A lot of the times when people are approached with a speech about Life Insurance, it results in them screwing up their eyes and rubbing their temples with the sheer amount of information they are being lambasted with. This literally happens many times and is one of the main reasons why plenty of people stay away from anything to do with any kind of insurance. It’s too complicated and a badly handled explanation only makes it worse.

However, it is only simple fact that in a dreadfully uncertain world, Life Insurance is now needed more than ever. It is simply not just for the sake of the insured’s peace of mind, but for the security of their beneficiaries as well. So how will this message be understood by those who were traumatized with bad salesmanship? By simply going back to the five W’s of Life Insurance, plus one.

In case there are readers who are unfamiliar with it, the five W’s are Who, What, Where, When, Why, and the plus one is How Much. This is a grade school system for most institutions and is meant to make things as simple as possible to understand. So to start, here they are.

Who

Who needs Life Insurance? Just about anyone who has anything of value to protect. These can be family, property or charity, but mostly family. If you are a parent with a spouse and three kids, you would not want them to be without protection. If you are entrusted with a piece of history in the form of a house or a building, you would not want that property’s future to be uncertain. And if you are a patron of a certain charitable endeavor such as funding an orphanage or helping homeless people, you would want your part in that to endure. So if you fall under any one of those cases, then Life Insurance can help you immensely.

What

What is Life Insurance? Simply put, it is a system designed to protect the benefactors of the insured in the event that anything unfortunate happened. As mentioned above, the benefits from the insurance can go to the insured’s family, property or charity. This is the Life Insurance in the traditional sense. However, there are also Life Insurance types that will give the insured some benefits while still alive. Depending on the arrangement, this can come in the form of an annual stream of cash from the policy or an entitlement to a loan.

Where

Where can you get Life Insurance? Well, it is mostly done from your home. Many think that getting Life Insurance involves a lot of back and forth trips to insurance companies. But actually, a lot of policies have been signed on the kitchen counter. Agents can come over to your house and make the arrangements there where you are comfortable. The requirements can simply be gathered beforehand so that when they do come, everything is already settled.

When

When do you need Life Insurance? You need it as soon as you come into this world. Well, from a theoretically ideal point of view that is. Since Life Insurance is basically meant to guard the future of your loved ones after you die, you need Life Insurance as long as you have loved ones. However, this is not to say that you are required to get Life Insurance in infanthood.

Why

Why get Life Insurance? As was already stated, to guarantee the future of your loved ones should anything happen to you. This world is uncertain and everything inside it is within that scope of instability. Mostly these factors are out of our control. But doing everything to make sure the people we love will not suffer after we are gone can be within our control.

How much

How much Life Insurance do you need? This depends entirely on what you need the policy for. If it is for replacement income, then it should yield close to how much you earn annually. If it is to settle your mortgage, then it should be enough to cover however much is remaining. For everything else, the logic is the same.