Articles by Oakleigh Wealth
Everyone loves their insurance until they need to use it
Our family was rear-ended on route 64 over Labor Day weekend. Everyone involved was un-injured, but three cars were totaled, including our beloved 2016 Honda Odyssey. Because we were not at fault, our insurance company was not involved in the claims process. Nevertheless, this experience reinforced the importance of having ample liability insurance, especially uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage which protects you.
Health Insurance Options Before Medicare Age: Planning for Early Retirement
Securing medical insurance becomes a top priority if you plan to leave the workforce before reaching the Medicare eligibility age of 65. Without access to employer-sponsored health insurance, you’ll need to consider alternative options for coverage to avoid gaps in coverage and to ensure that your healthcare needs are met without breaking the bank.
In this post, we'll explore the four primary avenues to obtain health insurance before you’re eligible for Medicare:
COBRA,
Spouse or partner’s plan,
ACA Healthcare Marketplace
Private insurance.
Planning for long-term care in retirement
Insurance works best to cover risks that are both low in frequency and high in severity (car accidents, house fires, premature death, or disability). This is why LTC is so difficult to plan for: It’s not all that low in frequency, but it can also wreck your retirement plan. These two things conspire to make LTC much more expensive to insure against (whether that’s self-insuring or purchasing an insurance policy).
The Case for Long Term Disability Insurance
Welcome to the world of adulting, where every decision seems to have a weighty financial consequence, but the outcomes are never certain. Amidst the financial maze, disability insurance is one of those topics that can be easily brushed off as something you'll think about later. However, in reality, it's a crucial aspect of your financial stability.
Disability insurance provides income replacement if you become unable to work due to illness or injury. Like life insurance, it also protects your family against financial hardship from the loss of your stream of income. Yet, like many types of insurance, you hope you'll never need to use it. So, how can you determine if it's a worthwhile investment for you?
Key Issues When Evaluating Disability Insurance Policies
Disability insurance is critical to protecting your income should you suffer an illness or injury that prevents them from continuing to work.
To help you guide you through the complexities of this important topic, we created this checklist. It covers key considerations, including:
Key policy features and definitions
Group and individual coverage options
Federal benefits
Tax implications
Maximizing Your HSA’s Full Potential: Stop Using It Like an Expense Account
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) allow you to pay for a wide variety of qualifying healthcare expenses with pre-tax dollars. But this may not be the best use of your HSA funds (at least not now).
If you have the financial means to pay your healthcare costs directly, you might find greater value in treating your HSA as a long-term retirement savings tool rather than a healthcare checking account. This is particularly advantageous if you are younger, in relatively good health, and can afford to pay for minor medical expenses out of pocket. In the long run, it may be in your best interest to invest those HSA dollars for the long term, allowing the balance to grow and compound tax-free for use later in life or in an emergency.
Q: How much liability insurance do I need? A: As much as you can get!
Cut to the chase: with liability insurance, you should carry as much as you can. Most individuals and families carry liability insurance from two main sources: their home and auto insurance policies. But this may not be enough to fully protect your assets in case of an accident or a lawsuit.
That’s where “umbrella” insurance comes in, to cover you above the liability limits of your home and auto policies. However, you must coordinate coverage with your home and auto policies to make sure that you don’t have a potentially expensive gap in coverage.
How much life insurance do I need?
If there is someone in your life who depends upon your current and future income for financial support, then you probably need life insurance to transfer the financial risk of an untimely death. The proceeds of a life insurance policy can cover your family’s immediate financial needs in the wake of your death, replace lost income, repay debt, and provide for your family’s expenses and goals. But how do I know how much and what type of insurance to buy?
8 Things You Should Spend Your Money On
Most of us don’t need any more help perpetuating our arrival fallacies or justifying impulse purchases. Ad agencies, search engines, and Instagram algorithms already have us figured out. Ask my wife, I have no trouble justifying any number of purchases based on how much time they’ll save, what a great investment they are, or how much better off our lives will be once we have ______.
Then there are others whose struggles are in the opposite direction. We all know friends and family members who have plenty of money, but have difficulty spending it, even on things that would really improve their lives, ease some burden, or add a modicum of comfort or enjoyment. “Penny wise, but pound foolish,” as they say..
Whichever camp you fall into, this list of “8 Things You Should Spend your Money On” is for you.
Term Life Insurance is Probably All You’ll Ever Need
There’s no shortage of life insurance options available, and certainly no shortage of agents eager to sell you any number of policies, but the reality is that basic term life insurance is probably the only type of policy that you really need (and it also happens to be the least complicated and least expensive).