Insurance

If you haven’t examined your life, homeowner’s, disability and other insurance policies lately, they may no longer meet your needs. Your financial circumstances may have changed – perhaps you’re making more money, you have children, you have more financial obligations. Or you may have too much of some kinds of insurance. For example, if you’re older and your children are through college, you may not need as much life insurance as you once did. You need to assess your insurance needs in light of an approach called “risk management.” First determine how you can avoid or reduce risks that could cost you money. For example, stopping smoking can reduce your life, medical, and auto insurance premiums. Adding your teenager to your auto insurance policy could double your premiums. But you can minimize that increase by having your teenager take driver’s education and drive an inexpensive car insured only for liability (they wreck it, they walk). Insurance should be used to cover only those significant risks to your person, to your property, and to your assets that you cannot sufficiently avoid, reduce, or self-insure. But it isn’t merely a question of having enough (or too much) insurance. It’s also a question of whether you have the right kinds of insurance.