Don’t have life insurance on your non-employed spouse….BIG MISTAKE!!!
This article is dedicated to Alicia C., A dedicated mother and wife (1966 – 2001)
In my many years of protecting families through life insurance, the most common mistake that I see repeatedly is not buying life insurance on the non-employed spouse. After all, buying life insurance on the breadwinner in the family in order to replace their income is common sense. But what about the other spouse who is working equally as hard at home raising the children?
I must admit that in my rookie years selling life insurance, I too did not fully recognize the importance of insuring the non-employed spouse in a family. That all changed in August 2001 though. One of my close long time friends named Josh was married to his high school sweetheart Alicia. Josh was a sales rep for a developing medical device company. He traveled up and down the West Coast as part of his job and was gone for weeks at a time. When he was at home, he often worked 11 to 12 hour days and it was not uncommon to find him in the office making phone calls on the weekend.
Josh and Alicia had two young children, a little boy 4 years old and a little girl 2 years old. The 2 year old girl had special needs and required 24/7 supervision from her mother. Alicia was 9 months pregnant with their 3rd child. One day back in August of 2001, I got a phone call from Josh’s brother who could barely speak. He informed me that Alicia was in a horrific car accident. She was rushed to the hospital but unfortunately both Alicia and her baby did not survive the accident. To say Josh’s life was turned upside down is an understatement.
Josh did not have life insurance on Alicia at the time of her death, which was a terrible mistake that would ultimately magnify Josh’s pain and suffering over the upcoming months and years. On top of the emotional anguish that Josh was going through, he now had the added pressure of dealing with the financial aftermath of Alicia’s death, something that had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Josh took the first two months off after Alicia’s death to be with his children and to sort out what he would do next. Josh was in a terrible position because even if he could find the emotional strength to go back to work, he needed to physically be there for his kids. He could no longer travel for weeks at a time or work the long hours that his job required him to do on a daily basis.
Within two years of Alicia’s death, Josh was forced to change jobs and take a position making significantly less money but allowing him to stay closer to home. He had to sell his beautiful home where his children were raised because he could no longer cover the mortgage. He moved into a small rental house close to Alicia’s parents who helped him raise his chidren while he was working. This obviously placed much undue stress on Alicia’s parents who were also still in the grieving process over the loss of their daughter. All of this unnecessary anguish Josh and his family went through could have been avoided had Josh just purchased a life policy on Alicia before her untimely passing.
People do not realize how cheap term life insurance actually is. For a 35 year old woman in good health, a $500,000 twenty year term life policy is less than $30 per month. It is only a few dollars more for a man. For that small sum of money, $500,000 of income tax free money is paid to you right at the most vulnerable point of your family’s life. That money will not only change your family’s life but it may very well save it. It will give you time to grieve with your children and rebuild your life. You owe it to yourself and your family to provide this important protection. Please call Sean today to discuss life insurance protection for your family. If you already have coverage, you should review it annually to make sure it is the proper amount of coverage and that the beneficiaries are set up correctly.