How much is Your Life Worth?
If there is one extremely important asset that you have which is almost impossible to attach a dollar value to, it is your life. How do you determine what your life is worth to those who love you and would miss you after your death? Unfortunately, you can’t.
Defining Your Value
There is no way to find a concrete number that define your value to your beneficiaries. Instead of attempting to do so, you are better off deciding what their financial needs will be after your death and determining how much you can afford to contribute to them through the life insurance death benefit you provide.
When you get a life insurance quote you must consider debt, salary replacement, retirement needs, tuition costs, and the legacy that you want to provide for your family. These needs may be financial needs that you can anticipate now, or those that you could never have anticipated but provided for through death benefit that was given which exceeded the immediate income needs of your family after your death.
Lastly, remember that it is up to your family to decide how your life insurance death benefit will be spent after your death unless you have it in a trust with specified instructions for distributions. That means that you must involve your family in the death benefit planning process so that they can have a say in how much death benefit you leave and what it should (and should not) be utilized for.
Make Buying Life Insurance Easier
Once you start looking at your life insurance policy as a resource to your family after your death instead of an attempt to assign a value to your life, you will find that it is much easier to decide what an appropriate amount of death benefit is.
June 22, 2010
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Tags: death benefit, life, Life Insurance
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