It's an inevitability; we all die. To hedge against the costs of dying, many invest in life insurance. The trick is to know when to buy it. If you're looking for life insurance quotes in California, read this before making any decisions.
Criteria for Life Insurance
There's none, really, but there are certain benchmarks that if you meet, you should seriously consider getting life insurance. At least, whole life insurance in California will help you offset your own funeral expenses and any other financial obligations you have at the time of your death.
Ask yourself why you want it (to build wealth, provide for family, ensure you leave no debt behind, etc.) Then, consider your situation and your state in life (do you have kids, are you young, do you have much financial risk, are you going through a major life event, etc.?) Finally, consider your age. Depending on the answers to those questions, you should look into getting life insurance quotes in California, even if all you're doing is trying to cover the costs of your funeral.
Who Needs Life Insurance – Some Scenarios
- Starting a Family: This is a hedge against the unthinkable, where you die prematurely and leave a spouse and family in a difficult financial situation. If you're thinking about starting a family, a life insurance policy should be a given although you will have to consider how much you need. The good thing is that if you are very young, rates are very cheap.
- Homeowners and People with Mortgages: Life insurance is a way to make sure if something happens to you that your home costs are covered. If you die with debt and no assets to cover that debt, your entire estate could be taken to offset the costs. Life insurance hedges against that.
- Non-Child Working Couples: In this case, both parties should consider life insurance. This is particularly true if only one partner is bringing in income. If both are, life insurance is not a bad investment to protect against debt, but is not as important as it's if only one party makes the majority of the money.
- The Elderly: Life insurance for the elderly, whether they or their offspring pay for it, is only necessary if there's no way to pay off funeral costs. There are some tax advantages, but for most people, once they're older, life insurance is an unneeded expense.
There are also strategies for using life insurance as a wealth building strategy, but that falls out of the realm of “should buy” and into “might be a good idea.” If you're looking into life insurance quotes in California, make sure you consider this list as you decide what type of policy you need or want.