Why Employer-Provided Life Insurance is Dangerous

One of the most dangerous mistakes you can make is to rely on the life insurance your employer offers up as benefit. Here’s why:

1. It’s not enough! Most employers set the death benefit at one or two times your annual salary. As I have made clear in my Life Insurance Made Easy blog post, to truly protect your loved ones you need a policy with a death benefit that is 20 to 25 times the annual income needs of your dependents. I don’t think an employer payout of 1 to 2 times your salary is going to cut it. Do you?

2. You can’t take it with you. Employer-provided life insurance is only good for as long as you stay with that employer. Get laid off or switch jobs and you are suddenly without life insurance. Even if your next employer offers the benefit, we just covered that it’s unlikely to be all that you need to protect yourself. And what if at the point that you leave a job you aren’t in the greatest health? If you look to buy your own life insurance at that point, your premiums are going to be higher than if you had bought the insurance years ago when you were healthy.

The bottom line is that if you need life insurance, you are far better off shopping for it on your own. You want a policy that lasts as long as you need it, not only as long as you keep your current job. At selectquote.com you can learn about term insurance, and start the process of protecting your loved ones.