Who Gives a Rats Ass About Life Insurance?

First of all...who gives a rats ass? Where the heck did that quote come from? I don't know anyone that will touch a rat, let alone give someone its ass...sorry....sometimes I just wonder where things come from lol. For the record, I Googled it and there is no solid answer so I will just leave this thought in my bank of unanswered random questions.

Anyway, back to life insurance and who should give a flying f*ck about it. IMO, if you are a mother, wife, aunt, business owner, have a charity that you want to impact or have assets that you are planning on leaving to others at your passing... then YOU need to definitely at least educate yourself about life insurance. I am not saying you have to buy it (and don't worry, I don't sell it). I am saying that you need to learn about it and consider it for part of your arsenal of financial tools.

Why? Why should you learn or consider spending any of your hard-earned money on something that won't likely benefit you (side note, some forms of life insurance benefit you prior to death)?

Let's start with our mommas out there-cause you are by far the easiest to explain. If you have babies or kids under the age of 22, I would beg of you to please learn about life insurance. We all have a friend that died in a car accident, or got a rare form of cancer or had some other fate that led to a life way too short. Guess what? They didn't think they were going to die young either.

If you have little ones, and you pass away...someone-your spouse, siblings, friends, parents...someone will be left with responsibilities of raising them. These new responsibilities include time, money, energy and likely a completely new life. They may have to reduce or discontinue work. They will be dealing with the loss of you and the new responsibilities of raising your babies. And you want them to do the best job ever, right?

Let's take an example. You die in a car accident (it's terrible, I know and it's also how my best friend died when I was 26 years old-so trust me, it can and does happen). You leave behind a husband and 2 children, let's say 10 and 18 years old.

Maybe you worked and made $50k a year that contributed to the household. Maybe you were a stay at home mom that shuffled the kids to their various activities and helped the older one apply to college. Maybe at home, you helped with Valentine's Day cards, shopped for school clothes, offered a sounding board, taught them how to tie their shoes...all the things that mommas do.

Someone now has to do those things. And your husband likely already has his roles-he won't likely be able to play double duty while dealing with your death! If you leave behind something, at least he can now pay for someone to drive the kids to and from events so that he can continue working. Your insurance money can pay for therapy so that your beautiful babies can deal with their grief. You won't be there to plan family trips anymore...but maybe your brother or sister will be and wouldn't it be helpful if they had the money to pay for your kids to join them at Disney?

I think when your kids are young enough to still depend on you financially, then you have a responsibility to educate yourself on life insurance-determine if you need it (the answer on this one is a resounding YES), how much you can afford, how much you need and who will be the beneficiary (as well as how you want it spent as there are ways to specify that too). You may be surprised to learn that there are usually very inexpensive policies for even those mommas that are barely scraping by but want to rest their head knowing their babies will be okay.

This same principle applies if you have a financial responsibility to anyone-your spouse, your staff, your pups...if you currently play the role of paying for things and then suddenly...POOF...you're gone...who will be responsible for stepping in and covering the void? Are they ready and willing? Do they have the money...but more importantly...the time to spend managing your life left behind?

If the answer is not an easily screamed from the mountaintops-HELL YEAH-then you need to learn about life insurance and see if you can make it work in your budget.

A great place to learn (sales pitch coming LOL) is in my new book, "The Boss Lady Investor, You Don't Need A D!*K to Understand Money," where I explain various types of insurance and the basics of how they work (don't worry, I don't go too crazy explaining it as even I get bored learning about life insurance).

There are also plenty of free resources online that will give you quotes and comparisons, such as www.policygenius.com and www.nerdwallet.com, and tons of others!

Again, it's simply worth spending an hour to learn about and see if it fits your life...worst case, you learn something new. Best case, you find a way to protect the ones you love from the financial hardship associated with an unexpected death.

For more fun tips, follow me on Instagram @ #thebossladyinvestor™.