When was the last time you did an insurance audit for your family or business? Do you know what all is covered, and to what degree? Often, insurance is one of those pesky little details left to one person because they are the only one who really cares about it. However, that is a dangerous situation. What happens if that person is no longer in the picture? Suddenly, you would need to know about all of your coverages, what companies they are with, whether or not you are paid up, and where those physical policies happen to be.
Knowing what insurance you have is one thing. Knowing what insurance you need is quite another. How much life insurance do you need for yourself and each of your family members? Health insurance is even trickier.
The one thing you can be sure of is that some coverage is better than no coverage. When people are uninsured, the negative effects are compounded. Just look at the uninsured rate by state and notice the overlap with COVID cases. A bad situation is made worse. This is true even at the individual level. That is just one of the reasons why having insurance of some kind is so important. Here are a few others:
Senior Care
Unfortunately, a lot of seniors end up in nursing homes because their health failed them as they got older. Most often the determining factor for the quality of nursing home where one lands is down to the quality of insurance they have prior to needing to go to the nursing home. In the US, nursing homes are neither free nor cheap. That is true of the lower tier facilities. The premier locations can be prohibitively expensive. There are a lot of factors that go into running a successful nursing home. All of those factors cost a lot of money.
There is special insurance you can buy for senior care considerations such as nursing homes. End of life expenses are astronomical. If you want all of the high-end services that can be afforded a senior with failing health, you have to get the insurance when you are not a senior, and when your health is not failing. One of the most common misconceptions about insurance is that it is a discount service for healthcare. That is not true. You are insured against the unknown, not against the known. If your health has already failed, you will have a hard time finding coverage that won't bankrupt you. Get the insurance when it is easy and cheap and you will have it when things are difficult.
Reliable Transportation
How do you feel about riding the bus to work for an hour each way? Don't like the bus? How about riding a bike in the cold and rain? Can you afford an Uber or taxi every time you need to leave the house? These are the options you have when you let your car insurance lapse.
Which car insurance is best comes down to your particular needs. You have to have it if you want to drive a car. License and registration is not enough. If you are caught driving under the influence, you can lose your insurance and be forced to get special insurance before you are allowed back on the road. You don't want any part of that. So if having reliable transportation is important to you, then you have no choice but to maintain auto insurance.
You Owe It to Your Family
Insurance is not just for you. It is for the people who depend on you. If you have a partner or children who will be financially harmed by your injury or loss, you need to protect them. One of the things that needs to be covered is the house. If your income is what makes the mortgage payment, you should have enough coverage to pay off the house so that your family will continue to have someplace to live. It is a double tragedy if you are lost and your family is homeless.
By now, everyone knows how important insurance is. But in case you need a reminder, it is to prepare for senior care, to maintain reliable transportation, and to take care of your family if something were to happen to you.
