Back-to-School Basics: Consider Getting Life Insurance for Your Family this Fall

Back to school means shopping for new pens, binders, backpacks, and more. But it might also be a good time for you to shop for life insurance to cover your loved ones after you’re gone.

School is likely to look a little different this year as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Whether your kids are headed back to the classroom in masks or whether they’re staying home and learning remotely, you probably want to do everything you can to make sure they’re safe and taken care of in the event that something happens to you or your spouse. Life insurance can be part of ensuring your dependents’ wellbeing. 

If you don’t have kids, now could still be a good time to reflect on your life insurance needs. Maybe you have student loans or other debt. Life insurance can be an important way to shield your family from the potential burden of your debt in the event that you pass away.

Meanwhile, the back-to-school season can be overwhelming. We’ll help you understand life insurance and how you can quickly get a quote from your home before you get swept away by your never-ending to-do list.

The ins and outs of life insurance

Life insurance is a type of insurance that can give a payout to a person of your choice if you pass away. This can provide your beneficiaries and through them your children and dependants with resources they may need every day, or to pay for future expenses. Good to know: A beneficiary is the person(s), trust, charity or estate you name on your life insurance policy. The beneficiary will receive the payout of your policy in the event of your passing. But minors cannot legally be beneficiaries of your policy, so it’s important to carefully decide how to name your beneficiaries if you have children who are minors.

There are two major types of life insurance: term and whole life insurance. Term life insurance is a life insurance policy that offers a specific time period of protection, or for a set “term”. Most commonly, you can purchase policies that last for 5, 10, 20, or 30 years. If you pass away during the term, your beneficiaries can receive a payout from your insurance policy.

Whole life insurance, on the other hand, can provide a cash payout to your beneficiaries regardless of when you die. Whole life policy monthly premiums are typically more expensive than those of term life policies.

How life insurance can help

Think of how much your kids depend on you or your spouse on a given school day. Here are some of the many ways life insurance can help your family after you’re gone: 

Every day expenses. If your family loses your income or your spouse’s, it could make it difficult to pay for daily needs such as groceries for lunch, new school supplies, and clothes, just to name a few. The payout from a  life insurance policy can help your family maintain their standard of living and cover those day-to-day costs.

Emergencies. Say your kid falls on the playground and breaks their leg or has an allergic reaction in the cafeteria. The payout from a life insurance policy can make sure that your family doesn’t drown in medical debt when they need care. 

Childcare. Your family might need to hire extra help to manage runs to and from school and extracurricular activities if you or your spouse passes away. Or they might need to hire someone to help out with online learning. The payout from a life insurance policy can help your kids and your spouse afford the help they need.

Education and extracurriculars. Education can be expensive, especially higher education. The cost of a college education has increased by more than 25% in the last decade and as of 2019, 43 million Americans owed federal student loan debt, amounting to a total debt of $1.5 trillion. The payout from a life insurance policy can help your family afford your kids’ education. Plus, if your kids play a sport or take music lessons, the payout from a life insurance policy can help them continue to do the things they love.

If you have student debt

Again, life insurance isn’t just for parents. If you have student loans (or other debt) from your undergraduate or graduate education, you might have taken on those loans with your parent or a loved one as a cosigner.

While it’s unpleasant to think about, your cosigners will be liable for paying back that debt if you were to pass away. 

Having life insurance can make sure that your cosigners will be covered (provided that you named your co-signer as your beneficiary) if something happens to you and they suddenly become responsible for your debt. A life insurance policy can cost a small amount of money per month and can protect your cosigner from taking a huge amount of debt.

Term life insurance with Bestow*

You can cross getting term life insurance off your list in minutes without even leaving the house to do so. Stash’s partner Bestow allows you to apply for term life insurance coverage virtually and quickly. 

With Bestow, you can get a quote for term life insurance easily. Bestow has partnered with two of the biggest life insurance companies so that you can apply for a policy from a trustworthy source. Get a quote now so that you can get back to packing pencil cases and helping with math homework.