MostlyGeek

Today on Get Rich Slowly there is a very good guest post about insurance. I’m sure a lot of people don’t think about insurance enough, especially a lot of young adults. It is a rather boring subject and not that interesting to discuss.

It is one of those essential must knows on the path to becoming a responsible adult. In fact, if you have kids, a mortgage, a spouse or anybody that depends on you it is just negligent not to have insurance.

I thought the best advice from the article is a section about choosing the right balance of insurance to match your needs. It is appropriately entitled, Pick your poison:

Everyone has unique insurance needs. These are my own family’s experiences. If I had two cars again, I’d buy a used one and carry liability based on it. If I were a single woman with no kids, I would probably rent or own a small condo, and have only enough life insurance to pay for my funeral and settle my estate so my mom wouldn’t have to do it for me. If we didn’t have dependent children, I wouldn’t have as much life or health insurance coverage as I do. When we’re older and have more money in retirement, we’ll carry less insurance.

None of this stuff is fun to think about. But it’s a simple and unavoidable fact that we all die.

You may die from a car accident, a work accident, cancer, heart attack, infectious disease, or just old age. Most of the time, you don’t get to chose when or how you check out. You also don’t get to choose whether or not you or your children will get seriously ill. I’ve known lots of healthy people who’ve lived well and still gotten cancer, and I know great parents whose children have died from brain tumors, leukemia, and heart disease. You can control what you eat and whether you exercise, and that will mitigate your risk, but it doesn’t eliminate it.

I think the trick is to choose all of your insurance coverage options carefully based on where you are in life today, and who would be impacted if you were hurt, fell ill, or died. But do not forget to update your coverage based on your own needs and circumstances as you move forward and experience changes. Sometimes you will need more; sometimes you will need less.