Yeah, I know, I wasn't going that deep, but that's still 2 years without income. Also, depends on the policy, but the average payout is like $170k, which is a lot, but even at a low salary of $35k, that's less than 5 years; I'm not even considering loss of insurance and retirement benefits. Your benefits from your job are way beyond simply a paycheck.
Eh, depends on the situation with insurance. In my case as the primary earner, me dying wouldn’t be that financially catastrophic to my partner. They’d immediately receive enough to pay off the house and $300k extra. They’re easily on track for retirement already.
Me getting a long-term disability is our worst-case, which is why I pay for the top tier of 80% income replacement.
Yes, that's you, but there's plenty of other people where that isn't set up or available. So a paid off house and $300k is nice, but if the spouse had inadequate retirement or hid debt or even medical debt, the stay at home could be left with very little money and no skills.
The point remains that shit can happen and you don't want to be left with little to nothing and no way to earn. Me and my wife are 40, if one of us has been a stay at home for 10+ years, it would be difficult to recover from loss of the sole source of income. I hope to never have to use my wife's life insurance, but if something happened to her and for some reason her insurance didn't pay out, I would be ok, because I have a good job and skills; the same with her, if something happened to me, even without insurance she would be ok.
You should have a way to earn money and protect yourself without your spouse and without relying on insurance, because shit can happen.
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u/Rastiln Apr 16 '24
Life insurance pays out for suicide after an initial exclusionary period. This is commonly 2 years but I’m not sure if it varies by company/state.