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Do You Have a Safety Net?

This post is sponsored by Haven Life Insurance Agency. All opinions are our own.

Remember when you were a kid and it was almost impossible to believe that your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles had all been alive for like, over 40 years!? Way back then, 40 years was such a massive, incomprehensible amount of time. Yet, here Kim and I are, knocking on the door of that milestone ourselves (I’m 38 and Kim is, um, a little bit younger than me!) and with a kiddo of our own to take care of. We’ve all heard it or said it, but time flies, huh? Now that we’re responsible for a child that will soon think that same way about us, we found that it was time to step up our financial responsibility game.

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

Welcome, Lucy!

Welcoming Lucy to our world reminded us that it was time for us to have some slightly-uncomfortable, less-than-exciting conversations – like the one about life insurance. For us, life insurance had always been an afterthought. Kind of like a ‘we’ll think about it when we need to think about it’ decision that was easy to put off. And then our sweet Lucy was born, and we were suddenly discussing brands of diapers, challenging each other to see Who Swaddles Best? And, oh yeah, life insurance.

Once we started digging into the topic, our experience was nearly identical to that of the founder’s at Haven Life Insurance Agency (Haven Life). Like Yaron, we found that most life insurance providers didn’t provide a service to get quotes, apply for, or purchase a life insurance policy online. Wait… what? Seriously? I thought we were living in a modern technology world?! From the time we started the process, it took nearly two months for us to get coverage in place. Two. Months. We stuck with it because we knew we needed coverage in place to help protect Lucy is anything happened to us, but that’s madness for any busy parent to go through!

Lucky for you guys, Haven Life was created to take the monumental hassle out of getting term life insurance – all with affordable rates, hugely positive customer reviews and an easy online application process that makes the traditional life insurance buying process seem archaic. The purchasing experience works like this: you apply online and find out immediately if you’re approved for coverage. If so, you can start coverage that same day. A medical exam may be needed to verify the information in the application, and that can be taken at a time and place of your choosing. Once the medical exam results are in, you get your final rate, and you’re covered. That’s it!

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

Haven Life, which is backed and wholly owned by leading life insurer MassMutual, has modernized the process of buying term life insurance so that it’s digital, simple, and still affordable. Case in point: A 20-year, $500,000 Haven Term policy, issued by MassMutual, for a healthy 35-year-old woman is $23.34 per month.

Tip: Their intuitive online calculator makes finding a policy that’s right for you hassle-free. Here’s a basic overview of real-life policies, for real-life people, with real-life rates.

Our New Work Reality

On top of welcoming Lucy to our world last year, we made another big huge life change last summer; Kim and I decided that it was finally time for me to bid farewell to my corporate sales job of almost 15 years so we could work together full time on YBH! As excited as we were to be working on our passion project together, this decision wasn’t made lightly. There were a lot of variables to consider.

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

For example, my former employer not only offered great health and vacation benefits, but also offered access to an elective life insurance policy, which we took full advantage of. The tricky thing about employer-provided coverage, though? Well, it’s (obviously!) locked to an employer. So when and if circumstances change (as they did for us), you may find yourself back at square one for coverage. But when you have an individual policy purchased from somewhere like Haven Life, it’s not job dependent so it goes wherever life takes you! That’s incredibly helpful when major life changes are being considered or planned for.

Our Newest Property Addition

And speaking of even more major life changes in the last 18 months, my newfound job flexibility also allowed us to make another long-term financial decision – we bought another building. Hey, Two Flat!

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

I bet my little-kid-self didn’t think that my almost-40-year-self would be doing that. Much like buying our term life insurance policy, our intent with buying the Two Flat wasn’t to make our lives easier now. Rather, we gave it careful consideration, studied our options, and we purchased a building that we’ll spend the next year renovating in order to set our family up for financial stability decades from now.

That said, if something unexpected were to happen to one or both of us, the payout from a term life insurance policy could help to pay for things like our mortgages, childcare and day-to-day bills. That’s one of the unique things about life insurance – it’s not for you, per se. It’s for the people you care about. The people who depend on you.

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

Lower Rates While We’re Young(ish) & Healthy

Our growing family, job changes and property acquisitions were all decisions we made that motivated us to purchase our term life insurance policy. There is, however, one factor that contributed to our life insurance purchase that we had absolutely no control over – we’re not getting any younger!

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

​​​​​​​That said, another term life insurance uniqueness is that the rates go into effect when the policy is purchased. Therefore, buying earlier in life = lower rates for the entirety of the policy. For example, I’m 38 years old, a non-smoker and fortunate to be considered in great health. Using Haven’s super-easy calculator, I estimated the cost of my policy. A 30-year, $500,000 Haven Term policy for a healthy 38-year-old man is $50.90 per month. However, if I were 5 years younger, the same policy would cost 33 year-old me $38.41 per month. If we had purchased our policy sooner, we could have treated Lucy to ice cream weekly with those savings!

Term Life Insurance for the Ones You Love // via Yellow Brick Home

A Safety Net for Each of Us

For us, having term life insurance has provided the grown-up versions of ourselves the peace of mind that we didn’t realize we were missing. Anyone with financial dependents should consider it. Once we got coverage in place, we could sleep easier at night knowing that if something tragic happened to either one of us, our term policies would help to ease the burden of our financial responsibilities. Figuring out the ‘life’ stuff hasn’t always been easy, but thank goodness for Haven Life to make it right.

Little-kid-you will be so happy you were prepared.

Thank you to Haven Life Insurance Agency for sponsoring this post and allowing us to provide content that matters. All opinions belong to us.

Haven Term is a Term Life Insurance Policy (ICC17DTC) issued by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), Springfield, MA 01111 and offered exclusively through Haven Life Insurance Agency, LLC. Policy and rider form numbers and features may vary by state and not be available in all states. Our Agency license number in California is 0K71922 and in Arkansas, 100139527.

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  • at home with Ashley7.30.19 - 8:18 AM

    Thank you so much for sharing this! I’ve been thinking about getting life insurance but it’s such a hassle to get complete information + an honest user review. ReplyCancel

  • Marti7.30.19 - 8:30 AM

    Whoa, I didn’t know you had left your corporate job! Congratulations, Scott!ReplyCancel

    • Scott7.30.19 - 8:36 AM

      Thanks Marti! It’s my one year anniversary this weekend. Time flies!ReplyCancel

  • Stephanie7.30.19 - 12:18 PM

    This is a great review, and it is so important to have these uncomfortable conversations!  However, i think the statement about the savings if you had bought life insurance 5 years ago is a bit misleading.  If you had started the policy 5 years ago at $38.41 per month you would have spent an extra $2,305 for those 5 years of coverage.  With the $12.50 reduction in monthly cost, it would take an additional 15 years to break even.  ReplyCancel

    • Scott7.30.19 - 2:05 PM

      Hi Stephanie! That’s absolutely a fair point – from a mathematical perspective. However, if the coverage through my former employer were not in place, we would have been completely without a safety net in case of tragedy, which is what life insurance provides. Which is the larger picture here. :)ReplyCancel

  • Laura C7.30.19 - 2:29 PM

    Personally, I didn’t find getting quotes on life insurance very onerous. I emailed a few insurance brokers, got a bunch of quotes back and wound up with a William Penn policy. It was all pretty fast, including the medical exam – they sent a nurse to my home at a time of my choosing and she did all the necessary tests right there. I think everything was done in under a month, including a week or so of examining different quotes. My policy is only for 20 years (my spouse and I are older than you two), but is for $1 million and costs me only $45 a month. Money well spent. ReplyCancel

  • Sally7.30.19 - 6:11 PM

    Yes, important, not-that-interesting stuff getting finally sorted out definitely is the grown-up path to take! Also a reminder to everyone who owns property of any type and categorically anyone with children is to make certain that you have made a will and that you keep it updated. ReplyCancel

    • Kim7.30.19 - 8:06 PM

      Absolutely, thank you, Sally! (Btw, Haven can help with that, too.)ReplyCancel

  • Beth7.31.19 - 10:18 AM

    I would also encourage you and your readers to consider critical illness insurance. My spouse and I purchased life insurance when we first got pregnant and have kept that up but we never invested in critical illness insurance. As a “healthy” 42 year old I was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was self employed and was unable to keep working through treatment. Thankfully I wasn’t the main income and in Canada treatment is covered through our medical system. However, we did lose my income and there are extra expenses through that time.  Now my husband (healthy 46 year old) is covered for 150,000 for around $20 a month. I strongly advocate for everyone to look into critical illness insurance as well. 
    Thankfully, I have responded well to treatment and don’t think we will need to utilize my life insurance policy any time soon but it sure would have been nice to have a lump sum to help us get through a challenging time in our lives. 
    Thank you for being a reminder to many to consider the future and make proactive decisions for it. 
    BethReplyCancel

    • Kim7.31.19 - 11:00 AM

      Thank you for sharing your story, Beth. A friend of ours mentioned the same thing in conversation yesterday, which is something to consider.ReplyCancel

  • Lindsay7.31.19 - 11:43 PM

    Thanks for sharing this with us! 
    I have a completely unrelated question that’s been coming up every time I check your blog…when are we going to see updates on the flat, and new projects you’re working on? So ready to see you make progress through your new, fun space! ReplyCancel

    • Kim8.1.19 - 7:32 AM

      We’ve been waiting on the permitting process to get finalized for months, but good news… demo starts NEXT WERK! We’ll be sharing so many updates as soon as that happens. We’re just as excited as you are!ReplyCancel

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We’re Kim + Scott, Chicago based content creators behind the Home + Lifestyle brand Yellow Brick Home.

Join us as we renovate and nurture vintage homes across Chicago + SW Michigan!

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