Estate Planning & Probate Attorney

One year ago my wife and I had quadruplets. We kept two, and we lost two. This is the second in a series of blogs addressing our experience from an estate planning perspective. When you can’t afford something, you insure against it. Like most young families in our stage of life, we couldn’t make it financially without my income. Which is where life insurance comes in. When we learned about the quads, our policy coverage was one of the first things we revisited. How much life insurance should you have? If collecting would feel like winning the lottery, you have too much! For a growing family, life insurance should function as a stop-gap measure until the kids are grown and the surviving spouse is able to return to work. When calculating the coverage you need, don’t just count the face value of the policy. Instead, also consider the income the policy should be expected to generate if invested conservatively. For example, a million dollars earning 3% a year will yield an annual income of $30,000. Before this, with only two children, we’d always assumed that if I was left alone I would still be able to work, at least part time. Accordingly, the policy on my life was double that of my wife’s policy. With quads, this analysis changed radically! If something happened to her, I would be left raising six young children on my own, effectively in early retirement. In the end, we doubled her policy, and modestly increased mine. Our choices were based in part on our living expenses, what was left of our mortgage, and what I expected would be left after 20 years of raising six children. Insurance is a critical part of any estate plan, particularly when young children are part of the equation. How it intersects with your trust will be the subject of my next post. Till next time, call us before you need us.