Friday, March 12, 2010

life insurance

david and i have been discussing a rather melancholy topic: life insurance. as much as i would like to ignore reality, death is as much a part of life as living. david's grandfather generously purchased whole life insurance policies for him (and our two children) at birth. i think the max payout is $500k if cashed in at 75 yrs old or his death. something along those lines at least. i however, have had no life insurance taken out on me. well until this week. it is no secret that i've got major struggles with anxiety/agoraphobia/panic attacks. in good seasons of life, which is almost always, they are manageable but ever present. right now i am employed and work from home doing medical transcription. it's a perfect set up honestly. however, God forbid something ever happen to david, i have little doubt that i would be unable to support my two kids financially on my own. i just don't have the coping skills to work a traditional job. the last time i worked outside of my home was in 2004 and the stress of the job when all was said and done left me so agoraphobic that upon quitting i didn't leave our apartment for a month. also i will note that i should have quit that job long before i did. i had panic attacks every single day about going there and finally one morning i woke up and couldn't get out of bed. i was so stressed that i just laid under the covers and dug my nails into my hands and cried and david said THAT'S IT. and he called my employers and told them i wouldn't be coming back. thankfully since then like to think i've gotten better at managing my anxiety and ativan useage and also i've been afforded several awesome opportunities to work from home.

but knowing what i know about the fabric of my being, again i don't think that however highly motivated i would be to provide, if i could cope with the demands of single parenthood/working full time outside the home. (even as i state this as a fact i feel an incredible sense of humiliation feeling like a weak person.) david graciously added onto his policy recently so that i wouldn't have to change our lifestyle if something ever happened to him. that thought makes me sick but it's just a fact of life. also, we got a policy for me. GUYS I AM WORTHY MONEY NOW! I AM MORE THAN A SCULLERY MAID! i keed i keed! but in all seriousness i think it's sensible and important to have life insurance.

if you have some, and it wouldn't feel too invasive, i'd love to heard what you guys have for your family.

13 comments:

michelle rigsby said...

well you know i've got the anxiety stuff too... our car ins. guy called me a year or so ago and said we should add life insurance and i started panicking just thinking of it.. sooo i told him not now and we still don't have it and i think of it often-i think if you have kids you should have it. perhaps when colin gets another job. but i do not like to talk about it. or think about it. but yah seeing a friends father pass away, thank goodness they had it. then a year later the mother died [AWFUL] but i am always thinking how great it is the kids are taken care of. because of their life insurance.

Lisa said...

My dad sells life insurance, (as well as other insurances) so I feel like I have been brought up on the belief of the importance of life insurance.

Both me and my husband are covered (300 and 350 thousand, respectively) and we even have a policy for my son, which might seem odd. Basically, my son's pays out just enough to cover funeral costs, but it also guarantees that he will be able to get life insurance when he is older, even if he gets diagnosed with a blood disease, or something else that would make him not eligible.

I figure I need the life insurance, because if my husband and son were to try and make it on their own, they would need full time quality child care, probably help keeping the house clean, probably costs associated with meals, maybe help with laundry. Also, I will probably go back to work full time some day, to help pay for Christian school, or what have you, and if I am not here, I can't.

Life insurance should just make it so that you don't have huge financial stress when your loved one dies. Your emotional stress will be more than enough to keep you busy.

Eva said...

we have been tossing the subject of life insurance back and forth as well. although, we have no kids and were only married 8 months ago, it seems like a smart thing to have. but we're finding it a daunting task and don't really know how to approach it. also, i'm not totally convinced that nathan "believes" in insurance, if that makes sense.

Sparrow said...

we only carry term life insurance. we have about 10 times my husband's income on him, and about 200k on me I think.

Yes, it's not fun to think about at all. we also updated wills this year (very important also--esp. with children).

Judy said...

We go through Guardian. We were really happy that the salesman didn't put a ton of guilt on us to buy more insurance. It also helped to research prior to meeting with him to know all of the different ways to go about it. We ended up 500,000 on Aaron, and 250,000 on myself. He also carries insurance through work.

Jenny H. said...

We have individual policies for each person in our family. Like David, Pa-Paw bought a whole life policy for me when I was born and 50K policies for each of my kids. Adam has a separate term policy for 500K. We pay a small sum each month for it. We chose that amount so that I could pay off the house and put both kids through college and live off the rest (plus investments) if anything should happen to Adam.

Anonymous said...

with our first baby due to arrive next month my husband and I recently got a million dollar policies on each other.

Jenni & Jon said...

Jon and I each have $100K term and $35K whole life, which will be about $75K once we reach 80 years old. I think we both would make it if something happened, but I wouldn't make enough to keep the house, which is ok with me. I'd much rather our family stay together until old old age though. We've been discussing custody of Lexi if something happened to us, and boy that is a hard one!

Olive said...

michelle - you guys should sit down with joe aebi. he is who upgraded davids/gave us the one for me. i think we pay $35/month now and for my policy i think it's a $250k pay out. not breaking the bank and it will be so worth it.

jenny- i know papaw bought the same for everyone, am i right about the payout for david/your/the kids policy? (clearly david and i have talked a lot about this already, haha)


thanks for all the responses guys!

Jenny said...

Hi Jenny,
I would recommend you call John Brush at Northwest Mutual. He's the person that Grannie and PaPaw originally bought the life insurance policies from. He helped ADam and I figure out all our stuff. He's REALLY quirky, but super nice and honest and he will come to your house to show you everything. He would probably mail you a print out of the policy on David showing the values of the policies. These are WHOLE LIFE policies, meaning they increase in value over time. The older you are when you die, the more money your beneficiary will receive. For example, if i die at age 35 my family would receive about $200,000. If I live to be 80 years old it will be $950,000. Adam's policy is called TERM life insurance. Its worth the same amount today as it will be in 65 years. The payout will always be the same. Its called TERM because you pay a set rate for it for x number of years. When the "term" is up, you can raise your amount or stay the same. Our (yours and mine) kids' policies are whole life. They are worth a few thousand for their childhood and will raise to about 50K by the time they are 70 years old. Pa-Paw and Grannie NEVER wanted any of us to be in debt should heaven forbid one of us lose a child. I think that was their original intent with purchasing these policies. I hope I'm not telling you things you already know. Again, I HIGHLY recommend John Brush. He will give you lots of time to think about and analyze the options, he puts NO pressure on you to buy AT ALL, and I trust him because my Pa-Paw and Dad also do business with him. His email is john.brush@nmfn.com. Oops, I just typed all that and it looks like you've already got someone. Oh well, at least now you have his info.
Take Care,
Jenny H.

Olive said...

david has talked to john brush several times. they've had lunch a few times! the guy who we set up my insurance policy through knows/works with john brush i believe. we know him from church.

Unknown said...

Agoraphobia is so tough. I used to have it too.

One of the hardest things about it is getting help because once you are stuck at home a lot of psychologists won't visit you.

There is one really great resource, though, for agoraphobics. Social Anxiety Anonymous has telephone support groups for agoraphobics and other social anxiety problems.

Olive said...

sometimes i've just got to laugh. i mean it's kind of ironic that i have a problem with leaving the house though i have to leave the house to get help.