One sad Day!

You know this business is great!  Everyday I get to help people protect themselves from disaster.  Insurance is there to stop a loss from being total.  Everyone wants maximum coverage for the minimum premium but, in general we all know that insurance is a necessary part of life that will someday help us out.  However, one type of policy is more important than any other. 

Here's a quick story about a man named William Pettry, who flew to Jacksonville Florida Friday, October 5th to watch his favorite team play, the Bears.  That Sunday at a local bar in Jacksonville William was murdered in an unthinkable way.  He was stabbed to death right in the middle of the bar.  Now they caught the guy right away and have a confession but that won't help Mrs. Pettry.

You see William leaves behind a wife and three young children and no income.  Mrs. Pettry will struggle to pay the funeral costs but that is just he beginning because William's contractor business will not continue to make money without him there and they had no life insurance on William.  Mrs. Pettry is a stay at home mom that takes care of 3 young kids, so now she has to leave her kids, get a job, and pay child care to make ends meet, because he husband's income will no longer be there.  Not only will he not be there to see his kids grow up, take them to the doctor, play baseball with them, hug his wife when she has had a bad day, fix the toilet, and all the other things he did but his current and future income is all gone!

If William had just spent a couple of dollars a day on a term life policy, his family would not have to worry where next week's mortgage payment was coming from.  Don't put your family in this position!  Life insurance is cheap!  It's important! and you need to get some!  Call an agent that you trust and buy a policy today! 

J

Ask me for a quote!

Can you really name your own price on auto insurance?

So the lady in the strange white room says "tell us what you want to pay, and we'll design a policy to fit."  Wow, does that sound crazy to anyone else?  Can I really just tell the insurance company want I want to pay and they'll give me the coverage I need to fit that price?  Well then sign me up and I'll pay $1 a year!

Of course this idea is just a sales gimmick that is kind of dangerous.  Young people with little experience will hear that message and think that it is true.  They'll call in and name their own price and end up with the state minimum (which is no where near enough) coverage.

Liability covers the other driver if you cause an accident or it is deemed to be your responsibility.  So if you slide through a red light on icy roads this winter and hit another driver causing them bodily injury, it is your liability insurance that will cover their injuries.  If you don't have enough to cover their injuries they can sue you for the rest.  The average cost for just for a broken leg is over $8,000 if it were serious enough to have to be air-evaced to a bigger hospital the bill for the chopper ride could be $15,000 to $20,000 with out the original ER visit or the bill from the hospital that you are being flown to. 

So the point is ... you need liability limits of at least 100,000 per person for bodily injury, and that is what I would consider the bare minimum.  You need to let your insurance agent know what your assets are and you income so they can provide you with the best advice about how much liability to have on your vehicles. 

Oh and NO ... you can't name your own price, that's just silly!

What's the Cheapest Life Insurance?

I hear this question a lot, and it is a easy question to answer.  It's the life insurance that you buy when you are young, healthy and don't need it.  So what do you do if you've let the years slip by and find yourself in need of a policy to protect your family?  I'll give you the short and simple answer.

Straight annual renewable term, which renews automatically each year and is based on your age.  But if you are getting up there in age this quickly becomes too expensive.  This type of term is the cheapest if you are talking about right now.

Traditional whole life which builds cash value and eventually begins paying it's own premiums when purchased for a young person will be the cheapest when they are older because the cost never goes up and it will have value to use later.

But my favorite cheap life insurance is the FREE kind!  It's called Return of Premium term.  The name says it all, it is a term policy that lasts for 20 or 30 years and if you die during that time your heirs get the death benefit but if you live (which most are hoping to do) you get all your premium back (tax free).

Why doesn't everyone buy this option, you ask?  Well some financial experts (the next statement makes this sound funny) suggest it is smarter to buy the slightly less expensive term policy and invest the difference between the two.  Hhhhhmmmm?!?!?!?  Sounds good except you are not guaranteed to even make back what you invest let alone enough to pay for the life insurance and still come out ahead.  Why not buy the Return of Premium policy and in 20 years have a lump sum to invest (guaranteed) and have protected your family all along the way?

So, what's the cheapest life insurance? Free!

J