Hurricanes, Insurance, and Peace of Mind

As two massive hurricanes struck the Gulf Coast of Florida over a 12-day span, we've seen a common story reemerge after natural disasters, like it usually does. Insurance often gets attention after natural disasters because of the cost of cleanup, volume of claims, and people finding out what coverages they actually have in their policies. No one likes to talk about insurance when the need is for some future unknown. But when it comes time to submit a claim and people are forced to pay attention, it’s usually too late.

It's important to work with an insurance professional who not only knows the products that they sell, but can explain to you what your options are, the additional costs, and risks associated with electing or declining coverages. Many people in the paths of Helene and Milton found out they didn’t have flood coverage, wind damage, or many other possible causes of loss excluded from the policy. This may be on the client, and it may be on the agent.

Far too often people purchase life and long-term disability insurance with the same approach. What’s the cheapest minimum coverage I can get? When it comes to life insurance, that’s a good way to put your family in peril after you pass away. Insurance companies have a formula for calculating how much life and disability insurance you can buy and that should serve as the guideline for most families. With life insurance it’s often a lot more than most people think they should have because that amount of money sounds huge as lump sum. With disability insurance people assume they will never be permanently disabled and then find they can’t pay for their living expenses or life insurance premiums.

That same approach to life insurance becomes problematic when buying term insurance under the advice of financial entertainers like Dave Ramsey who tell you to buy term insurance just while you have kids and a mortgage. This is very short-sighted. How many people do you know who are nearing retirement age and are confident that their retirement is fully funded? According to Vanguard, the average 401k balance of people ages of 55-64 is $244,750. That’s frightening. We can help you completely avoid all of these pitfalls with properly designed whole life insurance.

We can help you build a policy that provides the short term coverage you need, permanent and always increasing death benefit protection that keeps up with inflation, provides a superior place to save larger portions of your income with zero risk and the ability to leverage, and the ability to use it as a tax-free retirement vehicle. When we talk about peace of mind, understand your property and liability insurance is a critical component of that. But more importantly, you can have the confidence that your savings can compound contractually guaranteed, tax-free, and can be used throughout your working years to save on financing costs while also deploying it for investment opportunities.