Every month at Paradiso Insurance, we make sure to deliver helpful content to our customers, friends, and community to educate them about our insurance products or address any common questions we hear through our podcast – Covering Your Community.
In this episode, Chris Paradiso, owner of Paradiso Insurance, discusses the importance of life insurance, and why you shouldn’t leave your family without it.
Chris also talks about the fun, local events happening in the Stafford Springs, CT area this month, as well as our insurance agency’s involvement with the Kindness Revolution.
Chris:
Welcome back! Podcast episode number 5, today’s topic is on life insurance. We’ve had numerous emails on life insurance, the first question that came in here um, was why do I need life insurance? Great question.
Um, anybody that’s in the process of getting married, anybody that’s married, having a child um, why you would need life insurance is whether you get married and God forbid something happens to you, you want to take care of your spouse.
If you’re married and you have children, God forbid something happens to you uh, hopefully financially uh, for a small amount of money on a life insurance policy, it’s very inexpensive. I think it’s probably the biggest misconception on the cost of life insurance, and the reason why that really is, is life insurance and what people are doing is they’re buying life insurance when they are sick.
Well that’s not really the right thing to do. Life insurance is meant uh, to get it when you’re healthy. It’s a lot less expensive the younger you are. It’s- I hate to say the word cheap, it’s actually cheap. Um, I just did a 21-year-old who uh, has some debts, college debt, and 250,000 dollars was less than $8 a month. Uh, very inexpensive. So, who needs life insurance? Um, just about everybody needs life insurance. If you’re in the process of getting married, you’re getting married, you have children, you have debt, you’re buying a building, whatever it might be um, life insurance plays a big role. And uh, one of the next questions mentioned uh, when is the best time to purchase life insurance? Um, that’s an easy answer. The younger you are, the healthier you are, as we get older uh, we do not get healthier, and so, you wanna buy life insurance when you’re young.
Uh, plan ahead so, if you’re thinking and you’re 21, 22, maybe you should be looking at a 500,000 dollar life insurance policy versus a 250. Just think out there, how many people are buying homes at 250, 300, 400,000 dollars, that’s debt right there. You buy a house and that 500,000 sounds like a lot of money. Um, really not a lot of money uh, that same 21-year-old that we quoted at 250 versus 500. If it’s $8 a month to double it to 500,000 from 250, does not double the price. It’s actually less than double the price. Um, it’s about $14.50 for that same person to move a $500,000 policy.
So uh, don’t be afraid um, about finding out the cost, but also make sure you’re planning ahead. Planning ahead simply means if you need 250 now, you don’t wanna buy 250 if you’re young in your 20s, 30s, or 40s, you might need 500,000 in the future. Buy it now, buy it when you’re young, buy when you’re healthy.
Um, about 65% of the people that we’re writing life insurance on um, and we have just about every carrier in the state. We are an independent agent. We have multiple, multiple, multiple carries from Banner to you know um, yeah. There’s just so many different carriers out there. I could just roll on- AIG, ING, uh, a million different carriers and they key factor is like I said to you, buy young, buy when you’re healthy and prepare.
Um, one other quick question was mentioned on the benefits uh, for your child and do you need children’s life insurance? Great question. And the question really can be answered 2 ways, there’s 2 ways of purchasing a policy for a child. You can add them to your policy so, for example, uh myself and my wife would like to add our children to our existing policy or we’re taking out a policy, you can do an endorsement to your policy um, in a case of mine, where we looked at it and look at about $9 for the year to add uh, a small policy that was endorsed to my existing policy.
The positive sides to just adding an endorsement to your life insurance policy, adding your child’s endorsement to yours is, is that it’s very inexpensive. The downside is, is someday, if something ever happens to you, you pass away or you decide you don’t need life insurance anymore that child does not have life insurance anymore.
So, there’s pros and cons to that. The second type of a policy you can purchase for a child is a Stand Alone Child Policy. And who owns the policy is free, um free before they turn 18, the parent or the grandparent can own the policy. Uh, you can purchase a whole life policy and that’s pretty standard- very, very, very inexpensive, and the purpose of that policy is really to give coverage later in life. For example, I had a family member um, develop at the ripe old age of 15, um bone cancer, cancer in his elbow, and today he’s married and has children, and he still cannot get life insurance. So, in that case uh, a policy as a Stand Alone Child Policy is going to be huge because it’s going to allow that child to have life insurance later in life. God forbid they get sick.
Um, with that being said um, very common is people say and they said well how many different types of policies and what’s the right policy? Well, I’m gonna give you a sarcastic answer uh, the right policy is the policy you have in force um, when you pass away. There is no right or wrong policy. Uh, every policy is set a little different, there’s only 4 types of policies. There’s term life insurance, basically, what that is- it’ll last for a term of time you buy a 5 year, a 10 year, a 15, a 20, a 30, 35, 40 year. You can buy any length of time, almost any length of time, determining based on your age. So, if you’re 70 you can’t buy a 40 year term.
Uh, if you’re 30, you can purchase a 40 year term. Uh, there is a term policy, which would return a premium, which means for that term of time you continue to pay, and nothing happens to you after 20 years, you would get all of your money back. That’s another type of policy. There are permanent policies that are whole lives, which are about one of the oldest types of policies. They are more expensive so, determining and figuring out what is the purpose of your life insurance is gonna figure out what type of policy you have. Um, once again, I don’t want you to be nervous.
If you’re looking for life insurance um, I’ve been selling life insurance and been licensed since 1998. I’d love to share with you the options and um, and at the end of the day it’s making sure you purchase what you feel comfortable with, not what and insurance agency, not what I feel comfortable with, not what another insurance sales person feels comfortable with. It is a comfort zone that you have, just like the amount of life insurance is gonna be determined by you. Yes, we could help, but at the end of the day you have to be comfortable on how much coverage you need. Very good questions, I love that the community involved um, love the questions we hope that uh, get more questions um, on other topics: auto insurance, homeowners insurance, business insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, please send them our way um, you can email them at cparadiso@paradisoinsurance.com.
Thank you on that portion, and we’d like to cover a few community events, uh because that’s what we’re all about here, um loving our community. First and foremost, the Mother-Son Dance, awesome time last year, and had a great turn out, they’re even expecting a bigger turnout this year. It is May 12th, it’s at Stafford Elementary School. May 12th from 5:30 to 7:30. I believe that is Mother’s Day weekend. What a great way- I can promise you from pictures to treats to dancing um, awesome time for mothers and sons to get together um, Aunts, Grandmothers, Godmothers, um all invited.
Um, the superhero run, it’s a 5K run. Uh, if you haven’t heard of Journey Found um, my sister and there is another uh, young lady who grew up in Stafford Springs um, who also lives in this group home. It is a group home foundation uh, people like my sister, who are mentally handicapped um, live in these homes and this 5K ruh uh, benefits Journey Found, which is the homes for these uh, disabled people uh, it’s in Nevers Park in South Windsor on May 20th from 9 to 11:30.
Dress up as a superhero, raise money for great people, and I can promise you supporting people with disabilities, people like my sister, I can promise they cannot thank you enough um, as a good friend Ray Falon always says to me, if we the people, do not allow these people to have a voice, can you imagine your child dying without a voice? Um, it’s a great way to give back to great organization. I can promise you we were there last year um, Aleesha, Stephanie, Jane, um Crystal, many of our staff showed up, not only our staff, but the community showed up. It is a great cause. We hope to see you both at the Mother-Son Dance on May 12th, and the Superhero 5K Run or Walk for Journey Found, it is May 20th from 9 to 11:30.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us uh, until next time, thank you for joining us.
If you enjoyed this episode of Covering Your Community, you can also watch all of our older episodes on YouTube or listen in on SoundCloud.
