When a child is growing up, their parents leave no stone unturned to ensure their security and happiness. As the child grows into an adult, the roles are often reversed. Now, the child has to shoulder their responsibilities themselves, and often, also care for their parents and ensure their wellbeing. Eventually, the child may start a family of their own with their partner and may welcome children, creating a little world of their own. At the heart of all their efforts towards a better life lies the wish to ensure the health and safety of their loved ones.
While this is the journey of most people, there is also a simultaneous need to ensure the wellbeing of your loved ones in a future where you are no longer around for them. While one would seldom want to think about this possibility, it is one of the harsher realities of life. To prepare your family to stand strong on their own, you need to make them financially stable.
How is this financial stability to be achieved? One of the ways to do so is by buying life insurance.
Understanding Life Insurance
A life insurance plan is a way to secure your loved ones against the possibility of any unforeseen circumstances in the future. For some, it is also a way to build financial securities by the way of maturity benefits, tax benefits, and more.
But what is life insurance? At the core of it, a life insurance policy is a contract between you (the policyholder) and the insurance provider. Here, the policyholder chooses a plan that fits them the best. Choices include term life plans, whole life plans, endowment policies, ULIPs, and more. You can browse most of these plans online as well as offline.
Once the right life insurance plan is chosen, you can buy it and start paying premiums. The other side of this contract is what the insurance provider offers. Fundamentally, your nominee will be able to claim a death benefit in the event of an unfortunate situation arising. Furthermore, depending on the type of plan chosen, you may be able to claim some other benefits as well, such as maturity benefit, accidental permanent disability benefit, and more.
Once you understand what life insurance is, you can focus on understanding what your specific goals are, and which plan you may find suitable. A helpful tool to determine which plan is right for you, and how you may customise it, is an online life insurance premium calculator. It can give you estimates of the premium amount you will be required to pay based on your personal details, your desired sum assured and plan duration.
Many people wonder when the right time is to buy a life insurance plan. A common bit of advice is that ‘as soon as possible’ is when you should buy life insurance, provided you have a clear idea of what life insurance is.
Necessity of Life Insurance at Every Stage in life
If you do not have a life cover already, it is said that anytime is a good time to buy one. Start by comparing plans and using online life insurance premium calculators to see what is affordable for you.
Let’s take a look at how having a life insurance plan is important at every stage in life.
- In your 20s
Most people are at the start of their careers during their early 20s, and if all goes, are quite focused on how to excel in their work and achieve more. Their efforts are commonly directed towards creating financial stability for themselves, if not their families as well. Buying a life insurance plan may not be on your mind, but it is a good time to buy one. Not only are you offered low-cost premiums, but you are also able to lay the foundation of financial responsibility.
- In your 30s
By this time, many are looking to start settling down with their new families, i.e., their partners and probably children. You may even be thinking of getting loans to fulfil requirements such as a house or a car. It is quite natural that one of your worries be about the financial security of your loved ones, especially after you. Know that the future needs to be created today. When you buy life insurance today, you are protecting your family for the foreseeable future.
- In your 40s
Your children are now growing up. At the same time, your parents may also be getting older. Your financial responsibilities at such a time are significant. You may even be still paying off your loans. Having a life insurance plan allows you to minimise your worries about your responsibilities and be more present to enjoy the life that you may have built for yourself.
- In your 50s
You are now probably getting ready to hang up your work boots soon. However, you may still want to add more to your retirement corpus or create it if you haven’t already done so. Short-duration life insurance plans that offer a maturity benefit, such as an endowment plan, may help you do so.
- In your 60s and 70s
You may wonder about the need for life insurance at the dusk of your life. However, this is a time when you do not have any active income to live on by. Moreover, you may still want to create a financial safety net for your spouse and your children. Buy a plan that offers support to you the way you desire. You may like to choose an annuity plan with a joint life option or survivor benefit.
Getting life insurance at any point in your life may turn out to be the right choice. Ensure that you are choosing the right plan, the right sum assured, and the right duration.
