Don’t Delay: Get Covered Now

If you have people who depend on your income – a spouse, children, aging parents – you owe it to them to make sure their financial security doesn’t evaporate with you.

The urgency isn’t just philosophical. Your ability to obtain coverage depends on your health at the time you apply. Once an accident, illness or age makes you uninsurable, the window closes. If you’re in good health today, you are at your most insurable. Apply before something changes.

One of the traps people fall into is what advisors call paralysis of analysis – spending so much time evaluating options and comparing policies that they never actually buy anything. Meanwhile, they remain unprotected. Here’s the rule to remember: a bad policy that you own is better than a good policy that you don’t own. Don’t let the pursuit of the perfect plan delay you from getting covered at all.

Similarly, don’t rely on employer-provided coverage as your only protection. Group life insurance – typically one or two times your annual salary – disappears the moment you leave your job. Employers can cancel or reduce the benefit at any time. Coverage tied to your employment is not a plan; it’s a placeholder.