Guide to Family Benefits

What are Family Benefits?

You are your families most important asset. Protecting yourself is protecting them and you need a few tools to spread that risk out. Not everyone will follow our same path but please see our costs and explanations for different family benefits we’ve chosen….You should know we’re fairly frugal and risk tolerant.

www.friendlyinsurancedad.com is our recommended broker(it’s me, Aaron) and can answer questions!

Family Benefits Checklist

Term Life Insurance
Disability Insurance(private)
Will
Child life policies
Maximize savings accounts
Long term care

Term Life Insurance

We did not get whole life policies because blending insurance with investing is less than optimal. Term insurance is cheap and affordable and you’d be very glad you have it. We invest in other areas.

Check out quotes and even get a policy now at Ethos

We each have $500,000 20yr policies assuming we won’t need life insurance when we’re 60. ~$60/mo

Disability Insurance

This is the most underutlized asset protection tool. People often assume their employer’s disability isnurance will provide for them when this is not the case. Getting a private policy will add income during the unimaginibale as well as save worry as jobs and employer benefits change.

Quotes and even coverage can be secured online at Breeze but this is a complicated and important product. We recommend talking to www.friendlyinsurancedad.com

We’re slightly underinsured with $4000/mo of coverage for $~50/mo

Will

You need to make sure official documents can help YOU dictate what happens to your children and assets should the worst happen. This is especially important in certain states. If you purchase life insurance through Ethos, this is a perk and one we used. It needed to be notarized. Higher income families should probably talk to a lawyer.

Cost: $49

Child Life Insurance

We are good savers and do not need life insurance in the event something happens to our kids. I also said we don’t do whole life insurance, however, the chances of a health event leaving one of our sons uninsurable is a risk we’re willing to transfer. Our goal is for them to provide for a family someday and that includes having life insurance. The Gerber Grow Up plan is one of the best products on the market. They can double it three times without underwriting AND it has cash value we’ll use after college or for a wedding when they’re independent and we know their healthy.

You can pay for it with a credit card. This is a great gift idea for grandparents.

You can get up to $50k increasable to $500k for a child but we did $15k increasable to $150K and for all three boys it’s $50/mo

Maximize Savings Accounts

Don’t guess on this part. Ask someone for help to make sure you’re closer to optimal than you are today. Max out a HSA if you have one, maximize employer retirment contributions, and contribute to a Roth.

Long Term Care

Just about everyone knows someone close that has had to sort through parent care. It’s a cost we’re willing to mitigate now for three reasons.

We’re the youngest healthiest we’ll ever be, making the policies less expensive.
There are a lot of years for our income to continue to grow so the exponential value is maximized with a small policy now.
Many of our 70 year old friends advised we consider a policy.

Joint policy with $4k/mo of coverage growing at 3% for $220/mo. We selected to pay for this until we’re 65

Do you need more ideas for raising curious kids?

@2023 Atta-Dad