For those of you who think that life insurance isn't important, or that you can "do it tomorrow", I have a tale to tell.
I have to preface this by telling you that in August of 1983, my family took a vacation. We went to visit my aunt who at that time was living in Connecticut. My mother is a severe believer in adequate life insurance protection, and my parents were at that time seriously underinsured, should something happen to one or the other.
Now, my father was a mechanical engineer working up in Greenland, and he would be gone for 3+ months at a time. So my mom literally nagged my father about getting a life insurance policy that was more suitable before we went on vacation, because almost as soon as we returned from this vacation, he would be returning to work.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My father was an unbelievable procrastinator (as am I), and was quite happy to put it off for another God knows how many years. But my tenacious mother wouldn't have it. She dragged him to the office of their insurance agent, and they got much better coverage.
Approximately 4 weeks after we returned from our vacation, my father went back to work. Two weeks after my father returned to work, we received a phone call at 4:20 am on the morning of October 21st 1983. It was my father¡¯s place of work. He had apparently gone missing. It was below freezing temperatures in Greenland (as usual), and the site boss had noticed that my father did not return from clearing a runway in a crane type-thing that he had been using to clear snow.
To make a long story short, my father died in a workplace accident, six weeks after my mother made him take out a more appropriate life insurance policy. If it weren¡¯t for my mother¡¯s "Get it now" ways, who knows what would have become of us? Because she insisted on my father getting a more appropriate insurance policy, we were financially taken care of when he died. We didn¡¯t lose our house or go hungry for lack of funds.
I'm thankful every day for my mother's intuition. I just purchased a new home, and needed more insurance coverage for the additional value of the house. As my mom is living with my children and I now, she insisted that I get better insurance coverage in case something should happen to me. At least my children won't have to leave their home, or be concerned about money. So it's done. I called my insurance agent, and we remedied my insurance situation. I sleep much easier now. And so does my mom.
Don't put it off. Make sure that you have enough insurance coverage for your family.
