These are some of the most common concerns about life insurance. And life insurance—an insurance policy that pays a sum of money upon the death of an insured person or after a specified period—may or may not be right for everyone. But either way, it’s important to know it’s an option. For employers, there’s an opportunity to provide this valuable benefit to your employees at little to no cost to your business.
Combined Insurance offers life insurance as part of our supplemental benefits packages. We can partner with you to define the right suite of solutions for your employees—including educating them about why they might need life insurance, or even why it might not be right for them right now.
To get started, here’s a little more background on the current life insurance landscape, and how important of a tool it can be to help protect your employees and their families (and you, too!).
Customer education and insurance gaps
It’s not fun to think about, but if a family’s bread winner passed away, a little over 1/3 of households would feel the effects in one month.1
A 2018 New York Life Study showed that 90% of millennials say they don’t have the life insurance coverage they need. Their gap is 60% higher than the general population’s gap, covering only 20% of their self-reported coverage needs.2 The general population has better coverage, but they’re still only covering an average of 49% of their coverage needs.1
Why the gaps? One reason millennials are lacking adequate coverage could be because they’re more focused on paying on their student loans. This generation has one of the highest student loan balances compared to other generations.3 Another reason could just be lack of understanding or knowledge of the role of life insurance in financial planning, as well as competing priorities such as saving for their children’s educations and their own retirement. A general lack of understanding about the different types of insurance products and how they work is resulting in a whole generation of under-insured people.1
This puts business owners in a strong position to help bridge the gap, both from a knowledge and awareness perspective, but also to make the products more accessible. Including it as part of your employee benefits helps remove barriers and gives more people access to protection. Whether you’re a millennial or not, that can make a long-lasting impact on people’s lives.
Our agents take pride in helping customers make good choices, and that includes helping your employees do the same. They recognize that each customer has unique needs and life circumstances. They realize that not everyone needs life insurance, but often share stories about how many people were grateful they had it.
While it’s always advisable for anyone to discuss their unique needs with a qualified life insurance agent, here’s the bottom line on who should consider coverage and what the various options entail.
Do you need it?
If you have dependents, life insurance likely makes sense for you. Securing a policy gives peace of mind that, should you need it, the coverage will be there to help your family members maintain their quality of lives after you’re gone. It also allows you to guarantee your insurability, as long as you continue to pay your premiums. Starting young means you may pay a lower rate, but you’ll also pay more premiums over time.
For those without dependents, or whose children are old enough to care for themselves, life insurance may not be needed. Or, if you and your spouse have earned and saved enough to provide for yourselves in the event one of you passes away, you may not need to purchase life insurance. Just like you don’t need car insurance when you stop driving, eventually, some people outlive their need for life insurance, too.
We offer multiple customizable solutions for employers, all of which offer life insurance options. No matter which one you might choose, there are two main types of life insurance available: term and whole life or permanent.
Term life is the simplest and most common, paying a benefit should the death of policyholder occur during the term of the policy. Terms can range from one to 30 years and rarely include other benefit provisions. Level term policies have the same death benefit at any point during the term, while decreasing term policies decrease, usually annually, over the life of the term.
Whole life or permanent insurance lasts your entire life, no matter how long you live. The cost per $1000 of benefit amount increases as the policyholder ages. In order to offset later in life costs, younger policyholders overpay premium amounts early in their policies. Overpaid funds must be refundable should the policy be cancelled before it’s used.
