The Insurance That People Don’t Like Talking About

image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/freedigitalphotos.net

Life insurance is tough to talk about. No one wants to think about dying, especially when they’re healthy with an active family life and successful career. It’s natural that you might want to put off thinking about death when you’re so full of life.

At Scalzo, Zogby & Wittig we’ve served generations of clients and we can tell you…stuff happens. Some of the most difficult claims we deal with in Central New York are for serious car accidents where someone has passed away. Or a middle aged man or woman is caught by surprise after a cancer diagnosis or serious heart disease.

Yes, Life Insurance is tough to talk about, but in our experience much easier to deal with when you’re of sound mind and body.

Thing is, if you consider life insurance after a bout of cancer or you develop high blood pressure, the premiums will be much higher…if you can get it at all. We know of people who have left their family and business in dire straights because they didn’t leave them the funds they needed to continue on.

And that’s the question you should ask yourself, “What would happen to my family or business if I suddenly passed away.”

Your Family Without You
Your family probably relies on your income. Even as most now are two income families, you probably base your lifestyle on both incomes. Without yours, could the family keep up on the home’s expenses? Pay the taxes, upkeep, fuel, and food costs?

Life insurance can replace your income so your family doesn’t have to move.

What About Your Business?
If you own the business, it may be difficult to continue without you. Even if you have a buy-out agreement with a partner or key employee, how will they compensate your family for their share of the business?

Life insurance can replace the revenue you generated and fund an equitable buyout. This way your family gets paid for it’s share of the equity and the key people left in the business can continue serving customers and generating revenue.

What About Your Large Estate?
Have your CPA and tax attorney estimate your estate tax upon your death and include that amount in your life insurance benefit.

Happily, You Live a Long Life
What happens as you get older and your responsibilities change? If you’re lucky enough to enjoy a nice retirement and see your kids and grand kids grow, you can designate them as partial beneficiaries. You can also assign your favorite non-profits or your Alma mater as beneficiaries receiving all or a portion of the death benefit.

So what kinds of life insurance should you look into? Basically, there are two forms of life insurance available: term life insurance and whole life insurance. As you can see by the names, the first insures you for a set amount of time and the second is for your “whole life.”

Term insurance is much less expensive than whole life, so you can buy more for less money. The drawback with term insurance is that the premiums go up each year. On the other hand, whole life (or these days Universal Life) costs more up front but the premium stays the same for the life of the policy.

There are situations where one is better than the other. We’ll discuss all of this further in future posts. Until then, if you have any questions or want to look into how much it would cost to buy life insurance on you or your spouse, please call us.

We guarantee, it’s much easier to talk about life insurance well before you need it!

Until next time,
Your SZW Team.

Scalzo, Zogby & Wittig, Inc. is your New Hartford area independent insurance agent. Call us for a quote on insurance for your home, car, business, or life at 315.792.0000.