Traditionally, buying Life Insurance was a pretty old-school process.
You would sit down with an advisor, in their office or across your kitchen table, and talk about your family situation. They’d come up with a plan and some options for you.
And those kinds of meetings still happen. But a confluence of changes have come up that’s provided more options for people who just want to cover their families, without making the time for an appointment.
Whether you’re busy at home with a young family, or have concerns about face-to-face meetings right now, or frankly just want to do things on your own time and schedule, here are some tools you can use to do that.
Online Needs Analysis
The first step in getting insurance coverage is figuring out your needs. There’s a worksheet to do this here.
The basic premise is pretty simple: you figure out what you’ll owe, and subtract what you have access to. So, for example, if you have $300K of mortgage debt, and $100K of life insurance through your work, you have a $200K gap on covering your mortgage. Of course, there are factors that you might want to consider that are a little more complicated. If you’re in a dual income family, and you lose one income, that could have a big impact on your lifestyle. If you want to see how this could affect you, just contact us to get a report tailored to your own situation.
As well, some of those costs are never going to go away. Chances are that you’ll always have some sort of funeral costs, whether you die next week or next century. It may be worth getting that paid up for a fraction of the cost through permanent insurance – again, just contact us to discuss. The good news is, we can still have those discussions and even set you up without meeting face-to-face.
But let’s say you just want something basic – you just want to cover that mortgage gap. With new tools in place, you can actually do this online!
Online Life Insurance
If you’re just looking at covering that mortgage gap, or just looking for coverage while your kids are young, a lot of people go with something like Term 20 insurance. This is inexpensive insurance that has rates guaranteed for 20 years. This isn’t the creditor insurance you’d typically get from your bank see here for the difference – this is insurance that you own.
A new tool came up in the past year that allows you to apply for this online, without having to meet with an advisor. The good news is, it will still be examined by a licensed advisor, and you still have someone to work with you through the process – but you can do it on your own time, in your pajamas, much like you’d do any other online shopping. For more information, you can find details and a link to apply here
Do what works best for you
Of course, we always think that there’s a great value in talking to a professional who can understand and address your needs – someone who has the depth of knowledge to make sure that you’re finding the best solutions for your individual circumstances.
But we’ve also seen a lot of people who have admitted to avoiding protecting their families because they were worried about the time it would take, the hassle, the cost, or that they’d be given a guilt trip for not having done something sooner. If this is the case, you’re much better putting something in place now, with a quick and painless process, than to avoid it. The good news is, if in a couple of years’ time you end up putting a plan in place that’s more tailored to your needs, you can always cancel the online one. But at least you’ll have done what you could to protect your family in the meantime.
This has all been developed to be as simple as possible, but there is always a chance for unique situations or questions. With this being said, please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have!