Yeah, without children, your life insurance needs drop quite precipitously, unless your spouse is disabled or can’t work to support themselves. But once you commit to the kids, you have insurance needs. The other part about insurance is that you usually need less as you advance in age, so when you hit the big milestones you can decrease the amount of coverage commensurate with the need.
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But it’s still smart to lock in a long and strong policy even before you have children… you can always reassign beneficiaries but you can’t get younger again
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If you are planning on having children, sure, that strategy is probably the cheapest, but if that isn’t in your plan, then you don’t necessarily need as large a life insurance policy. Without my kids my spouse, who works, could probably get by with a hundreds of thousands level policy that is offered in the workplace, rather than a supplemental policy > million.
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Workplace policies are full of their own issues though… what percentage of people die while still employed?
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Don’t know the percentage, but I have had many coworkers die over the years, most of them still employed, many of them from long ugly diseases like cancer or ALS. A decent workplace will let you stay employed until you die, even if you are on disability etc.Probably best not to rely on that, and get your own policy, but anyway.
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Wouldn’t know anything about those!
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A small policy that my work offers, I think only up to 100k or so is transferable after employment but all their other policies that add up to about 700k are not transferable
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Even if you’re not planning… those plans and life circumstances change very quickly… for comparison sake—- the 500k 20 year policy that I bought when I was a perfectly healthy 28 year old only costs me $23 / month… now a decade later I’m looking at what is proportionately less insurance (compared to my family’s overall financial picture) at approximately 14x the price tag…
I’d love to have had the wisdom when I was 28 to have taken out about a $3-4m 30 year policy for far less than I’ll pay now for a fraction of that…
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Dang it! Now you tell me?!?
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Applied through the same company for an identical 30y 1m policy for my wife today… her quick quote was 126… we’re the same age and she shouldn’t have any red flags on her application as large as diabetes so it’ll be an interesting comparison to see how much the diabetes actually adds
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I discussed accidental death riders yesterday with my agent while finalizing my life insurance policy and they basically said they just don’t recommend them anymore because there is too much dispute potential…
Example they used was —- you have a heart attack while driving and your car wrecks and you’re dead… did you die from the car accident or the heart attack? Somehow that determination is made and with it—- whether your insurance pays or not. Wheras strait life insurance is black and white— you’re either alive or you’re not and it’s not debatable
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FWIW, my employer has a supplemental life insurance benefit. They offer up to 300,000 life insurance to employees at a very low cost.
Up to 100,000 requires no health history, above 100 requires a health questionnaire… and they determine if they are willing to insure you at the higher amounts
I always just figured I didn’t want to mess with it and opted for the 100k policy. This year during open enrollment I decided to actually look into how it works— and it turns out that if you apply for the higher amounts and they say no it just bumps you back down to 100k— so there’s really no reason not to apply.
So I applied for the 300k and filled out the online health questionnaire honestly— including my history of “diabetes treated with insulin” which is what their form narrowed it down to. I hit submit—- instant denial… no chance any actual human being laid eyes on it whatsoever just an instant denial by the computer because of “diabetes treated with insulin”
Really no moral to the story just an update to the diabetes life insurance saga
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Gah! Not like there might be PWDs out there with excellent D management…sigh…
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Unfortunately group plans just don’t work that way wheras individual plans can… the group negotiates a lower rate in exchange for a basket of policies without any individual underwriting necessary… which means no individual assessments of any meaningful extent… just “red flag = denial” basically
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I applied for life insurance years ago and was denied due to D. I’ve not tried since but it sounds like nothing has changed. 
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I carry a fair bit of it… it’s expensive to get a policy with D but it’s available… but in my experience going down the “instant approval” etc etc road is a lost cause… your application will need to be pretty thoroughly individually evaluated by a legit insurance co
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This just popped up again in my feed because someone added a like…
Given the health complexities at work here now in our world I’d encourage everyone more than ever to get their insurance up to speed before the actuarial tables adjust accordingly for the current state of affairs in the world…
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