Figuring out life as an adult often requires some un-learning (or re-learning) of things we thought we knew. As my husband and I researched our insurance options last year, we were surprised to learn which kind of coverage we actually needed to best manage our risk.
Your needs might vary from ours, but we thought showing you what we learned in the process might help you reevaluate your coverage, too.
Our journey to figuring all this out began in the last couple of years, as we bought our first house, got serious about debt-free living, and realized the need to be realistically prepared for the worst. It’s the kind of stuff I hate to even think about (we still need to get that will written up—cringe), but it’s just all part of growing up.
Life insurance
Our biggest lessons have come from life insurance. We were amazed to find that with better coverage, we’re now actually paying less to be worth more when we die.
In the recent past, we basically just let our agent figure out our needs; we didn’t really understand the coverage options ourselves. After a little research, and with help from the insurance section of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, we made a few simple changes that have a big impact.
Before:
- only David (my husband) was insured
- he had term coverage for three times his income
- we had a return of premium
After
- both of us are covered with separate policies
- we have term coverage for eight times his income
- there’s no return of premium
Adding a policy for me. This first change might be obvious to you—we knew if something happened to him, I would need his life insurance coverage since we live off his income alone. But we didn’t initially think about what it would cost him to raise our kids without me (since I stay at home with the kids). We needed a policy for me, too.
Higher coverage. After really looking at the numbers, we realized that three times his income wouldn’t actually be enough, especially after we bought a house. It wouldn’t even have covered our mortgage!
Return of premium is a gimmick. It sounds good—you get your money back if you don’t die at the end of a set time frame. But the truth is, you could be saving (or investing!) that money you’re spending to have that “feature” instead.
So here we are, paying $5 less per month for David to have higher coverage, plus adding a policy for me for a reasonable premium. Sounds good to us!
A few more of our insurance lessons learned
For the car:
Make sure you have a high uninsured motorist policy. My parents and I learned this lesson the hard way when I was in an accident with an uninsured driver years ago.
For the home:
If you have an HOA, study their insurance policy to see what they cover, as that’s one less thing you need to have covered on your policy.
Bundle discount:
We have all our policies—life for both of us, home owners’, earthquake (we’re in California), and car—all through the same company. This provides decent discounts.
So much so that when we got a quote from an ELP provider (a reliable provider endorsed by Dave Ramsey’s team), the agent honestly told us that they couldn’t match our insurance rate because of the bundle—and that we should stick with the company we had.
And it’s certainly simpler to talk to someone about each of our policies at one place.
Insurance is confusing, so we’re finding it’s one of those things that’s worth taking more time to learn well (we’re grownups, right?). We’re able to simplify things and get more for our money just by wading through the gimmicks and mumbo-jumbo with a little sound advice.
If you need quotes from reputable, trustworthy providers—and you’d like to see how they match with what you already have—you might find Endorsed Local Providers to be a great starting place.
This post is sponsored by Dave Ramsey’s Endorsed Local Providers.
