I treasure my $16 life insurance policy

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Here’s what: I had life insurance when I needed it most

I had about 40 hours of work with my son when I had a very high fever. Apparently it wasn’t normal and I suddenly needed a lot of monitoring and medication. The fever was accompanied by other frightening symptoms, such as debilitating nausea and near total loss of my voice.

I was quite uncomfortable and could barely speak above a whisper, but I called my husband close to him to give him a message: there is life insurance; don’t forget if something happens to me.

I reminded him where I keep our police documents and how to access our savings and retirement funds. I was lucid when it came to our money; I had to make sure he knew the plan.

Luckily I survived it all (although I never found out what was causing the fever and other symptoms). But in those terrifying times, when I felt like I was nearing the end of my life, a small saving grace was knowing that I would put the right protections in place to take care of my family financially if the unthinkable happened. .

I took out a policy large enough to cover our mortgage

A year earlier, my husband and I had bought our first house, and right away I took out a life insurance policy that was worth a little more than our mortgage. If I died, I thought, my husband could use the money to pay for our house, then have something to live on while he cried and figured out what to do next.

I didn’t expect to think about it just 12 months later, but such is life.

My $250,000 20-year term life insurance policy from Bestow costs me $16.25 a month. If I weren’t an obsessive bank account checker, I would never notice the automatic payment leaving my account; it’s painless. But in this very dark moment during my work, it was a light.

These days, I’m preaching the gospel of life insurance to anyone who will listen. I’m 35, so it’s a real mixed bag among my friends – some have had coverage for years, while others have never thought of it.

For people in privileged positions like mine – earning good salaries, with healthy retirement savings accounts – I think term life is indeed a good option. It’s affordable for me and it will cover my family for the next two decades while our son grows and we pay off our house.

By the time I hit 50, when the policy expires, we’ll be in the last decade of our 30-year mortgage, and hopefully we’ll have more than enough savings and investments to cover the house. if anything happens to any of us.

For others, permanent life insurance is a better option. It’s more expensive, but many types of permanent insurance have a cash value component, which can be a retirement nest egg or a generational wealth-building tool.

Whatever your situation, life insurance is a good idea for most people. It’s the only thing in my budget that I’m happy to pay for and hope I never have to use.

— Stephanie Hallett, editor of Personal Finance Insider

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My wife and I have no debt and no children, but we are happy to pay about $80 a month for life insurance to protect each other.

A lot of people would look at Joseph Lalonde and his wife and say they’re wasting money on life insurance, but they don’t see it that way.