One common, painful bill that we all face is the insurance bill. Whether you’re talking renter’s insurance, homeowner’s insurance, or automobile insurance, the bill feels painful because it’s not something we can often directly see the benefit from. It just comes in handy when something goes wrong.

One of the most common tactics that you’ll see in cost-cutting articles is calling up your insurance company and requesting an increase in your deductible – the amount you have to pay before the insurance kicks in.

On the surface, this works well. If you increase your deductible, your premiums (the amount you pay each month/quarter/year) will go down, meaning your monthly bills are lower. You can chip hefty percentages from your insurance bill just by making this move.

One of my long-time readers, Jeanne, has been writing to me about insurance this week. She has considered doing this, but something is convincing her that it’s not the best move:

I understand that raising a deductible will lower your premiums. But why do we have insurance in the first place? Doesn’t raising the deductible through the roof defeat the purpose?

The first thing to note here is that the purpose of insurance is to insure that you’ll survive financially due to an unforeseen event. We don’t have homeowner’s insurance because it’s fun – we have it because it will help us start over with a new home should our house burn to the ground. Without it, most of us would financially sink. The same goes for renter’s insurance – it’d be tough to lose all of your possessions in a fire without any way to recover. Again, with automobile insurance – if you total your car without insurance, you might be sitting holding just a car loan and nothing to show for it.

Obviously, if you have a ton of money, insurance on smaller things is a lot less important. People with huge bankrolls have no need to carry full insurance on their cars – they just cover the parts that might worry them or that they’re legally required to cover.

Saving money by raising a deductible assumes that you have the cash on hand to cover the deductible in such a situation. If you raise your auto deductible from $200 to $1,000, you’ll see a big drop in your bill, but if something goes wrong with your car, you’re going to need that $1,000. If you don’t have that $1,000 in an easy-to-access place, then you’re in real trouble.

The solution is simple: if you have a well-funded emergency fund in a savings account somewhere, you can raise your deductibles some without worry. A well-funded emergency fund means a minimum of a couple months’ worth of living expenses, plus more if you have dependents. If you have that kind of cash that can be accessed with ease, then by all means, raise your deductibles.

Won’t this cost me more in the long run? Many people who consider this ask themselves whether such a move will cost them more in the long run. After all, if they’re having to come up with a lot more money on each claim, are they really saving money overall?

The average homeowner makes an insurance claim once every nine years. If you raise your deductible on your homeowners’ insurance by $1,000, you only need to save about $120 a year in your premiums in order to create a net savings on average – and, likely, you’ll save a lot more than that.

Similar math exists for other types of insurance. The claims made are so infrequent that you only have to save a little bit on each insurance payment to make up for the additional cost on the deductible.

The key, though, is making sure you have the emergency savings to handle that higher deductible. If you don’t have that, make it a priority before you consider making changes to your insurance policies.

This is part of an ongoing series about how to trim the budget of the average American. As this series focuses on such broad-based tips, some will work for you and some will not. You’re invited to mention in the comments the tips that you found to be the most useful for inclusion in a comprehensive budget trimming guide at the conclusion of this series.

Life, other personal insurance – $309

“Other personal insurance” includes long term disability insurance, long term care insurance, and umbrella liability insurance, making this a pretty sensible category overall.

Of course, for most of us, life insurance is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. It draws most of the money from this category, as many families rely on the support of others (and of Medicare) to help in the case of long term disability.

As with anything else, a bit of extra care can really trim the dollars from our spending on life insurance without reducing the quality or amount of our insurance one iota. Here are some ways to really tighten the screws on the life insurance ship.

Figure out whether you need it at all. Do you have dependents that will require financial support after your passing? Do you have adequate resources and assets to cover funeral and burial expenses? The answers to these two questions should really point you as to whether or not you need any life insurance at all.

Know the amount you need. Use a thorough life insurance calculator to estimate exactly how much you need. Don’t rely on your own personal guesses or, perhaps even worse, the estimates of a salesman to tell you what you need. Figure it out yourself.

Buy term. Many – if not most – companies and individuals that will attempt to sell you a life insurance policy will attempt to package some sort of subpar investment product along with it, with some name that usually involves the words “whole” and/or “universal.” Such policies almost always earn quite well – for the salesman that sells it to you, that is. If you are excited by the idea of earning money from your insurance, buy a term policy and bank the savings in an investment of your own choosing, like a Roth IRA.

Shop around for quotes. Much as with anything else, you don’t have to buy from the first place that you talk to that quotes you a price. Get lots of quotes. Find the best deal before you buy. Note that this isn’t always the least expensive deal – I would consider a policy from “Ma and Pa’s Fly By Night Life Insurance Kump’ny” less reliable than policies from other sources. Stick with reliable, large firms with a long history.

Look for special programs available to you. Many workplaces and social/service organizations (like AAA or AARP, for starters) offer very strong rates on term life insurance. Look into what’s offered through your job and through any organizations you belong to for additional quotes (and they’re often strong quotes).

Evaluate your payment terms. As with many types of payment, you can save substantially if you choose to pay quarterly, semiannually, or annually instead of monthly. The savings often far exceeds what you can possibly earn in your own investing with that money, so there’s no question that you should jump on board to minimize your annual costs.

Improve your personal health. Many policies require a physical before they can give you an exact quote – and the better you do on a physical, the better your rates will be. This is yet another reason to get your weight and personal health under control. Eat better, and get a little exercise.

Ignore the salesmen. Insurance salesmen will almost always come after you with a great pitch about some insurance-related product different than the basic policy you want. Let them ramble, but remember that you’re not hearing about the large cut they take from selling you this policy. Ignore it – or, if you must, take the information and actually research it extensively on your own. Don’t let them sell you something you don’t need.

I want your help! In the comments, please let me know which of the tips you find most useful for trimming these costs. I’ll include the top choices in a comprehensive budget trimming guide at the conclusion of the series.

I can’t tell you how often I’m contacted by readers who tell me the story of their lives, then ask the big question: how much life insurance do I need? I’ll hear from twenty four year old single women and forty year old men with a wife and three children. I’ll hear from people with almost nothing and people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. They all ask the same question.

First of all, term life insurance is the way to go. Other types of policies tie a subpar investment into the insurance policy. If you want to invest, invest separately with a firm that specializes in investments and will customize an investment to meet your needs.

Term policies are simple to understand. They offer a certain amount of coverage over a certain period of time. If you keep up your premiums (your regular payments), if you die within that time period, your stated beneficiary will receive the value of the insurance. So, if you buy a $500,000 ten year term and you die within that time period, your beneficiary receives $500,000. If you live through the end of the policy, you’re back to square one.

Here’s the thing, though. Not everyone needs life insurance. For starters, people who have been careful savers throughout their lives often have no need for life insurance as they’ve accumulated enough wealth on their own to sustain their family. Similarly, people with no dependents often have little need for life insurance if they have much cash in the bank at all (to cover funeral expenses, for example). Life insurance is only necessary if, in the event of your death, people would be left in a financial bind without some sort of resource.

So, the first question is how long should my term be? For parents, you should get a term long enough that the children you plan to have are independent before the term expires. Otherwise, it’s about your own comfort level. Shorter terms tend to have cheaper monthly premiums, but if you aren’t careful with your money, you may find yourself buying a new, more expensive policy in ten or twenty years.

The next one – and it’s often the big one – is how much? I think there are three key things to consider.

First, what’s the income shortfall for the people left behind? Simply put, how much money each year would your survivors need to maintain their standard of living? This isn’t just straight replacing your salary, since they won’t have your costs any more.

Second, how long will they need that income shortfall? If you have young children, it will be quite a while. If you just have a partner, they may not need it for as long. You should talk this over carefully with your partner so that you both can make a realistic decision. I usually encourage people to calculate for their children’s needs until age twenty or so.

Additional things to consider: your own funeral expenses, the cost of college for your children, any donations you’d like made in your name, and special care needs (for example, if you’re taking care of an elderly relative, who will do it when you’re gone?).

Third, how much do you have now? What’s in your savings? Your investments (like your 401(k))? What other insurance policies do you have? Would your family stay in their current house, or would they downgrade?

The calculation is simple. Figure up the first number, multiply it by the second number, and then subtract the third number. That’s how much life insurance you should have, in a thumbnail sketch.

If you’re unsure about certain numbers – and you probably will be – round up. It’s better to aim too high than to aim too low and let people down.

In the end, though, remember that the real thing you’re buying with life insurance is peace of mind. Going through these calculations and then actually purchasing a policy serves the purpose of letting you sleep better at night.

Good luck!

I received a long email recently from an utterly despondent woman (that I’ll call Ellen) who was caught in a devastating situation. A year ago, she was a stay-at-home mother with three preschool-aged children. Her husband worked at a high-paying job that seemed to have great long-term potential and it seemed as though their life was set.

Then, very suddenly, her husband died in a car accident, and there wasn’t much life insurance money. Within months, she was back in the workplace at a fairly low paying job, her family had moved into a tiny apartment, and the house was up for sale. Then, just as quickly, she was laid off from that job and the house sold for roughly what was still owed on it. Within a year, she was back living in her parents’ basement, a single mother with three young children and few assets to her name, searching for any job in her field of expertise while working as a gas station attendant.

What surprised her more than anything was the absence of the people she had believed to be her friends. They were there at first when her husband passed away, but when it became clear that her life was going to radically change, those friends stopped returning phone calls and stopped visiting. When she really needed help, most of her friends simply weren’t there for her.

It turned out that the people she could rely on were her close family and just a few of her closest friends. All of the rest of the people that she had come to rely on in her life – confiding in them, helping them, spending countless hours with them – simply weren’t there when push came to shove.

Ellen’s story really resonated with me, mostly because it’s pretty easy for me to see how something like this could happen in my own life. If my wife were to pass away suddenly, I know that I’d need a lot of help over the short term. I’d likely sell the house we live in and move into a much smaller home with my children, likely much closer to my parents (and my wife’s parents, actually). I believe the income from The Simple Dollar would support the three of us, particularly if I were to move to a different home, so that’s not a big worry.

Then I thought of a close friend of ours, whose situation closely mirrors Ellen, and I got a sick feeling in my stomach. She’s also a stay at home mom with a two year old girl and another one almost ready to arrive. Her husband has a solid job, but one that does involve some degree of physical risk. What would happen to her if something happened to her husband? I know my wife and I would offer her some support, as would her parents and, I would imagine, some other friends and family, but her life (and the lives of her children) would change radically.

What can we all do to prepare for such a situation? There are a lot of obvious things that can be done to make such a blow easier to take.

Life insurance This is the obvious option, but it’s only the beginning. If you’re in a situation where your life would be significantly derailed by the sudden passing of a partner, then that person needs to be well insured with you as a beneficiary. If you have children, you need to have a substantial life insurance policy for both partners – several multiples of your annual salary.

Strong relationships with family Building up and maintaining very strong relationships with the key people in your life becomes even more important if you’re in such a situation. The birth of your children should be an indication that it’s time to work on your relationship with your parents and with other family members. If there are rifts, you should take the first step (and the second – and the third) to repair that rift and build a healthy relationship. This isn’t only beneficial in such a painful scenario, it’s also generally beneficial to you right now as well as for your partner and your children.

Friendships with real value and meaning It’s fine to have a circle of friends that you hang out with, but those friends shouldn’t be relied upon to help you out in a pinch unless you do the same for them when they need help. That means if you have a close friend that truly needs help, give them everything you can. True friendships are built in times of need, and when you see a friend in need, you have that opportunity. It might be hard or inconvenient or painful, but when you offer your hand when they need it, you’ll build a much stronger friendship, one that has a much higher likelihood of being there for you when you need it.

Active membership in civic and religious organizations I’ve been involved in quite a few organizations in the community over the years, and I’ve found that time and time again, when an involved member needs a hand, the whole organization comes together to help. Churches, community groups, volunteer groups – it’s true for all of them. However, just signing up and not doing anything else isn’t enough – you need to get involved and be involved over a long period of time and step up to the plate regularly for leadership opportunities, service events, and when others need help.

All of these things have some key things in common. All of them require you to be proactive – you have to take the first step to make them work. You have to give of yourself without expecting things in return. All of them also provide some level of personal joy – close friends, close family, and good organizations all provide great social situations and a lot of fun (or provide some peace of mind, in the case of life insurance).

In short, if you don’t truly give of yourself when times are good, it’s unrealistic to expect to receive when times are bad.

Good luck.

A few weeks ago, I decided to spend a few hours looking carefully at all of our insurance policies. I knew in general how most of them worked, but in many cases I was a little fuzzy (or more than a little fuzzy) on the specifics.

As I studied our homeowner’s insurance policy, I was surprised at how high the value of the insurance was for replacing home contents. It was one of those little things that threw up a red flag for me, and it kind of stuck in the back of my mind.

About a week later, I was still thinking about that number, so I took a very careful inventory of our home’s contents, adding up how much these items would cost to replace – and sure enough, the cash value of everything in the home was only about 40% of the amount we were insuring. Reducing that number would surely save us a significant amount on our policy, so I was about to call up and start discussing things with our insurers when my wife popped in.

She was curious as to how much value I was putting down for some of our most valuable personal items, like some of the handmade wooden artwork her grandmother made, a painting done by my great grandmother, and some mementos from our wedding.

I went through the list I’d made and rattled off a few prices, which were estimations of what they’d cost to replace with similar items. My wife shook her head and told me, flat out, that I was drastically shortchanging the items.

But was I? This has been a big question for discussion around here for a while, actually.

My wife’s position initially was that such items have a very, very high value. She propositioned it this way: how much would I accept in payment for that painting by my great grandmother? The price would have to be very high – and I don’t think I’d sell it at any price.

That’s the conclusion that many people come to when they consider insuring the property in their home. They look at those irreplaceable and personally valuable items and think about how much they’d feel was an appropriate price to let go of something so valuable. Quite often, that price is insanely inflated – but for good reason. The item has a great deal of personal value.

But consider this: would you be able to replace that item if it were destroyed? Would you even think about replacing it?

My grandmother’s painting is invaluable to me. I can’t even realistically name a price that I would sell it for. But if it were destroyed in a disaster, I wouldn’t even think of replacing it. I’d have my memories of it, and I’d probably lament that it was missing, but how could I possibly replace it?

In our new home, I would probably put up a print on the wall, or possibly an original painting by another artist, but neither one would come close to the value that I personally ascribe to my grandmother’s painting.

This gets back to the original question: how much should my grandmother’s painting be insured for? Considering that it’s not something I would ever be able to replace – nor would I really attempt to – I’d argue that it shouldn’t be insured for much at all.

Then, if you apply that rule of thumb to items in your house that really only have a deep personal value, you’ll often find that the cash value of the contents of your house is not nearly as high as you might think it is. In that case, you’re likely vastly over-insuring the contents of your home – and paying an extra premium for that privilege.

Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a good argument for insuring on the high side of what you own. You’re far better off having a little bit of breathing room than cutting your insurance down to the bone.

But when you consider the value of the property in your home, think carefully. Ask yourself whether you’re insuring the value that you personally ascribe to things – or the real value of replacing things that you would actually replace. You might just find that you’re over-insuring your contents just because of your own personal feelings – and that’s a financial leak you can easily plug.

One of the common nuggets of financial “wisdom” tossed out there by personal finance writers is the idea of downgrading one’s car insurance to save money. “Cut your collision or comprehensive coverage or raise your deductibles and save a mint!” they’ll say, but such comments don’t take into account the current status of the car in question, nor does it account for your own personal financial state.

How do you know when the time is right to downgrade your car insurance? First, let’s look at the insurance variables we’re looking at, then let’s move through the thought process of figuring it out.

Types of Auto Insurance and Basic Terminology
… just so we’re all on the same page here.

Most states require that you carry at least liability insurance on your automobile as a minimum, so we’ll assume that in all cases you’ll continue to carry liability coverage. Liability coverage takes care of any costs or damage you may do to other people and property during the course of driving, including both bodily injury to others and property damage. These insurances are usually pretty cheap – the only thing you might want to be concerned about is that your coverage limit is quite high.

What we’re mostly concerned about is comprehensive and collision insurance. Collision insurance covers damage to your car when your car hits or is hit by another object, while comprehensive insurance covers losses resulting from incidents other than collision – floods, damage caused by external forces, and so on.

For more specific details on these definitions, check out this very useful definition page from CarInsurance.com.

For each type of insurance, you’ll have a deductible, which is the portion of any bill that you will be responsible for. So, if you have a $1,000 deductible and you’re facing $2,500 in damages, you’ll pay $1,000 and the insurance company will pay $1,500. You also have a premium, which is the amount you have to pay the insurance company to maintain the insurance.

What Do You Need?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear and straightforward answer to this question, and it’s because of that lack of clarity that people tend to over-insure – and personal finance writers can get away with simple statements like “eliminate your insurance and raise your deductible to save cash!”

First, should you raise your deductible? From my perspective, your deductible amount should always be directly related to your emergency fund. A single car incident shouldn’t be able to entirely deplete your emergency fund – if it does, you put yourself quickly at risk of something else happening. In fact, I often encourage people to have an emergency fund at least as twice as large as your deductible.

Given that, you can quickly figure out how much deductible you need based on your emergency fund. If you have an enormous emergency fund, for example, you may not even need comprehensive or collision insurance at all, as you have enough cash to just pay for the repairs or the replacement yourself out of pocket.

The way I see it, if you have enough emergency fund that you could pay for an entire replacement car in cash and only reduce your fund by half or less, you don’t need collision or comprehensive insurance. Liability insurance should be all you need. But, of course, most people aren’t in that situation, as it demands a much larger cash emergency fund than most people have access to.

Similarly, at what point should you entirely cut collision and comprehensive insurance on an older car? It’s not an easy question to answer.

I’m currently in this situation with my pickup truck, which is more than a decade old and is approaching the 200,000 mile mark – it has a pretty low Blue Book value at this point. It’s reached a point where my family feels uncomfortable driving it any significant distance at all, so I mostly just use it for local travel within fifty miles of my home (going to the library, getting groceries, and so on). We intend to replace it by early next summer.

Given that, it may in fact make sense for us to drop down to just liability coverage on the vehicle. This would save us several hundred dollars over the winter, and if something severe went wrong with it again, we’d simply go ahead and sell it.

Ask yourself this honest question: if a significant repair needed to be done to your current vehicle, would that be the final push you need to replace it? If that’s the case, do you need collision or comprehensive coverage on that vehicle at all?

Between these two perspectives, you may find that comprehensive and collision insurance aren’t worth it to you. But you may find yourself also feeling unprotected without that insurance. Insurance does have a psychological benefit beyond any directly financial benefits – you can be confident in knowing that even if something bad happens, you’re covered.

If your signs are pointing away from needing collision and comprehensive insurance, but your gut is telling you it’s a bad idea, I recommend just raising your deductible nice and high. That way, you’ve got the security of the insurance while saving money as well. This may be the best option of all for people with used cars and a nice hefty emergency fund, but find that comprehensive and collision insurance makes them feel better about their car.

I look forward to hearing the comments of readers on this topic.

Hundreds of people have emailed me asking questions about the current flooding situation in Iowa. Has my home been affected? How bad is it really?

Well, I’ll let the front page of the Des Moines Register speak for itself.

Where I’m at (luckily), there’s been only minor ill effect. We’ve had some minor flash flooding in our back yard, but nothing disastrous (other than some depressing garden damage – I don’t think the rosemary and other herbs will recover). Our basement water pump has been running almost nonstop for the last two weeks. Many cornfields near my house (including the one I can see out of my back door to the east) are partially or entirely covered in water, however. Road travel in Des Moines is very challenging right now, with many, many roads closed.

I have family in northern Iowa that are being seriously affected by this flooding, and I have a lot of family in southern Iowa and western Illinois that are going to be affected by this in a week, when the high water that’s currently in northern Iowa will have reached them. Here’s the data I’m looking at that will be affecting them soon.

Part of the challenge for Iowa is that a large portion of the Iowa National Guard is stationed overseas, making it difficult for the remaining Guard to respond effectively to local emergencies like this.

What Can I Do To Protect Myself?

Know your flood risk Use floodsmart.gov to find out if the property you live in now (or a property you’re considering buying) is a significant flood risk. My area, unfortunately, isn’t covered by that web site (as of just a few years ago, my home was classified as farmland, so the data hasn’t been updated), so my next step was to contact the FEMA Map Service Center to find out my risk. I have a small risk for flash flooding, but minimal risk for river flooding, which was about what I expected.

Determine your need for flood insurance If you’re in an area with some degree of flood risk, consult your homeowner’s insurance policy to find out what coverage you have in the event of a flash flood or a separate significant flood event. If you live in a flood plain that has flooded in the last thirty years or so, you should definitely have flood insurance.

Be aware of the flood control plan in your neighborhood or town if you do live in a flood plain. Know what rivers you should be watching and what signs you should be looking for that a flooding situation may be occurring. Contact city hall and ask if there is a flood control plan for your town and ask for a copy of it, so you’ll have an idea of what the “concern” levels are for the flood protection in your area.

What Can I Do To Help If I’m Not Affected?

Volunteer, if you can Many towns near major rivers in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin could definitely use sandbagging help. If you’re a college student off for the summer and would like a way to use your time to help people in need, contact the city hall or town hall in some of the towns in southern Iowa and western Illinois that lie along the Des Moines, Skunk, and Mississippi Rivers and volunteer to help in exchange for shelter and food. They’ll be glad to quickly find you a host family.

Consider what’s happened here as a part of who you vote for in November. The candidate who is putting resources into FEMA and the National Guard is the candidate that’s really interested in helping America out. Draw your own conclusions on which candidate that is for each office, but keep it in mind when you vote.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been carefully considering the above question. I’m twenty nine years old, in good health, with a wife and two young children at home. I don’t commute for work, either, vastly reducing my chance of a disabling accident. In other words, my chance for long-term disability is pretty small.

How small? It’s a question that’s almost impossible to research. Almost all of the data out there on the topic was produced by the insurance companies themselves, meaning that I have to read them with a very skeptical eye.

For example, the American Council of Life Insurers claims that one third of all Americans between the ages of 35 and 65 will become disabled for more than 90 days. Intuitively, this seems like an incredibly high number, and because of the source, I have a very high degree of skepticism about that number.

Another scary industry statistic comes from the Health Insurance Association of America, who claim that 1 in 7 people can expect to be disabled for five years or more. Again, this number seems very high to me and could only be even remotely reasonable with the widest possible definition of disability.

The only real statistics I’ve seen on the subject come from the Census Bureau, which report that about 20% of Americans meet their definition of disabled, but only 23% of those disabled people actually qualify for disability benefits. Why? The vast majority of disabilities that the Census Bureau considers to be disabilities are ones that people work through – vision impairment, hearing impairment, and mobility impairment are all considered disabilities, but are ones that strong and self-motivated people can work through.

The obvious solution – the one that most Americans wind up following – is to just say forget it, believing that the risk is too minimal to bother with – and I can understand that conclusion. I know that’s the assumption I’ve operated on throughout my adult life to this point, and I’m willing to bet that it’s the assumption that many of you have operated on as well. However, as five cent nickel puts it, it makes sense to insure what you cannot afford.

The first question thus becomes could I afford the consequences of not having long term disability insurance? A quick examination of my finances says yes – but only over a fairly short term. We’d be fine over the course of a year to eighteen months. Beyond that, things would get very difficult for my family.

Next question: does my employer provide long term disability insurance? Right now, I am self-employed, so I don’t have the benefit of employer coverage. My wife does have this benefit, which would replace 60% of her salary 60 days after a disabling accident, so she’s covered. That still leaves me out in the dark, though.

Given those two questions and the thought process behind them, what I actually need is pretty clear. I need a policy that kicks in in six months to a year after a disabling incident and covers enough income that my family is able to get by, and I only need the insurance over the timeframe that I would actually need it – probably until at least my children are moved out. My impression from these criteria is that the cost of insurance would be quite low.

The next step is to get quotes on this insurance, and this is the step where I’m at. Most large insurance groups offer long term disability insurance and I’ve requested information and quotes from several such groups, including the group that handles my life insurance.

Come on… is this really worth it? This thought has crossed my mind regularly throughout this process, likely because long term disability insurance seems to be an uncommon thing outside of a job benefits package.

Any insurance you buy is a personal risk-reward analysis. Any time you choose not to insure something, you’re taking on some amount of risk. Insurance eliminates (or vastly reduces) that risk. Life insurance? The risk is the loss in income to your family if you were to pass on. Health insurance? The risk is high health care costs, especially for complex procedures. Auto insurance? Homeowners insurance? Renter’s insurance? They all insure your property against unknown disaster.

Long term disability is another risk you can insure against. If you judge the risk (long term disability where you survive but are unable to work) as being smaller than the cost (the monthly or annual premiums), then you’ll probably not take any out, but that balance is different for everyone.

For me, I’m leaning strongly towards acquiring insurance for a very long term severe disability. I can afford it, and knowing that my family would be secure if something rendered me incapable of writing is very reassuring – a risk and reward balance well worth it for me.

What’s your take on long term disability insurance?