Disability Insurance News
May 25, 2006: Get Serious About Retirement; Avoid the Economic Death of Disability
Midlife is the time to strengthen your grip on your financial life, according to a May 25, 2006 article in "USA Today."[1] Experts recommend getting out of debt and to start saving to the max for retirement.
Get a grip on debt. If you or your spouse became severely ill or injured, or even suddenly out of a job, think about how you would afford all your payments.
"You want to have a reasonable debt load," says Howell Edwards of InCharge Institute,[2] a nonprofit that encourages consumers to get out of debt. "You need to be able to base it on one income."
Also, as people enter mid-age, one insurance item often slips through the cracks, planners say. They have life insurance, house insurance and car insurance, but will overlook the importance of disability insurance.
"It's consistently the most gaping hole that we see in someone's financial affairs," Mark Bass, a financial planner in Lubbock, Texas, says. Disability can be "economic death," he says. "You need to either live or die. In between is deadly."
References
- Fetterman, Mindy. "Midlife: Get Serious About Retirement," USA Today, May 25, 2006. http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/2006-05-25-midlife_x.htm
- www.inchargeinstitute.org