The "Cost" of Life Insurance: Putting It Into Perspective

This post is for people that want life insurance, but maybe cannot "find the dollars" to afford it. 

I help people put things into perspective when it comes to the cost of life insurance, but I do not tell people how to spend their money.  Sometimes I will get a little animated about it, but it’s only because I am passionate about what I do.  Once in a while, I have to (figuratively speaking) help people wake up and smell the coffee when it comes to how much life insurance really “costs.”  I will get back to the coffee topic in a minute.

Simple scenario: $1,000,000 of 20-year term life insurance is about $55/month for a relatively healthy 30 year old male.

Now let’s look at other things that cost $55/month+ to put things into perspective:

• Cell phone bill? Mine is $101/month.
• Cable/internet? Mine is $135/month.  Necessary? Hardly.  I went about 3 years without it in recent years and survived just fine.  Actually, contemplating getting rid of it, but that’s another story.
• Starbucks…what is it, $4/pop for a fancy beverage?  Let’s say it’s just Mon-Fri before getting to the office.  That’s $80-90/month.  Just a regular cup of coffee-flavored coffee, let’s say $2/pop.  We’re still around $40-50/month.  For COFFEE.  It probably doesn't phase people when it's only a few bucks at a time, but it adds up.
• A night out on the town?  Dinner plus a few drinks, that could easily be $50 for one person, $100 for a couple.
• Car insurance? Mine is $80/month.  We all hope we never have to “use” it.  Do we ask for those premium dollars back? Nope.  But people ask all the time “What if I don’t use my life insurance? Do I get the money back?”  I’ll save that answer for another post.

Again – I don’t ask people to justify their spending.  Not to me at least.  But, if you have people that depend on you, I simply ask that if you don’t have life insurance, don’t give me a good reason why, give your family a good reason why you don’t have it.  Don’t justify it to me – justify it to yourself and your family.

At the end of the day, it’s cheap.  Especially when you’re young and healthy.  When you’re a bit older and have one or two health issues, even minor, the price goes up.  Way up.  Get it now while you’re thinking about it.  Like everything else, the price will go up as you get older.  If you have questions, call Tom Manno at 708-646-9280 or email tom@mannogroup.com.