In Life Insurance, Uncategorized

Michigan Life Insurance Aareness MonthThis year marks the twelfth anniversary of Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM), an effort to raise awareness among consumers and producers about the need for life insurance. Life insurance can do some pretty amazing things for people. It can buy loved ones time to grieve. It can pay off debts and loans, providing surviving family members with the chance to move on with a clean slate. It can keep families in their homes and pre-fund a child’s college education. It can keep a family business in the family. It can provide a stream of income for a family to live on for a period of time. Life insurance can do all of these wonderful things for your family…there’s just one small catch:

You need to own life insurance.

The shaky economy has demonstrated how precarious a family’s finances can be. According to a recent study, Americans are more concerned with being able to pay their mortgage and other bills today than they were a year ago. Many say they could not be able to last a month without the breadwinner’s salary.

Now more than ever, it is vital that consumers protect their financial security. Life insurance has been providing this kind of protection to Americans for more than 200 years.

Who’s at risk? (Stats Taken from http://www.limra.com)

  • Three in ten American households (35 million) are uninsured and half say they need more life insurance.
  • More than half of Gen X and Y households – representing 30 million people – need more life insurance.
  • The middle market represents the largest segment of uninsured households, with half (36 million) admitting they need more life insurance.
  • Seven in ten women agree that life insurance is a necessity and all people should have it (only 62 percent of men believe this to be true).
  • One-third of wives own no life insurance at all – despite the fact that 7 in 10 households are dual-income households, and nearly 30 percent of wives earn more than their husbands.*
  • Why Aren’t They Buying? The top two reasons people don’t buy life insurance are: competing financial priorities or because they think they cannot afford it.
  • Interestingly, a recent LIMRA/LIFE study found that consumers overestimate the cost of life insurance by as much as three-fold.
  • Another factor — six in ten consumers don’t recall being approached to buy life insurance in the last two years.
  • Thirty-five percent of shoppers who met with a sales rep yet did not buy life insurance said their sales rep failed to follow up with them.
  • Consumers’ lack of knowledge about life insurance was keeping some shoppers from buying: Twelve percent could not decide what type or how much to buy, 10 percent were afraid to make the wrong decision, and eight percent did not know enough about life insurance.

What if you were suddenly gone and your family had to manage on their own? When was the last time you did the math to make sure your loved ones would be OK financially? Have you checked with your employer to find out what kind of life insurance benefit you have through work and whether you have the option to increase your coverage? When was the last time you had your life insurance needs reviewed by an insurance professional?

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