Our insurance review and other goals, met!

One of our goals this year, was to get David a separate life insurance policy (he has one with his job) and increase the small policy I currently have, in order to properly prepare for life's imminent disappointments.

While my mom was in town visiting, David and I scheduled an appointment with our Agent (whom we really really really like!), which was today at 2:00PM. It was really nice to begin the meeting with a review of our car insurance, home owner's insurance and separate policy for my engagement rings/our wedding rings, as well as our additional endorsements for the computers we own and the jewelry I own, which are each worth more than the standard limits for claims against home owner's policies. We have this "review" every year and it's just amazing how much can change in a year! We increased our benefit on our home owner's policy by $15,000 because of Emily's nursery furniture and "necessities" (like clothes, gear, strollers, carseat, toys, decor, etc.) alone... crazy how expensive babies are! We also increased our car insurance policies to include better rental car coverage due to the simple fact that I continue to get hit on our busy street. Argh! :(

When it came time to assess our life insurance needs, it was interesting at how small of a need for life insurance I have, due to the fact that I stay at home, bringing in no real income, and because of David's ability to pick up and continue life without me, financially speaking. Between the three of us, we did however decide to go with a $300,000 policy for me so that Emily's college, wedding, first car... things like that would be taken care of and so that David could pay for my funeral and purchase a family plot for us all upfront and pay off two hypothetical vehicles (we own both cars now but she made a good point that we will eventually need new cars!), the only real debt we could have. For David's need we did an actual worksheet, assuming he passed now and I had to live the next 23 years, raising Emily alone and that totaled $1,250,000. Because we are both so young (me 28, David 33) and passed our physical exams with flying colors, our insurance premiums are ridiculously cheap, making Term life insurance very affordable. These two policies are 30-year Term policies that accumulate real cash value with a guaranteed 4% return on our investment. We kept my existing $50,000 Universal life policy that has also been accumulating cash value for over a decade now and do plan to eventually convert both our recently purchased policies into Universal life policies before the end of their 30-year term. Our agent is also doing a projection for us for life insurance for Emily. We purchased the Gerber Universal life policy for Emily when she was born, which was a $25,000 policy that automatically doubled to $50,000 at age 18 and thought it was pretty great as the premiums were guaranteed for life at only $6.18/month... our agent assured us State Farm could do much better and she would get us information on a similar policy next week.

State Farm has recently branched out into banks, money market investments, The Coverdell ESA (college savings plan) and 401(k) and IRA investments and it was really great to talk to our Agent about those things as we are always looking for the best way to invest our pre and post-tax income. We took home a ton of brochures and I have a follow-up appointment to discuss some things with them next month.

Loos like we are well on our way to meeting a few more of our goals for this year!