Financial Back-to-School Basic for Mom and Dad

(ARA) - Each fall, millions of moms and dads spend countless hours purchasing back-to-school necessities for their children. While some parents equip their child with the latest gizmo -- a personal digital assistant (PDA) or cell phone, for example -- most know that “the basics” like paper, pencils and folders are essential learning tools to secure their children’s future.

Unfortunately, many parents ignore a simple financial back-to-school basic. They often buy the latest gadget for their kids but then fail to carry a critical component for their family’s future and their children’s education -- namely, adequate life insurance coverage.

“If a parent is worried about his or her child’s education, he or she should also worry about having the financial protection underpinning those plans that life insurance can offer,” says Todd Gillingham, JD, CLU, ChFC, a partner with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. “Without adequate insurance protection, every parent’s best laid education plans will fall apart under the financial burden left on their surviving children.”

Regardless of your income or assets, life insurance is the key to protecting the financial future of your loved ones and “should be the foundation on which other goals are built,” says Gillingham.

Surveys show that roughly one-third of American adults have no life insurance protection and, of those with coverage, nearly one-third have coverage that is less than one time their annual income -- not nearly enough for long-term family protection. Four in 10 single parents have no life insurance coverage of any kind. Perhaps this is why the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education found that nearly half of Americans (48 percent) say they are worried that if they die tomorrow their loved ones would not be financially secure.

“Various funding vehicles such as 529 plans and Coverdell education accounts can often grab the headlines,” says Gillingham. “While these are important ways of saving, they can lead parents to mistakenly ignore their life insurance needs. Such an oversight can be financially devastating.”

Without the protection life insurance offers, financial security is often illusory. In the case of premature death, life insurance helps families pay for living expenses -- including mortgage and education payments -- when the income of a loved one is lost. Without this protection, the resulting financial stress frequently undermines all other goals.

Beyond daily expenses, life insurance protects against sharp reductions in future pension and social security payments by replacing assets cut short by premature death. For example, anticipated assets in an individual’s retirement plan may be reduced by 50 percent or more simply because the individual’s death interrupts the long-term growth of the assets within the individual’s plan. Business owners and those with significant assets also use life insurance to pass those assets to their children in a tax-efficient manner or as a vehicle for charitable gifts to nonprofit organizations. Without life insurance’s special tax privileges, many families would lose the family business or not be able to leave a lasting legacy to the cause or organization of their choosing.

“These benefits aside, the fundamental reason for life insurance remains the protection of your family and your financial programs,” says Thrivent Financial’s Gillingham. “Death often strikes when we don’t expect it, so goals that require continuing funding such as a child’s education are especially vulnerable to death’s effects.”

While shopping for school supplies this fall, remember this back-to-school lesson -- the essentials come first. Says Gillingham, “adequate life insurance is one back-to-school basic parents should simply not live without.”

To learn more, contact a financial services professional, or visit www.thrivent.com/insurance/life.

Courtesy of ARA Content

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Courtesy of ARA Content

Prenuptial Agreements: Protecting Your Financial Security

The decision to get married is a big one in anyone's life. Nowadays, it is common for people, men and women alike, to secure themselves a career and a stable financial background. No one wants to be poor, and everyone wants to provide for their family. This method of thinking is very positive, producing quality families that are self-reliant and responsible.

With the responsibility of marriage comes the forethought to the marriage. No, I'm not talking about rings and wedding receptions, I'm talking about financial security for both the parties involved. If you are one of these forward thinking people who are entering into marriage only after having secured a good career with a solid income and a secure financial portfolio, then you need to consider the other securities about marriage.

Think of marriage as being similar to a contract you sign with your employer. You sign this contract promising to provide certain services, different levels of employment and responsibility, things you can do, things you can't and won't do. This is common in the workplace to sign these types of contracts. Marriage should be entered into in much the same fashion, with forethought and planning about who is responsible for what and when, where, how and why. If you enter into the contract with x-amount of assets, you should be entitled to leave with the same number that you came with, plus half of whatever you and your spouse accumulated together.

This may sound like you are splitting hairs with your spouse and you're probably afraid that your spouse will think that you don't trust them. It's not about trust. It's about responsibility for yourself, your actions and protecting yourself from the actions of others. Likewise for your spouse, a prenuptial agreement will cover their assets as well as yours. Everyone wins, no one loses what isn't rightfully theirs and your marriage starts out with the boundaries set regarding these sticky financial issues.

The real truth is that your spouse will likely be happy that you brought up the idea of a prenuptial agreement; chances are they are thinking of the same thing. It's only fair to protect 'what's mine is mine', especially when you have worked so hard to achieve these things.

As a fiscally responsible married couple, or couple about to be married, it's only fair that you are both upfront and honest with each other about your full intentions before you say I do. These discussions do, at some point, have to include finances. Who exactly is going to be responsible for the payments on the mortgage? Are they to be made equally? Who is going to front the money for the down-payment? If only one person is fronting the money to purchase a house, is that money considered a 'marital asset' or does that money essentially belong to the spouse who originally fronted the money? This is only a very slight glimpse at the questions you and your spouse should answer before the 'do you promise to honor and keep her…for richer or for poorer…until death do you part' question comes up.

Notice that "for richer or poorer" is mentioned in wedding vows. When the person performing your wedding ceremony asks this question, you and your spouse can both honestly answer "I do" if you have a prenuptial agreement, because you have already talked about the tough stuff. You can now sit back and enjoy your marriage to it's fullest without any of the worries that will have been washed away with your prenuptial agreement. Both of you can sleep easy, and live fully, by signing an agreed upon prenuptial agreement.


About the author:
Hannibal Whitestone makes it easy to find out if a prenuptial agreement makes sense for you. Visit http://www.prenuptial-agreement-info.comtoday and get the facts... because you're worth a lot more than you think.