Do You Need Life Insurance In Retirement?

A lot of people wonder if you still need life insurance when you're retired, since you're no longer working and, for most of retirees, the kids are grown and out of the house. 

However, according to Ryan there are several reasons you should still consider owning life insurance in retirement. He breaks down 3 reasons:

1.Income Protection

2. Create a Legacy

3. Life Insurance with a LTC rider The cost of Long-Term Care is extremely expensive; in California, it can run up to $12,000.00 a month!

Of course, there is no cookie-cutter answer. But if you'd like to talk through whether owning life insurance makes sense for you, please reach out to Ryan at 714-462-9155 or go here and send a message.

Full Transcript:

Erin: Ryan, good to see you. I'm really excited about today's topic. Do you need life insurance if you're retired? Many people question whether they need life insurance when they are retired, now that you're no longer working, and the kids are probably grown and out of the house. So a lot of people think it's just not worth it. But what do you think? Do you think that people need to consider life insurance and retirement?

Ryan: Some people definitely should. Other people may just want to get life insurance, and there's some reasons for that. But there are some different reasons why you may want to consider owning life insurance. One of them being income protection. That's really the main reason that people buy life insurance. And a lot of people just think about buying the life insurance for income protection, maybe when they're younger, raising a family, and then once they're older, maybe the kids are out of the house, there's not that need for income protection.

Erin: I see.

Ryan: But in retirement, you have social security income coming in, and keep in mind, if you're married, when one spouse passes away, you lose a social security check. Or you might have a pension, and if you pass away, maybe your pension will get reduced, or maybe it'll even be gone, and then your spouse won't get any there. So that would be a reason why you might want to have life insurance to protect that income. So even if you're not working, there's still other sources of income that do come in.

Erin: Right. Another good reason, and this is something that I know is important to you, is to create a lasting family legacy.

Ryan: Yeah. One of the challenges I find with retirees and soon to be retirees is putting a plan together to kind of balance the desire for wanting to spend that money because it's yours. You've earned it. You want to create a retirement that is great, but you also have a desire to leave some money behind, maybe, to your beneficiaries, to your kids, your grandkids, that sort of thing. So one of the things that life insurance can do is you can buy a particular type of life insurance policy that will, when you pass away, it will provide a certain amount of money to your kids.

Let's say you have two kids and you want to have each of them get a $100,000. Well, you get a $200,000 policy, make them 50% beneficiaries, and that way you know, hey, guaranteed, no matter what, they get that $200,000 or $100,000 a piece, and meanwhile, it gives you a license to spend, and then you can go through and spend the rest of your monies to enjoy yourself and have a nice retirement.

Erin: The retirement you deserve. Absolutely. And a third important consideration would be simply the cost of long-term care these days. Because Ryan, I know you know this already, especially living in California, the cost of long-term care can run into the thousands of dollars a week. I mean, this is looking at about $12,000 for a private room in a nursing home.

Ryan: Around here, that's how much it costs now this year. Now there's other types of care that don't cost this much, but certainly if you need long-term care, it can be very expensive. And there's different ways to approach that as far as different types of policies and things that are available. One of them is a life insurance policy with a long-term care rider. So what that means is that if you needed long-term care, you would be able to access the death benefit while you're alive to help pay for those long-term care expenses. So that could be another solution as to why it could make sense to have a life insurance policy.

The other thing too here that I failed to mention earlier and I think is really important is that when a social security check goes away because one spouse passes, or if that pension gets reduced, that sort of thing, those are tough because that income is now lost. But the other thing here too, is that that person now needs to file as a single person. So I've seen many situations where somebody is now living on a reduced income because their spouse has now passed away, and they're having to pay more in income taxes because they're now having to file as a single person. So there's a lot of things to consider. Again, life insurance may make sense for you, it may not. It just depends upon your situation and what your needs and wants are.

Erin: But that really, again, I'm so glad that you brought this topic up, Ryan, because I think that it's a lot of myth busting. We assume we don't need it, but walking through these considerations, you can see why it does make sense for a lot of people. So if somebody wants to crunch the numbers with you, what's the best way to reach you?

Ryan: I can call 714-462-9155. I can also just go to the website, which is CravitzFinancial.com, and go to the contact page and submit a message there.

Erin: All right. Ryan, thank you.

Ryan: Thank you.