Thanks for the additional thoughts. I know I explained things sort of clinically and coldly, but DH and his ex-wife are very realistic about these things and we often talk about the possibilities of the future. When you have a kid like this, you DO need to be very practical. For example, when she turns 18 next year, she'll need to be adopted by us (her mother is bowing out), otherwise, she'll become a ward of the state and we don't want that to happen. WE want to make the decisions about where she'll live and who will care for her, not leave that up to the state. That's not to say that this isn't an emotional decision for DH, as has been pointed out. It certainly is, however, DH has had to remove himself from some of the emotion to make these decisions. The funeral is already planned, right down to who is doing what at the service - precisely so they don't have to worry about making those decisions when emotions are running high. There won't be a squabble about the finances, because we pay for everything as it is, even though step-daughter lives with her mother...we'll pay every last dime of the funeral, just as we'll pay every last dime of her existence until that point, and will do the same for step-son's college. That's just a given, since ex-wife has no money whatsoever (there was never any alimony required when they divorced, additionally she remarried before DH and I got married). Even though we foot the bill, in the interest of keeping the peace and out of respect for the kids, we do take ex-wife's opinions into consideration and more often than not, decisions are made jointly. As suggested, I guess I'll tell DH to decide if we do more research into insurance or pay the premium for this year and see where that takes us. We do expect the premium to go up every year and no, we have no idea of what life expectancy looks like. It could be next week or it could be several years. Sorry, looks like I've rambled a bit but wanted to provide a bit more context for the question. Thank you.

First off, you need to decide what you want insurance for. Some of the reasons could be: - Income replacement for surviving spouse - Mortgage payoff - Children (education, etc.) - Retirement Level term is usually the least expensive method of obtaining insurance. Term periods are usually 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 years. Companies that specialize in this market include Metropolitan, Transamerica, USAA Life, and West Coast Life; there are many others. Use a company with a sound financial rating, of which there are certainly fewer than there used to be, LOL. Income replacement: up to you to decide how much would be adequate recompense for a spouse's death. Generally it's recommended to have 5-10x gross annual salary, but your needs may be different. Mortgage payoff: self explanatory. Get a level term policy for each employed person on the title, for the 15 or 30-yr term of the mortgage. Children (education, etc.): again, self-explanatory Retirement: In our case, I have insurance as a retirement backstop. My DH has the old-fashioned Defined Benefit Pension that is assignable to the spouse, along with a good-sized 401k/457 account. I, OTOH, have only some small annuities that kick in when I'm 65, and a very tiny IRA. I use life insurance to mitigate the risk to him that if I die before I start collecting (he would get nothing, in that case) this offsets the loss of that monthly income for a number of years. Be aware that you need to be careful if the reason for purchase is estate planning. As most estates fall under the Federal Tax Limits, the majority of folks do not need an insurance policy for estate tax planning. These limits, of course, are changeable but general consensus is Congress will settle for the current $3.5M limit after 2010. Although life insurance does not incur income tax, being a POD (Payable On Death) financial product, and thus bypasses probate, I believe that it IS counted in your overall estate total and therefore, can trigger the federal estate tax when added to your other assets. To avoid this, there are two alternatives: - Have the policy owned by someone other than the insured; e.g., a spouse. - Set up an ILIT: Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust. You will need an attorney to do this, and sufficient cash flow to pay a considerable annual premium. This is usually a VUL (Variable Universal Life) policy, and is designed to move assets out of a taxable estate over time by purchasing an insurance policy which will eventually benefit the heirs by providing the cash necessary to pay any federal/state estate taxes (and providing liquidity with any remainder). Life Insurance can help with estate liquidity, but it is not in itself an immediate solution. Whoever you name as Executor of your will or Trustee of your Trust, will not actually be able to access cash funds unless they are a co-trustee of a jointly owned trust account. Anyone else will have to wait until they have a certified copy of the death certificate to present. If there are no problems and the county is efficient you might have this in a week or two. If there are any suspicious circumstances necessitating police or coroner investigations, the Executor or Trustee might have to wait a while. In either case, each has a fiduciary duty to keep the estate intact as much as possible before dispersing the assets. IOW, you can get life insurance proceeds fairly quickly - usually 2-3 weeks after they receive a copy of the death certificate. But your estate Executor or Trustee needs to start paying bills of the estate IMMEDIATELY upon death. This is something most folks never think about - there are legal and financial costs to death, and whoever's responsible for the estate had better have sufficient cash/credit up-front for at least one month, maybe two or three. They will get reimbursed from the estate, but it may take a little while. Just something to keep in mind!

Other things being equal, many of us prefer to get life, and possibly also disability insurance, related to paying a mortgage off on our own as a separate contract. The mortgage insurance's beneficiary is the bank, not the mortgage holder, who, though paying the premium, has no flexibility in case of need. The amount of coverage decreases over the years, as it covers only the portion of the mortgage remaining unpaid, while usually for a similar cost (sometimes lower), a mortgagee can get regular term life insurance for the full amount originally owing on the mortgage ... and it usually stays at that level throughout, if they so choose. Premium rate may increase at the end of the agreed term, if it is shorter than the years that the mortgage is to run. If premium rates are comparable, if the mortgagee dies the amount of benefit making up the difference between the original amount owing and the amount remaining owing at the time (which they would likely pay to the bank to retire the mortgage) would be really helpful to the survivors. It's wise to carry disability insurance, as well, as there's a far greater possibility of long-term disability (about 4 times) than of death during one's years of employment ... lacking employment income, how does one pay mortgage should s/he become disabled? Lacking a will ... no problem ... as long as the owner of the family's assets ... remains alive. Suppose someone were to come to your house tomorrow and, reading from a clipboard, ask you what your family owns, then say that this and that was to be done with each of the various pArts of it. As you listened, you'd likely object strongly, sputteringly saying, "But ... but ... we don't want our things and money to be dealt with that way!!". That person would just be telling you what your state's rules are, that would come into effect ... ... if the owner of the assets dies without a will!! So - get the will in place ... before you die. Can't do it after!! ole joyful P.S. Confession time. I'm close to 80 ... and I don't got one, either. Stupid. My kids'd get the stuff ... but they'd get a lot less, after all of those admin. costs. And they'd get the stuff later. And the charities'd get ... nothing! o j

Whole life insurance is appropriate for some people (it has tax advantages as an estate planning tool, for example), but term life insurance is more appropriate for most people who just need to address the question of how their family will get by without their income. Disability insurance is also a very good idea, and often overlooked. How much insurance you need depends on a lot of things, including how much your husband makes, how old you are, how close he is to retirement, whether you have adequate retirement savings, whether you have kids and how old they are, whether you could/would find work if he passed and how much you could earn, etc. Social security benefits are a factor in several ways, first for any children under 18 and for a non-working parent caring for kids under 16, and secondly as retirement benefits under his earnings record as early as age 60. You can think of your needs in 3 parts: immediate needs after a spouse's death, such as for funeral expenses and maybe paying off a mortgage, annual income needs up to "retirement" (or when you start taking Social Security on his earnings, assuming you don't remarry), and annual income needs post-SS. If you have young kids, you may want to split up the years where you are supporting your kids from the later years when they will (hopefully) be financially independent. With kids, you may also need to look to insurance to pay for college, depending on their plans and your current savings. If you can work out your annual income needs that you want insurance to cover, you can work backward to how much money you would need insurance to provide now using a net present value calculation. If that sounds like so much gibberish to you, you might consider hiring an hourly financial planner to help you with the calculations.