By Brian Weeden
It might surprise you to know that not everyone needs to have personal insurance. To determine if you need personal insurance requires an in-depth look at your finances, your family and your singular personal situation. Like with many things but especially with insurance: everyone is different.
Let me introduce myself, my name is Brian Weeden, CEO and Principal Agent at Gateway Senior Solutions, a local insurance agency, and a 13-year Army Veteran. Can you believe an insurance agency would say such a bold statement? Let me explain insurance is not a cookie cutter product and making a general statement like “everyone needs insurance” is just not true and irresponsible for agents to promote. Gateway Senior Solutions will publish a series of articles focusing on life and health options and ways you can use them to enhance your lives and current circumstances.
Types of Personal Insurance
The different types of personal insurance you may want to look into getting are:
- Life insurance – Can pay debts, final expenses, education, and even provide future income for your
- Disability insurance – Can pay for care and special equipment that you need during your
- Critical illness insurance – Can pay for cancer care and other serious illnesses that your health insurance won’t
- Income protection insurance – Do you work for yourself or own business? If so, you can’t get unemployment insurance through the work place so you might need to buy insurance to cover your income if something happened to you short of death.
- Long-term care insurance – As a certified long term care professional, this type of insurance could be the most underutilized and misunderstood of all. Can you pay for the cost of care after 100 days in a nursing home or home care, usually between $150 and $200 dollars for eight hours a day for home health?
* These typesof insurance can help you mitigate a financial crisiscaused by one of these situations. It can be difficult to assessrisk,butit’ssomethingthatneedstobedonewithyourfamilyandwiththehelpofafinancialplanningexpertif possible.
Important Considerations
It’s important to look at the reality of your situation in order to help you choose which types of insurance you need to buy, if any. The things to look at to help you make the right choices are:
- Budget – How much money do you have in your budget to pay for insurance? If you are already on a super-tight budget, some types of insurance such as long-term care insurance may be out of your ability to pay.
- Savings – Are you able to save cash money? You need about eight months of living expenses in savings regardless of if you have insurance or not to help keep your head above water in a crisis.
- Health – Are you generally in good health? If so, what about your older family members? Are there any diseases that you could inherit? Looking at that risk is important.
- Family responsibilities – Do you have other people dependent upon you? If so, it is imperative to figure out how to make the loss of your income, whether temporary or permanent, less traumatic. Do you have a family member that is willing to help you? Will that family member have to quit their job or cut their hours to help you?
Looking at each of these options realistically can help you determine what type of insurance you need, if any. Be sure to also talk things over with your family, especially your spouse or partner. If you are a part of the senior population speak with your older children, a trusted financial advisor, or an insurance agent to ensure that you are making the right choice.
You can learn more about this by visiting www.gatewayseniorsoluitons.com or scanning the QR code in the ad. Do you have a suggestion for a topic you would like to see in the series contact Brian Weeden at (915) 228-4866 ext. 6?