12 Reasons to Update Your Life Insurance Policy

A life insurance policy, like a Living Trust, needs to be reviewed and updated with important life events. What’s an important life event? These are reasons you got your life insurance policy in the first place—to protect those you love in the event something happened to you. Examples of important life events are the birth of a child, a new spouse, a new mortgage or the creation of a new living trust–especially if your intention is that the trust is the new beneficiary!

In the case of the birth of a child or a new marriage, you might want to increase your death benefit—there are new people to protect.  If big financial commitments are no longer looming–your mortgage is paid and your last child just graduated from college, you may want to look at other options.

Life insurance companies offer “conversion privileges” from current term life insurance policies to universal or whole life insurance policies that may be appropriate for you. You might also be able to expand your death benefits so they can be used while you are still living. In this case, rather than death benefits, these become life benefits.

Here are 12 common reasons to reassess and possibly adjust your life insurance policy.

1. You recently got married or divorced.
2. You have a new child or dependent.
3. You purchased a home.
4. You own, started or sold a business.
5. You plan on transferring ownership of your business during your lifetime.
6. You received an inheritance.
7. You’re planning for retirement.
8. You need to support someone with special needs or an elderly family member.
9. You need to fund higher education.
10. You experienced a change in employment or salary.
11. Your children have left your household.
12. You’ve experienced the death of a spouse or child.

Think about when you created your policy. If any of these life events has transpired since that time, and is not reflected in your policy, it’s definitely time to review and possibly update your policy.

Contact Carly Ebenstein @ CJB Insurance Services: 510.342.2670.