Who thinks about life insurance in your twenties? After all, you’re young and healthy, and your life is just beginning. It’s hard to think about life insurance when you’re in your 20s and 30s. This is – and should be – a time of personal exploration, career acceleration, wine drinking and travelling. With the median age of milestones, such as marriage and children, rising every year, it’s no surprise that many Millennials are not being prompted to invest in their future.
While it’s an uncomfortable topic for many young adults to talk about, Millennials have some unique situations that make life insurance particularly useful:
You Have Student Loans
Millennials are known by some as the generation that made student loans part of the public debate. Student loan debt rose 84% between 2008 and 2014, and 70% of seniors in the graduating class of 2014 had student loan debt. The average bill was $28,950. If you’re a Millennial, this likely doesn’t surprise you, just confirms your fears.
The key statistic to keep in mind, however, is that $7.8 billion in private student loans were taken out between 2014 and 2015. Why does this matter? Because, unlike federal student loans, some private student loans will pursue your family for the remainder of your debt in the event of your passing.
If you don’t have life insurance, the simple fact is that, if you have private student loans, your family will not only need to pay for the cost of your funeral and any legal fees, but they may also be on the hook for your education.
You Provide Financial Help To Parents Or Siblings
With threats to social security and pensions, and the looming disbandment or reduction in government healthcare assistance in the coming Trump administration, more Millennials than ever are stepping up to help their parents pay for healthcare. Whether you’re in the 20% who support their parents, or you’re in the 51% planning to in the future, money is being shared throughout families more than it has in generations.
So what does that mean for life insurance? If you were to suffer an accident and no longer be around, those who you support – either partially or fully – will have a lot more to worry about than their emotional recover.
You Haven’t Started Saving For Retirement
It’s common knowledge that the earlier you save for retirement, the better off you are. However, it’s also common for people to ignore this knowledge (which may be why you’re supporting your parents).
Bottom line, if you’re in a situation of paying off your enormous student loans, and supporting your parents, you may be one of many who finds it hard to resist dipping into savings. Justifying why you can’t have something you perceive as a need now, versus saving for your well being later, it might be time for some tough self-love.
The bottom line is that life insurance will protect and improve the lives of those you care about after your passing – and may very well save yours. The earlier you take out a life insurance plan, the less you’ll spend on it over the course of your lifetime. Now is when you need to invest in a policy because your future self is counting on you.