Even thinking about life insurance can be more than a little frightening.

It’s an emotional decision: You’re admitting your own mortality. (Yeah, sorry Sunshine. You’re going to die. I hope it’s after a long and happy life. But the Angel of Death is standing by.)

Everyone knows it. Believing it is a different story.

It’s also a financial decision: Should you spend money on this? You have other bills to pay.

But what would happen to your family if something happened to you? If money’s tight now, imagine what would happen if you died in a car accident on the way to work. Would they be able to stay in your home? Would they have to rely on help from family members to pay the bills?

 

Full disclosure here: Insurance — including life insurance — wasn’t something I’d thought about before I became an insurance agent. I had what I could get through work and figured my wife would figure it out after that.

What I had through work was about a year’s salary. My family’s kinda counting on me to be around and pay the bills for longer than that.

My wife is an amazing woman. But I was — and still am — the one paying most of the bills. If something had happened to me, she would have had to deal with the loss of a husband, father and wage-earner all in one fell swoop.

And I really should have known better. I was a newspaper reporter and editor in my former life. Bad things happening to other people was a good chunk of my job: We reported on auto accidents, illnesses, fire, crime and a host of misfortunes on a weekly if not daily basis. A lot of these people had done nothing wrong. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All too often, the stories would end with, “The family is collecting donations to pay for expenses.”

That’s not something I want to leave my family to deal with. How about you?

But let’s look at it another way.

Let’s assume you make $30,000 a year.

You have insurance on your car. Let’s assume that it’s a $20,000 car. That’s nine months worth of salary.

You have insurance on your home. Let’s figure that at $150,000. That’s five years worth of salary.

Life insurance is insurance on your income. Let’s just figure 10 years worth of income, even if you never get a raise, that’s $300,000.

And you don’t have insurance on it?

Talk to someone about life insurance. It’s a big decision, so make sure you know what your options are. I happen to know a guy, but talk to someone.