For the last twenty-something years, many American's receive a life insurance benefit for working for an employer. Today, there is no loyalty or certainly to employment. One day you could be moving to another job, or unemployed, and the benefit you had through work that was once there is now gone. Not much of a benefit then, is it?
People have become lazy with protecting their family through out the years by 'passing the buck', sort of speaking. Employers began offering more benefits to their employees to capture potential employees interests and retain good employees. This is a good thing for employment, but it's a bad thing for responsibility.
Life insurance through an employer is usually minimum coverage, unless you are an executive or management. This minimum coverage is just that, minimum. Right now your family is depending on you for income support. In many cases, this is just enough to survive and possibly save for retirement. When that income is gone, what will you do the replace that income? It is sad that many never think about this either because of fear or neglect. In either case it still needs to be address.
The fact is your employer sponsored life insurance plan is just not enough. There are simple calculators available out there that you can factor in what you would need in life insurance to maintain your current standard of living. To make sure you use the right calculation tool, you should use a life insurance expert to evaluate your situation and find the best solution for you and your family.
Many will bandage the situation using mortgage insurance or the life insurance attached to your auto insurance will help make things work in addition to your employer sponsored life insurance plan. Mortgage insurance is only there to reduce or payoff your mortgage in the event of a loss of the borrower or co-borrower. This does not do anything to pay for the important things in life, such as food, clothing, tuitions, weddings etc. Your auto insurance can include minimum life insurance coverage. However, you actually have to die in an auto accident in order to for them to pay out the loss. This doesn't account for the accident on the skiing slope, swimming with sharks or the neighbor's dog bites you and you have a major infection.
These situations are only examples with a little sarcasm. They are only there to drive a point that auto insurance with a life insurance benefit will not cover other types of accidents. Accidents are not the only way to die. It could be a serious illness strikes or any other fluke thing that may occur to one's life.
We cannot predict anything that may occur in the future but we can try to plan for it. Relying solely on your Employer sponsored life insurance plan may not cut it for the average family. Having a financial protection plan is the only way one can have the right amount of protection. Families should sit down with a life insurance specialist and work out a plan and put the right amount of insurance in place. Make this your New Year's resolution!<
Butch Zemar
www.EliteBenefits.net