Revisiting insurance amidst a pandemic:

Nothing will make you question your mortality and the associated financial risk quite like a global pandemic.

Unfortunately, as financial planners, we see too often clients with no rhyme or reason behind their financial risk management strategy.

We make it a point to have an intentional, documented insurance discussion with all of our clients.

We take an inventory of our clients’ existing policies and evaluate them regularly.

We often find insurance that isn’t worth keeping, and we recommend that our clients drop it.

We also frequently discover gaps in coverage or current policies that are not appropriate for a client’s financial situation and risk profile, and in those cases, we suggest increasing coverage or changing types of insurance.

Oftentimes, our prospects and existing clients choose to act on our recommendations.

But sometimes, they don’t.

An interesting thing has happened during this pandemic.

Clients and prospects are reaching out to us to initiate or revisit the insurance conversation.

Clients that previously believed they had enough insurance are now taking a second look at our fact-based calculations that show a much higher need.

This seems to be the case globally as life insurance companies are backlogged from a record amount of applications. 

A doctor who didn’t take my recommendation about increasing his life and disability coverage 3 years ago contacted me the other day about increasing his disability income policy and applying for more life insurance.

He said he had a colleague diagnosed with cancer at age 40.

It is going to be more expensive for him now, but luckily for him and his family, he has not had any new medical issues that would disqualify him for coverage.

This doctor is a classic example of someone whose actual need for insurance is much larger than he perceives.  

He has 5 kids under the age of 10, and his wife does not work.

He is the sole breadwinner.  He brings home the bacon and the band-aids.

If his income were to go away, it would be financially catastrophic to his family and the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

He didn’t believe me 3 years ago but was ready to act this time around.

We also have clients who were originally planning to let their term policies expire contact us about converting the policy to a permanent form of life insurance.

Solid, affordable insurance planning has always been part of a sound financial strategy even before COVID-19, and it will continue to be long after this pandemic is over.

Let’s discuss what the right policy looks like for you and your family.

There is no time like the present, and life insurance companies are attempting to stream line the application process to keep up with the recent in-flux of applications

If you’d like a complimentary review of your risk management strategy, please click here.