Nest Egg: Identifying the most important things in life

Over the course of the past month, I’ve had three meetings with existing clients who didn’t want to discuss investment returns or retirement planning with me.

They wanted to discuss a significant change in their personal circumstances because they or their spouse had been diagnosed with a serious illness.

These are not easy conversations for the talker or the listener, but of course it’s a simple fact of life that people do get seriously ill along their journey.

In all cases these clients did have protection policies in place that they can now claim on which will alleviate some of the financial burden if nothing else.

Life insurance or critical illness cover is something few of us really ever want to think about. We all want to imagine we will live into our old age and see our children grow up.

However, we know that the unexpected can happen and, so to ensure that we do not leave our dependants to suffer in the event of our passing or our inability to work, we are advised to take out life and specified/critical illness cover.

The most obvious instances where we tend to take life cover is for the primary earner in a family where their passing will leave a spouse and children unable to attain the lifestyle, education and potential they had envisioned for them. Even in this most clear-cut case, life cover is often put off but there are many other situations that are often overlooked.

The Homemaker

The at home parent or homemaker is typically vastly undervalued.

The contribution of the tasks they carry out in the home, looking after children, feeding and clothing them, bringing them to school and generally managing the household is highly underestimated. Some reports estimate the value of a stay-at-home parent at upwards of €50,000 per annum. With the loss of a homemaker these tasks have to be sourced elsewhere.

Life cover for the homemaker can help to compensate for the loss of those contributions and limit the challenges resulting from their passing.

Single Parents

For a single parent, who is solely responsible for their family, their loss will obviously leave that family in a more difficult situation than a two-parent family. Among the many additional challenges, a single parent faces, preparing for the possibility that your children may be left without their parent is one of the most difficult.

However, it is vital to ensure the continued comfort of children and other dependants in the event of that parent passing.

Employer

Even a single person without children may have many people who are dependent on them.

If you are a key person in a business, you may avail of special life cover that can ensure the continuance of your business or at least the proper closing of that business.

A single self-employed person is also dependent on themselves. Should they become seriously ill and be unable to work they may be unable to support themselves.

As a self-employed person they may also be unable to avail of welfare payments and even where they are, those payments may not be enough to sustain their home or lifestyle.

Income protection can ensure that the self-employed receive a substantial proportion of their income should they be unable to work through illness.

Retiree

A person’s children may be grown and no longer dependent but upon that person’s death they may receive a substantial inheritance and with it an equally substantial tax bill.

In the event of a retiree’s death, life cover will pay out. This will make money readily available to cover tax or any other costs enabling the family to distribute the inheritance without difficulty. It is easy to think that life cover may not apply or be important in a particular situation but there are many different ways in which life cover can protect and secure the future of loved ones.

For more information and financial planning advice, reach out to Conor and the team at www.tarafinancial.ie