Life Insurance After 60

[anothercog]

Interesting to see this thread bumped. We had term (both purchased for ourselves, and from employers) but non-renewed the self purchased policies when the house was paid off. Our thinking was that we were both professionals, and the survivor could support themselves and the kids if they didn't have a California sized mortgage to worry about. Coincidentally (not really) I retired close to the time we paid off the mortgage.

I've been thinking about insurance a lot recently because my son has an internship for an insurance broker/regional director office. Part of his job requirements was to get the general insurance license. I told him I would disown him if he tried to sell me whole life or an annuity. He didn't fully understand my adamant thoughts... till he came to the study module on ethics... where they highlighted non-scrupulous agents that specialized in selling these policies to folks who it wasn't a good fit for. He started laughing when he came to that section. We talked about whole life being good for the super wealthy for generational wealth transfer... but I assured him we didn't fall into that category. LOL.

One of my first jobs out of law school was working on claims from a class action against a large insurer. The agents were churning whole life policies in the 80's to generate commissions. Sometimes they would convince the policy holder to roll over into a new policy, sometimes they just forged the policy holder's name. With interest rates being so high, the dividends would pay the premiums. Though when interest rates ultimately dropped the dividends didn't keep up leading to policies with little cash value or getting cancelled.

There were a lot of sad stories from victim's families when they found out their loved one's insurance was worthless.

 

[Surewhitey]

I've been wanting to cancel our LI for years. Can't talk DW out of it for at least the next 6 years. Likely renewal will be too costly. Hard to negotiate with a 30 yr insurance spouse.

We did increase our home insurance deductible though. Baby steps.

 

[pb4uski]

20 years ago I bout a 1.5m term policy just before my first son was born. Looks like I'm on track to outlive it. I just got a notice that my premiums will go from $710/year to about $3k/year. I plan to allow it to lapse.

I still have another term policy for $2m that's $1110/year for the next four years and will then go up. I also have $500k from work that will go away when I retire around age 58.

We hit FI last year, CA doesn't have estate taxes and I hope DW and I last until our 80s so I don't see a point in keeping the insurance.

If you "hit FI last year" why not cancel the $2m term policy and save yourself $4,440?

 

[anothercog]

Good point but I think $1110/year is a pretty good value for $2m in the event I get hit by a bus before my kids get off to college.

 

[Stwicky]

I dropped my term life insurance policy about the time that I retired. It didn't seem necessary when we were set to go for ER.

 

[brett]

The only insurance that I ever had was term life at work. 7X salary. Very inexpensive. Plus I had life insurance from the bank on our mortgage. DW could never qualify for life insurance.

Slowly pulled back the coverage as we aged, the price increased, we became financially independent, our our children flew the coup. Nothing now other that $15K benefit through a DB plan.