Life insurance benefits and their impact on potentially underserved family members can be significant, says Heather Walrath, lead education presenter and military benefits liaison with Navy Mutual. Fortunately, misconceptions related to the cost of life insurance are easily debunked.
“People just generally think it’s going to be much more expensive than it actually is,” Walrath says, “especially for term policies.”
Many times, that’s just not the case, especially for young, healthy individuals, she points out.
Walrath is an accredited financial counselor and a military spouse of 26 years.
So, it’s important to pay attention when she advises military families to scrutinize their policies. For example, Walrath says, commercial life insurance policies sometimes don’t address hardships specific to military service — like aviation or diving accidents, or acts of war or terror.
“These are things that service members are going to be exposed to,” she says. “When they get additional insurance, they need to make sure that there aren’t any exclusions for those types of activities.”
Perhaps most important, Walrath says, is that individuals consider the impact their life insurance decisions will have on spouses and children, who often are overlooked when shopping for coverage.
“Remember to adjust when life changes,” she advises. “You might need more insurance with three kids than you do with one kid, right? We also forget to update our beneficiaries — you get divorced, or you get married, and you forget to adjust these policies.”
Younger, healthy service members might themselves be underserved by the sheer fact that life insurance isn’t top of mind for them. But Walrath says that can be a costly mistake, often realized down the road when they finally decide to shop for a life insurance plan.
“Folks that are young and don’t have anyone relying on their income, forget that situation could change in the future,” she says.
When the time finally comes for those individuals to learn about and seek out life insurance — often, after a major health event has occurred — it can be difficult to secure adequate coverage.
Other factors, such as age, overall health, and location, can all affect life insurance rates and availability. Fortunately, tools like Navy Mutual’s online Life Insurance Needs Calculator can help curious planners get a good idea of the options available to them.
It’s not a matter of taking issue with military benefits themselves, Walrath says. Rather, it’s a matter of helping families better understand the impact of supplemental policies and their often unconsidered impact on family members — or, the “uninsured” additional parties.
“At Navy Mutual, we recognize the extraordinary military benefits that service members have,” Walrath says. “But, for a lot of people, it’s not enough. We’re here when you need more.”
Established in 1879, nonprofit Navy Mutual is “the oldest federally recognized veteran service organization in the country,” Walrath proudly reports, explaining that at the heart of its success is a “culture of wanting to take care of each other.”
Navy Mutual’s services are available to all branches of military service, in addition to uniformed services like the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
To learn more, visit the Navy Mutual website.
