J and I have been seeking the counsel of a talented financial planner, who has so many letters behind his name I’m baffled at how it all fits onto a business card. I had to look up most of these CFP, CHFC, CLU, CLTC just to be sure we weren’t doing anything illegal.
We’ve discussed allocation of our IRA, 401(k), TSP, and all sort of sundry other acronym laden terms for savings. Today we met to talk about our check list of things we need to do to ensure our financial security if one of us were to predecease the other. Its a morbid topic to be sure. This is where the insurance conversation kicked in. We’ve already bought an Umbrella Policy (never knew what it was or why one would need such a thing…but we have one) that covers the house and car. Ironically, by consolidating insurance policies, we actually saved money and adding the umbrella policy paid for itself. Sweet!
Today we began the process of having an underwriter asses our insurability for life insurance. Life insurance strikes me as a bet against yourself. You’re betting a company that you’ll die before the policy expires. If you win, you’re dead but your beneficiaries receive the payout of the insurance policy, or bet. I don’t believe that any of us ever expect that we won’t live forever and I’ve managed to somehow take care of my own affairs fairly well, so if the love of my life, my partner were to somehow die before me, I’d be terribly sad and lonely, but I think I’d be okay financially. That’s assuming that the situation we’re in now is the “forever” situation. That we don’t actually decide to act on the inkling that we could run off and live on a deserted island in the Caribbean or something fun like that.
On top of all of that, there are so many types of insurance. Prudential lists just a few on their site. Discussing this and the potential for long-term care insurance just sucks the youth right out of my pores. It feels so old, so responsible, so adult, so pre-meditated. If I were to flip that scenario, maybe it seems very forward looking so that we’re not discussing this after my first heart attack and bout of melanoma (see previous posts on forgetting to wear sunscreen) when getting life insurance would be much more difficult and expensive. Naming beneficiaries is also a strange thing to do. J is my primary and G and A are the back up. Hopefully if I were to kick off, maybe they could use the money to pay for college, a trip to Europe or to open G’s first restaurant.
J is correct in assessing that what we would pay in insurance premiums could be put into an interest bearing account and grow over the same 20 years and probably be just fine for fulfilling any financial needs.
On our check list is an item that reads: “Meet with an estate-planning attorney to draft wills, advance directives, and powers of attorney and other documents.” I’ve thought about this one and besides the dog, I’m not really sure what assets I own that would be worth mentioning in a will. I have thought about who would be appropriate to name as a guardian for Toby if I weren’t around. Not exactly like naming a guardian for your child but somewhat thought provoking nonetheless.
With all this adult talk and such, I think I’ll go look for gray hairs, make myself a warm glass of milk and have an early dinner. Toodles!
