Usually term life insurance is purchased for the protection of the family. It is purchased with the idea that in the event of your death, your spouse and children will be financially secure and able to continue with their way of life from a financial view point. It also enables your family to pay for your burial and funeral expenses as well as pay off all other debts incurred by you while you were living (such debts are passed on to surviving spouses).
Although term life insurance is typically purchased as financial protection and to pay off debts, there are also several other reasons people might decide to take out term life. These days dependents are not strictly thought of as one’s children. Dependents can stretch out to include parents, in-laws and other extended family. With the pressures of high costs of living and expensive housing, it is now a common way of life to have multiple families and multiple generations living together under one roof.
Children
Of course, the children of policy holders are usually the dependents for whom term life insurance policies are purchased. The face value as well as the period for which you want to be insured is dependent on the age of your children. If your children are quite young, then you would want to take out enough insurance to ensure your spouse is able to continue taking care of them alone — especially if your spouse is unable to work outside the home. Additionally, you would want a sufficient face value to your policy so that college expenses will be covered should your children decide to attend school.
If your children are older, you may reduce your term life insurance to a shorter period but still want some coverage to use in case you die prematurely before you children are completely independent financially. These monies dispersed upon your death can possibly pay for your child’s wedding, first car or even help them purchase their own home one day. To be sure, term life insurance policies are also viewed as a gift” to leave as an inheritance for your children. They are your legacy and should be taken care of.
Elder or Disabled Care
As the burdens of today’s high cost of living and unaffordable housing seems to keep increasing, it is more common to have multiple families or multiple generations of extended family all living under one roof. With this practice growing, it seems that more of us also become financially responsible for our parents, in-laws or even grandparents. Senior centers are not always an affordable option and so, many families have elders of the family living with them. Usually, when it gets to the point of parents or grandparents living with us they are no longer able to care for themselves 100%. Perhaps they are disabled in some way or perhaps they are on constant medication and need to be monitored. Perhaps our parents are simply too old and weak. In any case, this is another situation where it would be a good idea to buy extra Term life insurance. In the unlikely event that you pass away before your elderly or disabled dependents, it would be a good idea to leave enough money for them to be able to hire caretakers or to be able to pay to live in a senior center with full-time care.
Call a qualified insurance agent for help in determining what kind of term life insurance policy would benefit your needs and for current policy rates. You can also contact carriers online and get an online quote within minutes. For cheap term life that you would take out to cover extra dependents, you may even purchase a plan that requires no medical exam.