Behind the wheel with distractions riding shotgun

After being in the insurance industry for a few years now, when I think of life insurance my mind envisions many different scenarios.  One scenario is a mature adult in their Golden Years relaxing and reading a book because they know their financial future is securely planned out.  I picture the widow of 3 young children forced to move out of what he or she thought would be their “forever” home, and sometimes I think of the more adult version of myself being responsible in planning my own financial future.  I’m not sure about you, but I have a hard time envisioning the adult version of myself, since I still feel like it’s the 1990’s and I’m somewhere in my 20’s. However, that is clearly not the case since my first born is approaching 15, which means driving, increasing auto insurance premiums, and many moments of worrying.  We explain the increased auto insurance premiums to parents on a weekly basis.  “Yes, Mr. Customer, young drivers are inexperienced drivers, so they are more likely to be involved in a car accident.”  Teenage drivers, who lack driving experience, have distractions to interfere with driving safely, like friends, food, or more dangerous distractions like alcohol and cell phones.  Aahhh!  Why can’t they just stay little!

Typically, it seems that most of us associate life insurance with adults, because we want to ensure our young family is financially cared for or we want to leave a legacy for our adult children and grandchildren.  We rarely think of life insurance for our young children. But as I was saying, they are inexperienced drivers behind the wheel with possible distractions riding shotgun.  They are driving to school, practice, church, parties and traveling home from college on the weekends.  Do we really realize how much time they actually spend on the road? With other drivers? Distracted drivers?  I don’t even want to mention the scary statistics of distracted driving or alcohol related crashes.

The point is, life is unpredictable on a daily basis, but one certainty is that sadly we will all leave this world someday.  So, every family and everybody, whether young or old, can benefit from life insurance.