Why do I need life Insurance?

Life is full of uncertainties; you never know what will happen in the next one hour or one day or one year and so on. There are two kinds of risk involved, ‘The risk of living too long’ and ‘the risk of living too short’. Also, there are two kinds of losses that the family will suffer in case of demise of their loved ones. Firstly, there will an emotional loss and secondly, there will be a financial loss. The former has no value but the latter can be calculated. It is said that no value can be put on human life. This statement is true when we take the emotional value factor, but we can always calculate the human life value.

Taking the uncertainties into consideration

We all have various aspirations in life and we strive for it. In fact, it is the fundamental principle of nature to survive and pass on the genes to our children and thus, through our children attain eternal life. In fulfilling this goal, we work, get married, raise children, provide them with good education, get them married and finally retire. This circle has been going on for ages. But then ‘there are many a slip, between the cup and the lip’.

There is a big “What if” involved in working towards these goals. Let me ask you some unpleasant questions:

What if, a young boy who has just started a career dies? His parents will be left emotionally devastated. And then, there is financial angle to it as well. Their son was the only source of income during their old age.

What if, a young man, who has a wife and very young children, dies? Apart from his parents, the wife and the children will be affected too. The bread earner is no more. How will they meet their day to day expenses? Who will pay for the education of the children? Does the family have a house? If not, then what about the monthly rent?

What if, both partners were working and one dies. Will it not affect their life style? Assuming that both were earning equally, won’t the income be halved? Generally, in such scenarios where the disposable income is relatively more, the family tends to buy assets on loan. For example, a car, a flat and other household items on instalments. Not that if income is reduced to half, how will the other partner cope up with the financial pressure?

What if, fortunately no one dies, but the bread earner is diagnosed with a critical illness? Again, the income stops. Not only there is no source of income, there is also a huge additional burden of medical expenses.

What if, No one dies, and there is no critical illness in the family, but a car accident occurs and the other person (often called as third party dies). In such scenario, there will be legal proceedings. There are laws to calculate the human life value. The human life value will be from a few lakhs to a few crores. This will depend on the age, family size and income of the person killed in the accident.

What if, ‘the man of the house’ has educated his children, but their marriage and housing need still exists?

There are many ‘What if’ scenarios; the question is – How do you ensure that the family is secure, with or without you?

The objective is not to instill fear. The fact that these uncertainties are also probable. Now, how do you get past them?

The answer to these scenarios is life insurance. Now you may ask How exactly?

• Because no one can generate huge amount of funds in a day.
• Just by paying a little amount of premium the family gets protection from financial risks due to untimely demise of the bread earner.
• There are insurance policies which take care of the education need, marriage need, retirement needs and asset building.

Now, do you really think that you do not need life insurance?