ONLY Social Security.

My wife works in professional development and continuing education for the industry as well, I'd be happy to try and get some sales techniques and resources for you. Again feel free to PM me if you have any questions that you don't want to bring to your B/D. I have an insane amount of resources at my disposal.

[Boyiee]

Wife and I both have return of premium term life's, and we have very above average life insurance though work since we're in higher risk fields.

Would like a longer term as well that takes us into older age because if we wait till we're older it'll be higher cost. We're in our 20s, homeowners, healthy as fuck so we are at the highest tier with lowest cost, it would be silly not to have it. Shits gonna cash out nice at the end too.

My parents had whole on all of us kids, I'll have it on mine. It's more important to have at least some form of insurance regardless of income and flex or cut back elsewhere. It can be quite inexpensive.

Guess I'll mention we have it through state farm. Our agent is a great salesman and extremely intelligent. Having a conversation with him is like talking to myself because he is so prepared for what I'm going to ask and it catches me off guard because I come up with some tough questions and really drill him.

[Tokitoki]

I've been talking to my wife about life insurance for the past few months. Not only for ourselves should something happen to one of us, but also for our kids in the future. Like tyven said, I only started bringing it up when we started the search for a home.

1) I don't have it, but am pushing the wife to agree to start looking into it more. It may not happen until after we finish this house stuff, but I want to get it done. So far I haven't done much more than that because we're both out of shape and I haven't been to a doctor in like 10 years.

2) I haven't put in much effort.

3) N/A

4) Don't have it through work afaik. I should ask our insurance guy.

I like this thread, though. Keep it up. Gives me more shit to read and understand.

[tyven]

Kal get licensed in every state so you can be BG's resident insurance agent.

[Nesssie]

1: Do you have it? Why? Why not? Yes

2: Have you just never looked into it?

3: How much do you have? How did you come to that figure? (If not wanting specifics, just say something like a lot or what we need and like, mortgage, college, etc). What type of policy(s) do you have? My work offers a life insurance policy that I don't have to pay for and it equals my annual income. They also offer a supplemental life insurance which I pay for. My husband and I each have a $200K supplemental life insurance which cost about $260 total every year. We have about $100K left on our mortgage so if either one of us dies, it can be paid off and have some left over for other expenses. I also have an option to increase the policy every year which I have been doing ($30K increments).

4: Have it through work. Do you know what type of policy you have? No? Why? What happens if work drops the benefit, goes out of business, etc? I have it through my work and it is handled through Hartford Life Insurance. The policy is only good if I'm still working for the company but I have an option to keep the insurance if I quit.

[Anoat]

Don't have it, single, no kids, when I die just throw me out with the trash.

[Ksandra]

I don't have it because I don't trust it.

My father had life insurance and the cost kept going up and up. He secretly spent all my parents savings on it until he started panicking about going out to eat n' such. My mom found out where all the money went and forced him to cancel the policy because they couldn't afford to pay it anymore. Two years later he died. They spent all that money and got nothing in return. What little she had left went to his funeral. She is retiring this year and is going to have to live off strictly from her retirement fund (she doesn't get his SS or her SS) without a savings because of what happened.


Fuck that shit.

[Zetanio]

So because your dad had shitty planning, you don't have life insurance.

You have kids right?

[Hellfury]

I'm a little uncertain about what is defined as "Life insurance" in English language, so to clarify my answers, I assume you mean "In case of death".

1: Do you have it? Why? Why not?
Currently alone, if I ever establish family, will get immediately. Overkill on other insurances though (accidents, travel, car, home, id theft etc. etc. etc.).

2: Have you just never looked into it?
Have looked into, not relevant since if I die there'd only be my sister to collect, and she'd get my share of the family estate anyway which is significantly more than your typical life insurance.

3: How much do you have? How did you come to that figure? (If not wanting specifics, just say something like a lot or what we need and like, mortgage, college, etc). What type of policy(s) do you have?
If I got, I would probably go for something around $400-500k if it wasnt' prohibitively expensive, I haven't really looked that much into it.

4: Have it through work. Do you know what type of policy you have? No? Why? What happens if work drops the benefit, goes out of business, etc?
Only have extra retirement plan (company adds 6.5% of my paycheck worth to the fund each month) + standard work related insurances (accidents etc.) from work.
Have 3 private retirement funds and the state retirement fund on top of that.

[Kalmado]

I don't have it because I don't trust it.

My father had life insurance and the cost kept going up and up. He secretly spent all my parents savings on it until he started panicking about going out to eat n' such. My mom found out where all the money went and forced him to cancel the policy because they couldn't afford to pay it anymore. Two years later he died. They spent all that money and got nothing in return. What little she had left went to his funeral. She is retiring this year and is going to have to live off strictly from her retirement fund (she doesn't get his SS or her SS) without a savings because of what happened.


Fuck that shit.

Something sounds way off with the policy, or, something else which I do not want to be disrespectful and speculate. I work for a single company and our rates are guaranteed and I've never heard of rates fluctuating on term or whole life. There are other products that I'm not as knowledgeable about yet so it could be a few different things. Also, back in the 80s when there weren't as many rules and regulations in place there were a lot of agents not doing the right thing for their clients and were selling bad products or lying about what the product could do.

I do sympathize with your stance on it, but I'd suggest to take a second look with someone you can trust. Talk to your friends, coworkers, etc about someone they trust that they could refer you to.

[Kalmado]

Kal get licensed in every state so you can be BG's resident insurance agent.

If I was independent I'd look into it!

[tyven]

I don't have it because I don't trust it.

My father had life insurance and the cost kept going up and up. He secretly spent all my parents savings on it until he started panicking about going out to eat n' such. My mom found out where all the money went and forced him to cancel the policy because they couldn't afford to pay it anymore. Two years later he died. They spent all that money and got nothing in return. What little she had left went to his funeral. She is retiring this year and is going to have to live off strictly from her retirement fund (she doesn't get his SS or her SS) without a savings because of what happened.


Fuck that shit.

uhhhhh You need to look into this a bit more, you guys might have grounds for legal action. Sounds like a bad actor took advantage of your father.

[tyven]

Also you have two kids and a mortgage. What are you even thinking? You and your husband should at least buy term policies that cover the cost of the mortgage. prob be less than 50 bucks a month combined.

[Zetanio]

Also you have two kids and a mortgage. What are you even thinking? You and your husband should at least buy term policies that cover the cost of the mortgage. prob be less than 50 bucks a month combined.

^

[tyven]

Ksandra if you want to at least EXPLORE life insurance lmk and i'll PM you contact info for a good agent in your area. Won't cost you a penny to talk to them