Preparing for Parenthood with Life Insurance
/We’re having a baby so so soon! Along with reading all the parenting books, prepping a nursery, finding the perfect diaper bag, and picking a name, we also made it a priority to create security for baby and for us with term life insurance.
This post is sponsored by Haven Life Insurance Agency. All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that keep the blogging lights on.
Ross and I are big planners that like to be prepared for whatever may come. We like to save funds for a rainy day, we have an emergency evacuation bin well-stocked, and we keep a hefty supply of our favorite ice creams in the freezer in case of a frozen confection catastrophe.
But, we procrastinated on getting term life insurance for years. It was always something we felt we should have but never got. Probably for all of the reasons many folks don’t have life insurance - it’s not fun talking about your partner dying, and even the idea of getting started researching life insurance can feel overwhelming.
But, I’m happy to say we got term life insurance through Haven Life and I genuinely can’t get over how easy it was, how economical it is, and how much peace of mind we now have!
Wedding photo by Stacy Keck
Let’s back up a bit. What is term life insurance and how does it work?
Term life insurance is a simple, affordable type of life insurance that covers your family for a set period of time — typically available in 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30-year term lengths. With term life coverage, if you were to die during the term period, your beneficiary receives a payout (called a death benefit) that provides a financial safety net when your family needs it most. Term life insurance policies offered by Haven Life offer guaranteed level premiums. This means your monthly rate is locked in and will not change for the length of the term. If your monthly premium payment for a 20-year term policy is $18 when you sign up, then it will be $18 next month, next year and so on for 20 years. In general, term life insurance aims to provide a simple-to-understand and budget friendly way to protect the people you love. Which, coincidentally, makes it a great choice for families.
Haven Life does a great job of breaking down what insurance is, what it covers, and how it works. You can learn more about term life insurance here.
Having term life insurance means that if one of us died, the other one and our child would have a financial safety net in place. The loss would be dreadful, but we would be able to cover expenses like our mortgage, bills, and childcare during the transition to an adjusted life.
We had always talked about how life insurance was something we should consider. But this past year of the pandemic was an unfortunate reminder of just how fragile our health is. This paired with the excitement of welcoming a new human and the new-parent protectiveness kicking in, we knew that now was the right time to finally get life insurance.
We originally talked about term life insurance only for Ross because he’s been the primary breadwinner in our family. Without his income, I would struggle to pay our expenses and wouldn’t be able to stay in our home if he died. The loss of my partner would be devastating enough, but losing my home, displacing my family, and dealing with moving would be so burdensome during such a painful time. Term life insurance will help provide the finances for me and our daughter to stay in our home and reduce disruptions. Getting this coverage is a no-brainer for us.
There was a time when we considered not buying term life insurance for me because my income working at a non-profit wasn’t affecting our day-to-day life much with the low salary. But now, having a baby in the mix means that without my improved income and without my support as a caregiver, Ross would have to work harder to pay for unexpected childcare and match my income. (A stay-at-home-parent provides value that's equivalent to a salary of over $162,000!) Ross would have to travel a lot for work which is counterproductive to our goals of being a tight-knit family unit - especially after the loss of a parent. We decided that the best thing either of us could do in the event of one of our passings is to be incredibly available to our child(ren). And to do that, we’d need term life insurance to give us the financial freedom to take time off work for a length of time.
There are many ways to identify the financial needs for your family - mortgage owed, dependants, income, debt, number of kids, college expenses, age of adults and kids, etc. So it takes time and care to decide which coverage is right for your family's needs and decide if both partners need coverage. It isn’t enjoyable discussing what life would be without your favorite person, so I recommend taking your time with it, but I highly recommend thinking ahead - do it for your loved ones.
After you’ve thought through coverage amounts and terms needed, head to Haven Life where they make calculating, applying for, and receiving coverage so so simple.
Photo by Kate Bauer
I’m sure you’ve dealt with insurance reps or salespeople that are insanely difficult to work with - spending hours trying to get ahold of the right person, waiting for them to respond to your email, getting a phone call instead, missing their call, calling them back, waiting another week to get a response, re-writing the same questions you asked before, getting a long PDF with a bunch of numbers unrelated to your needs, asking them more questions, not getting all the answers, then re-asking the same questions again only to realize it’s been 3 months and you haven’t gotten anywhere. Or, is that just me? It can’t be just me. It’s so infuriating.
In 2021, there’s no reason insurance should be so challenging to buy! And this is one of the many reasons we hadn’t gotten life insurance in the seven years of our marriage. But, we finally got term life insurance through Haven Life and I cannot express how easy it was! Both of us went through the online process of first getting a free quote in under 60 seconds then applying for coverage, even from the comfort of our couch. You may need to do an additional medical exam (which I was prepared to do as pregnancy can trigger this) but I was approved for my coverage within a couple of days without the health screening.
Ross, also, was waived of having to take a medical exam during his application so he merely filled out an online form and then instantly received an offer for coverage. Guess how long it took him from start to finish. Go ahead and guess how long it took him to complete a questionnaire that would set me and our child up for financial security in the event of his passing. The answer is it took less than one episode of a favorite TV show from start to finish to fill out a comprehensive form to get instantly approved and have his coverage start that very day! Just a few minutes of time for peace of mind for years and years to come.
Above is a screenshot of my coverage that I got through Haven Life. I have a $500,000 policy that lasts for 20 years (until I’m 52-years-old and the monthly premium never changes) and it costs me $18.16/mo. It’s something we hope Ross never needs, but a pretty minimal amount of money to spend to know that in the event of the unthinkable, he has a financial cushion of $500k to support himself and our child. I mean, my life insurance policy’s monthly cost is the cost of a pizza per month.
You can see in the image above how the rate can change depending on the term or the coverage. I can’t stress enough how easy navigating the pricing is. To get an estimate for your coverage, click here to take 60 seconds to get a rough idea of your policy pricing. You’ll get a firm number once you finish the short application, and then you can change it with the widget shown above before you lock in your rate.
In addition to buying term life insurance through Haven Life, we also get the perk of Haven Life Plus which is a rider that includes a no-cost digital will for me and Ross. It was great having Trust & Will draft up a legal document based on our answers to a simple online questionnaire. This was particularly handy because the hospital asked me to include my living will in my maternity pre-admission paperwork. Again, I hope they never need to reference these documents, but I feel good knowing my provider knows my wishes in the event something goes wrong during delivery.
We now each have term life insurance, an advance healthcare directive, and a legal will. What peace of mind! If you’re looking for life insurance coverage, I encourage you to check their blog to learn more about getting coverage and how it all works. They use easy-to-understand language and lay it all out for you.
This post is sponsored by Haven Life Insurance Agency. All opinions are my own.
Haven Term is a Term Life Insurance Policy (ICC21 Haven Term in certain states, including NC) issued by C.M. Life Insurance Company (C.M. Life), Enfield, CT 06082. In New York (DTC-NY), California (DTC-CA), and other states it is issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), Springfield, MA 01111-0001.
Haven Life Plus (Plus) is the marketing name for the Plus Rider which is included as part of the Haven Term policy. The rider is not available in every state and is subject to change at any time. Neither Haven Life nor MassMutual are responsible for the provision of the benefits and services made accessible under the Plus Rider, which are provided by third party vendors (partners).
