Now I want to talk about Meet Mark and Sophie stories. They just found out they’re having a baby girl named Maddie. They’re very excited. However, they’re also a little bit worried, Sophie especially.
As the sole breadwinner, she fears for the baby’s feature should she die unexpectedly. Luckily however, there is a ready-made solution for this problem: life insurance. Like most types of insurance, life insurance reduces the costs associated with a risk,in this case the risk of dying, in return for a monthly fee called a premium.
While that sounds rather morbid, basic life insurance policies only cost about $400 per year, plus their benefits are too good to pass up. If Sophie is insured and dies before her time, her insurer will pay her family a huge sum of money, like $500,000, to secure their future. Sounds pretty good right?
But do most people actually need life insurance?Well, it depends, but the rule of thumb here is simple: if you have someone dependent on your income, you need life insurance, otherwise, don’t bother. But let’s continue. There are two major types of life insurance: term and permanent.
Term life insurance is the simpler, less expensive form. In return for a series of monthly premiums over a set period of time, generally between 10 and 30 years, Sophie’s family is eligible to receive a large payout upon her death. In contrast, permanent life insurance is way more complicated and has three similar, but distinct forms: whole, universal, and variable. Under any of these plans, some of premium goes towards establishing a death payout, just like in term life insurance, while there is of your it, minus expenses, is saved in a tax-deferred account that earns a fixed amount of interest per year.
As the name implies, permanent life insurance plans also last indefinitely, so if you choose to cancel, you’ll get back your saved premiums, plus your interest, after paying some fees and income tax. Sounds pretty good right? Well, actually, permanent life insurance is a pretty bad product. Sophie is stunned. Why is that? Well, beyond a reputation for being overly complicated and laden with hidden fees, think a bout it in terms of return on investment.
With term life insurance, although your premiums aren’t invested, they’re far cheaper than permanent life insurance. This frees up cash that you could then invest with a robo-advisor for an investment return that will exceed anything you’ll get with permanent life insurance. And don’t worry, we teach every thing you need to know in our two videos “How to Invest” and “401(k) and IRA 101”. Hopefully you, Sophie, and Mark now have a better understanding of how life insurance works. Be sure to watch our next video, which teaches you how to actually get life insurance,and to check out our website, where you can find more educational material and great life insurance recommendations.
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