Thirteen years ago, I was in the midst of reorganizing my financial life after accumulating a boat-load of debt and coming to terms with the terrible financial decisions that had put me in that position. It wasn’t a great time in my life – but it was probably one of the most important moments in helping to change the direction of my financial future.
I had a lot of people support me during that pivotal time: an older brother and mother – who provided some family loans.
I also had a friend tell me that it was important to get a life insurance policy.
“Why would a young, single guy need life insurance? Much less, one who is deep-in-debt?” I remember thinking.
Why I chose to get life insurance
The more I thought about life insurance, the more it made sense and fell in line with what I was trying to accomplish in my life at the time. I was trying to put the pieces back together again and take responsibility for my financial life, including the debts I had amassed. I wanted to be sure that I owned up to it all and paid it back.
Having life insurance provided that necessary backing that – if God called me home – I’d be able to pay back my debts. It was important that I pay back what I owed – even if death provided me a “way out”.
Even more importantly to me, there was also the matter of helping to provide something for my widowed mother. I didn’t want to leave her high-and-dry with nothing but bad debt as a legacy (even if some would be discharged / or forgiven after my passing because it was federally funded). It was important to me that I leave her something.
The process of getting insured
When I finally decided to go ahead with obtaining a life insurance policy, it wasn’t as difficult as I had anticipated. First off – I had heard some things about term and whole life insurance but didn’t know enough about each.
I soon found out that in the case of whole life insurance, coverage lasts for a lifetime, and premiums that are paid towards the policy build up cash value over time. You can borrow or withdraw money from the policy cash value, but loans and withdrawals impact the death benefit total. With term life insurance, premiums are significantly cheaper than whole life insurance but a term life insurance policy expires at the end of the designated term length.
I didn’t want to treat life insurance as a personal savings tool and decided to opt for a much more affordable term life insurance policy.
After I sat down with a financial advisor to fill out the necessary paperwork and answer questions about my circumstances we arrived at a term life policy of $225,000 for 30 years.
Weeks later, I was visited by a nurse who checked all my vitals to make sure I wasn’t secretly smoking a couple of packs a day OR had a chronic illness.
I soon got a letter in the mail telling me I was approved for the policy. The whole process took about a month until I found out I was approved for a policy.
Getting life insurance has sure changed over the past decade
One of the beautiful things about the Internet Age is the millions of individual online “store-fronts” that we can access at a moment’s notice without having to go anywhere. Not to mention, researching products / services takes little time and can save us lots of money.
The fact that we can now purchase products like term life insurance online is amazing! And, like our friends at Haven Life say – you can do this in under 20 minutes! To me, doing this on your own, in your home, takes a lot of the hassle and intimidation factor away from the whole process. That’s the process I would have chosen if it was available for me at the time of purchasing a policy.
Since we think purchasing life insurance is so important – we have partnered with Haven Life to make you aware of their offering and to (hopefully) get you thinking about purchasing a policy for yourself / or family if you haven’t done so already.
And, their whole application process is quite a breeze.
Here’s a look at their life insurance quote screen:
One of the great things about Haven Life is that after you enter your initial information, you can get an instant quote. And even better is the fact they provide you with other quotes from competitors that are sometimes a couple of dollars cheaper! (Now that’s transparent.) Those insurers, however, only offer the typical agent-centered, several week process.
From there, you can start an application and if approved, get covered right then and there. You’ll have 90 days to take a medical exam.
The other thing to note with Haven Life is they are backed by a top insurer, MassMutual, so you know you they are backed up by a solid company with a long history of financial strength.. Plus, Haven Term is issued by MassMutual, which is rated A++ by AM Best.* That is the highest rating available from AM Best.
Having life insurance provides peace of mind that your loved ones will be happy you had in place. I’ve heard too many stories lately of folks who didn’t have policies and left a financial mess for others to clean up when they passed away.
I don’t want to be that person if I can help it. You shouldn’t be either.
Haven Term is a Term Life Insurance Policy (DTC, ICC14DTC) issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), Springfield, MA 01111 and offered exclusively through Haven Life Insurance Agency, LLC
* MassMutual has received other ratings from different rating agencies.
This post is sponsored by Haven Life, an online life insurance agency that lets you buy term life insurance online in 20 minutes.
2 Comments
You are absolutely right. I took out a life insurance policy as soon as my daughter was born. Suddenly, it made sense :-)
Interesting how having children can suddenly change perspective on things!