Why You Need Life Insurance - Andrew's Personal Story

For audio of Andrew telling his story, click here.

I’m going to tell you a very personal story about why you need life insurance. When I was going into 7^th grade, my Dad died. Obviously, it was very tragic for a 13-year-old boy to have his Dad pass away, but even more tragic is that we had almost no life insurance—when my Dad passed away, we had $50,000 in life insurance. My Mom had not worked for over 7 years, my Dad was an engineer making a decent amount of money, and we were a good, middle-class family. When he died, all we had was $50,000 of life insurance. We honestly did not know what was going to happen. My Dad had worked hard, and I went to a private school. How were we going to pay that, how were we going to pay the mortgage, college—and all we had was $50,000.

How Much Coverage You Need

I know firsthand the toil and the mess it brings to your family when you don’t have the life insurance you need to protect them in the event that the unexpected and unthinkable happens. Protect your family. You need to make sure you have life insurance. Most of the experts will tell you that you will need 10-15 times your annual income in life insurance so that your spouse can take the investment income off of that and live on it for the rest of their life. Had that happened in our situation, we wouldn’t have had to worry about where our next meal was coming from. We would’ve known there was life insurance there to take care of it. My Mom wouldn’t have had to scramble to find a job. Again, she hadn’t worked in almost 8 years and had been a stay at home Mom, and all of a sudden she needs to go find a job so that we can eat, pay the mortgage, the car payments, the school payments, pay for college—all that was slapped on her at one time unexpectedly. Don’t let that happen to your family!

It's Affordable

For as little as $10 a month, if you are in good health, you can get $100,000 or maybe $200,000 of ten year term life insurance to protect your family. A $500,000 or $1,000,000 policy is not that expense. As you get higher up in the amount of coverage at $500,000 and $1,000,000, most insurance companies have a rate reduction, so you will pay less for a million dollars than you would for two half million-dollar policies. Contact us or call us today at (423) 292-4142 to make sure your family is properly protected, so that if the unexpected and unthinkable happens, they will be able to grieve the way they need to grieve, and to be able to move on and keep the same lifestyle they have now.

If you have been declined for life insurance in the past, we can still help you! Find out more here.

Life Insurance

What You Need to Know About Life Insurance – With Andrew Darlington

Click here for the audio of Andrew explaining what you need to know about life insurance!

Life insurance is one of those things you don’t like sitting and talking about, especially with your family. It means you are going to die. No one likes to talk about that. But if you are gone, who is going to provide the income to your family that you’re providing right now? Let’s say you’re making $40,000 a year, can your wife live the way she’s living right now with your family if there’s not another $40,000 coming in? That’s the question you need to ask yourself. Life insurance is cheap. It is not very expensive at all. If you’re in good health, you can get life insurance for next to nothing, and we even have programs right now where you don’t have to give blood, step on a scale, fast, or pee in a cup—none of that. And in twenty minutes you can get preferred rates. So here’s what you need to think about: if you are gone, whatever you’re making right now, you need 10 to 15 times that in life insurance. Why? If you make 10,000 dollars a year, and you have 15 times your income in life insurance, that’s a $150,000 dollars in life insurance. Your wife can invest that money with a good financial advisor, and they will tell her to take 4 to 6% of that per year, and live on it for the rest of her life. If you have 6% of $150,000 a year, you are going to end up with right about $9,000 a year. If you were making $10,000 a year, this is going to give your wife $9,000 dollars a year, and for the most part, if we look at historical results, she should be able to take that $9,000 a year, keep up with inflation, and not have to use any of that principal. She can keep on doing what she is doing, either working or staying at home with the kids–but either way able to replace your income. That’s what life insurance is about: being able to replace lost income if someone dies. The opposite is true for your wife. If she dies, you need 15 times her annual income in life insurance. If your wife is a stay at home mom, she is worth a lot of money. She’s cooking, she’s clean, she’s driving the kids everywhere. If something happens to her, even if she is not bringing home an income, it’s going to cost you a lot of money to have someone do all those things for your family, because she’s not there. So you need to sit down to talk to your wife and find out exactly how much life insurance you need to replace your income, and how much you need on her that would replace either her income or the work she does in the house. If you are 25 years old and in good health, you can have a $100,000 ten-year term for less than $10 a month. Sit down and make sure you have enough life insurance. Most people do not have nearly enough life insurance. Statistics say about 20% of the people in America actually have the life insurance that they need to protect their family. Make sure that you’re not one of them by getting the life insurance you need. Call us today and we can help! Megan Jackson in our office does a phenomenal job helping folks with life insurance. Call her today at (423) 292-4142 and let us help you get your family protected with the life insurance you need. Also, if you have been declined for life insurance in the past, learn how we can help you get coverage!

5 Tips to Remember When Building a New Home

If you are building a new home, there is probably much on your mind. Out of all the details, plans, dreams, and projects, take some time to investigate how you can protect yourself from future insurance claims. Here are some effective ways you can reduce the number and severity of your claims later by putting in a little extra research and effort right now. Even if your house is already built, you may come away with some helpful tips.

The first thing you should be mindful of when building a new house is the potential for future water damage.

The most important thing you can do is to install a device to shut off your water automatically. As an example, this is a whole-house flow detector that is web-based – https://waterheroinc.com/guide-to-automatic-water-shut-off-valves/ – It tracks your normal water usage and will shut your water off not if it detects a leak but if it detects odd usage. So, if in the middle of the night you have an abnormal water flow, it will shut off the water to your house. Moen has a similar detector available – https://www.techhive.com/article/3321177/flo-review.html

Other sensors monitor for leaks, but they are generally not whole-house. You simply place a sensor in each spot you want to monitor. Here is a link to the LeakSmart Shut-off Valve – https://leaksmart.com/products/protect-by-leaksmart-shut-off-valve/ – and here is a review site to the top 7 automatic shutoff valves of 2019 – https://www.keepthewaterflowing.net/best-automatic-shutoff-valve-reviews/

If you have a traditional water heater, make sure it is up on something that can have a pan underneath. If you are using a tankless water heater, make sure you have sensors below it. If you use a tankless water heater you won’t need to worry so much about water claims because the chances of a bad leak are small.

Make sure you have water sensors around the leak pans on your HVAC units, especially if they are in the attic. This is a common cause of loss.

If you have a water claim with spray foam insulation, you won’t have as much damage because it does not absorb so much water. This costs more on the front-end, but for a new house you will save enough over time to offset the additional costs.

Slab basements are horrible for water claims because the water does not stop until it gets outside. If you have a basement that is unfinished and water can run down into it, you can really limit water claims.

A nice steel roof will go a long way in reducing wind claims and hail claims. Dents to steel roofs are not covered because it is not considered “damage” unless there is a hole in it. That can be an issue for people who might not like dents in their roof, but that doesn’t generally happen unless you have very large hailstones. Most steel roofs will take a good beating and not see any damage. The price is approximately 30% more expensive, but you will get 50 years out of it. You would usually not have a claim. If you get a nice one, the paint will stay true for most of the life and it gives better insulation than a traditional shingle roof due to the way they install the sheets with the insulation on the back.

By putting a little extra effort when planning or building your new house, you can save yourself from future hassle, claims, premium increases, and disaster.

If you have any questions, please call us today at (423) 292-4142 or visit our website at VeritasRM.com! Veritas Risk Management is a local, independent insurance agency serving the region of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Our friendly and professional team would love to assist you with any of your home insurance needs!