Life Insurance
How much life insurance do you need?
Come to your own conclusions about your life insurance needs by entering your data into this simple and quick life insurance needs calculator below. You can be assured that your data entered here is private and will not be saved or stored by Lakeland or by any third party data collection firms, nor will entering your data into this calculator create unwanted solicitations from advertisers. This calculator is your safe and secure way to instantly determine your life insurance needs. It is made available here through Lakeland Insurance Services, LLC via LifeHappens®, a non-profit organization.
Who Needs Life Insurance?
Ask yourself this simple question … Will someone in my life be adversely effected (from a financial/economic standpoint) by my untimely death? If the answer is “yes” then you need to consider owning life insurance:
Newlyweds
If you are recently married, life insurance can protect your spouse financially from personal liability and/or hardship for any debts (credit cards, student loans, car payments, etc.) you have accumulated. Further, life insurance can provide funds necessary for your spouse to pay funeral expenses, meet monthly rental/mortgage payments, and/or continue with any higher education ambitions they may still be achieving.
New home owners
Mortgaging a house is clearly one of life’s biggest financial purchases. Mortgage protection insurance is life insurance offered through banks/financial institutions specifically meant to pay off your family's mortgage if you pass away. Insurance proceeds from mortgage protection insurance can help your family to keep their home, even when they've lost your income. Mortgage protection insurance is typically term life coverage, which matches the term of the mortgage loan. New home owners need to consider having life insurance protection, but be careful to properly assess your complete life insurance needs and costs, and consult an experienced life insurance agent before purchasing this type of insurance protection.
Parents of newborns/young children
If you have kids and you don’t have life insurance, your entire family is at risk financially if you, your spouse, or both of you should die unexpectedly. Think clearly about the positive financial impact you will have during your children’s growing years. And then think in terms of how your loss of life, and the economic impact it would have, could suddenly face your children. Life insurance buys time … time for your surviving spouse and children to adjust … time away from work to think, to plan, and to adjust. And life insurance buys their financial peace of mind when your income is suddenly stopped.
Marriage partners with children/established households
Established households are typically reliant upon two incomes to meet the monthly bill obligations and sustain lifestyles. If one income is lost prematurely due to the death of a partner, how dramatically will the lifestyle of the surviving partner be impacted? Life insurance can assure that your marriage partner can sustain their present lifestyle without experiencing sudden and dramatic financial crisis. Further, life insurance can pay funeral expenses, can provide replacement income necessary for them to take bereavement time away from work, can provide necessary cash to promptly settle debts, and can help to reduce monthly budget loads already present from the mutually shared lifestyle.
Prodigious accumulators of wealth
If you have been blessed with high levels of wealth accumulation, life insurance becomes an important financial tool. Both small estates and larger family estates with more assets than the amount of the applicable exclusion ($2 million per person per estate presently) should utilize life insurance as an essential component of the estate plan. Life insurance has many uses in an estate plan, including estate liquidity, debt repayment, income replacement and wealth accumulation, and large estates have more advanced life insurance needs, such as Revocable/Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts, First-to-Die Life, Survivorship Life, etc.
Grandparents/Seniors
Life insurance can play a critical role for grandparent/seniors. Whether to help settle your remaining debts, including final expenses for funeral costs, or to create a meaningful legacy for helping pay for your grandchildren’s college costs, or to fund a source of “living benefits” available for nursing care through life insurance with accelerated benefits for convalescent care, life insurance has an important role to play for grandparents/seniors.
Business Owner(s)/Partners
If you own a business or are a partner within a business, several life insurance needs exist, including: business debt settlement, business continuation, key person coverage, deriving fair value for the family member beneficiaries of a deceased business owner/partner’s share of a business, attracting and retaining top business talent, creating alternative sources of tax-advantaged retirement funding sources, and more.
Click here to learn more about life insurance for business applications.
Can’t I wait to buy life insurance?
Don’t wait to buy life insurance. Too many people wait until they suddenly have a serious health condition, are no longer insurable or are insurable only at less advantageous rate classifications. Consider, too, that buying life insurance becomes progressively more expensive as you age. Premiums are often twice as expensive for a 40-year old versus a 30-year-old, as an example. Don’t delay, get started on your insurance program today …
Why Lakeland for your life insurance needs?
Mark W. Petro is an experienced agent and field underwriter dedicated to helping his clients obtain competitive life insurance offers based upon your present health circumstances. Life insurance is a necessary expense and requires careful cost considerations. Pre-existing health conditions can impede your ability to qualify for best insurance rates. Obtaining adequate life insurance coverage is an important financial commitment and one that will stay with you for many years. Mark’s wealth advisory/financial/estate planning experience and highly experienced life insurance support networks are available to help you along the way to gaining very appropriate levels of life insurance coverage at highly market competitive rates, and to help solve the advanced structural policy ownership/beneficiary considerations you may need to address.
Review the life insurance you already have
If you have an old life policy lying around, consider having it reviewed by Lakeland Insurance Services, LLC. As your life has changed over the years it may make sense to add more insurance, make additional premium payments, replace the life coverage, or to let the old policy lapse. If you have a group life insurance policy through your employer, don’t assume that it is a sufficient amount of coverage. Many group life policies offered through employers only cover up to 3 times your annual salary. While helpful to your surviving loved ones, that amount is rarely adequate to insure their financial needs. And what would happen if you were to leave the company or get fired? Would you suddenly be without life insurance?
