Insurance is defined as, “a system of protection against loss in which a number of individuals agree to pay certain sums (premiums) periodically for a guarantee that they will be compensated under stipulated conditions for any specified loss by fire, accident, death, etc.” (Neufeldt). As the definition indicates, insurance can be purchased to protect oneself from several different disasters that are out of one’s control. If I were forced into a career in the insurance industry, and could choose the niche I could focus on, it would be life insurance.
I do not believe that people understand the devastating financial effects that death can have on a family. The death of a loved one can be beyond comprehensible unless it has been experienced firsthand. We all know that we are going to die someday, but we normally do not think about it on a daily basis. However, it is a situation that needs to be discussed and planned for, even if every member of the family is healthy.
In today’s world, making the assumption that it is a two-parent household with one or more children, the cost of living requires that both parents work. What if, all of a sudden, one income was lost due to death? How is the other parent going to make up that difference in earnings? What if one parent was making enough money so that the other parent could stay home and raise the children and because of death, there was no income at all? How would the parent who was previously unemployed pay for childcare in order to go back to work?
That is where life insurance comes in. It’s a way to guarantee that one’s family will not suffer unduly from one’s death. It’s a way to enable one’s family to pay for final expenses, such as funeral costs and hospital bills (if one had been ill for any period of time). It’s a way to ensure that one’s loved ones will not end up bankrupt or homeless. I would focus on life insurance for these reasons.
- Neufeldt, Victoria. (Ed.) “Insurance.” Webster’s New World College Dictionary (3rd ed.). 988.
