Waiting Too Long to Buy Life Insurance: The Pitfalls

There are numerous reasons that may be prompting you to buy life insurance. These may include:

• Recently getting married
• Having a new baby
• Taking on significant debt, such as buying a house that your loved ones wouldn't be able to afford if something were to happen to you
• You've personally seen the negative financial impact a death has had on the surviving family

Waiting to Buy Life Insurance

While there are many reasons to buy life insurance, there are just as many reasons that may be holding you back from taking the action needed. Perhaps you think you're too young and healthy to need life insurance or, at the other end, you think you're too old to need it. Maybe you think it's too expensive to get coverage or you think you don't need it because you don't have children.

These are all common excuses people find for not buying life insurance. And there are more – I smoke, my health isn't good, I don't work outside the home, I don't know what kind of or how much coverage I need. There are convincing counter-arguments to each of the excuses mentioned, but that's information for another blog. The purpose of this piece is to discuss the pitfalls of waiting too long to buy life insurance, whatever your reasons may be.

Waiting Too Long

The best time to buy life insurance will vary from one person to another, dependent upon your family and financial situations. Generally speaking, you need life insurance if there are people who depend on your income to maintain their current standard of living or if you have debts that your survivors will have to pay off. Add to that the cost of burial, which your loved ones will also have to deal with.

When buying life insurance, younger is better. At a younger age, you'll be subject to lower premiums. As you get older, premiums will rise in cost and there's also a chance that you could develop health problems that will either make your insurance more expensive, more difficult to obtain or disqualify you from getting coverage altogether.

Unfortunately, younger people who are faced with mortgages, student loan debt, credit card debt and car payments will often put off buying life insurance. This can have a huge financial impact, similar to putting off saving for retirement. Sooner is better!