Some [Financial] Safety & Security, Please (4)

The thing about life insurance is that its common objective is that while you are still working to make a living for you and you family, you can already safeguard the financial storm that can bring about in an individual in case of death and disability, accident or critical illness. While making sure the surviving family members live on and sustain the standard of living after the loss. At the same time, it can provide you with the funds necessary during your later years when your children are all grown up and you start to lean towards retirement

Eventually, as you grow older, the need for life insurance may lessen as your responsibilities have declined once your children are all grown up, having families of their own and planning for their respective families. Unless you are really financially free by the time you hit your desired retirement age, then you are left with no choice but to strive hard and continue to work.


Regardless of sex, race, socio-economic status and occupation, another purpose why life insurance can be of great benefit to people is...

2. Investment

Some [Financial] Safety & Security, Please (3)

One day someone came up to me and asked, "What is the right insurance plan for me?"

My answer to that would be "What is your plan?"


Life insurance serves different purposes, for different plans, for different hopes in the future.


In the end, it's all about "why you need it", and "how soon you should get one".


Remember the last time you saw something which looks valuable to your eyes? And after careful evaluation, whether you really need to buy it, its benefits to you, the affordability and warranty, you decided to purchase it?


Life insurance is indeed a need, just like that valuable item you saw in the supermarket. Some people just don't realize its value until their time is done here on earth, or when they really need it the most. Like I said on the previous post, the building blocks of wealth cannot stand without its foundation, which is insurance. And without it, you can see your wealth diminish and leave your family in financial rubble, which would end up in a scrambling of money and other financial instruments to keep up with the family's standard of living once you are gone.


So what are the different purposes / uses of life insurance? Let me count to you the ways.

Some [Financial] Safety & Security, Please (2)

A house can never be built without putting up a foundation to which it can stand on, or else a storm can just wash it away without warning. A business can never be set up without laying out the fundamental principles guiding the endeavor and every other factor that needs to be ruled in order to build it. A student may never be able to pass the exam without executing the most basic guideline in answering it - follow instructions.


In personal finance, a person may never be truly considered financially free if he does not arm himself with a foundation that helps build his wealth and protects him and his family from any financial disasters.


Friends, the road to wealth takes a long time to reach the destination (goal). Building your structure of financial freedom may take years, or even decades, to see it rise to the top and ready for use in achieving your needs and dreams in life. But without the proper support, base and foundation to keep it standing while you are building the structure, your financial value would collapse and put yourself, and probably your family, into rubble and financial depression that it may take a long period to recover, or maybe never.


This financial instrument that has the ability to protect you and your investments is insurance.

Some [Financial] Safety & Security, Please (1)

One of the most interesting - and sometimes controversial - financial instruments happens to be the one thing that most Filipinos do not have. Forget about how much money you have in the bank. Forget about the money you keep under the bed or on your piggy bank. Forget about your mutual funds, the money you invest in the stock market, and other instruments that help you make money work for you.

Sure, these things are such valuable financial assets for you and your family. I mean, they help much in achieving the goals you have and realizing your lifelong dreams. But what if you are just starting out with your job and little has been invested on these assets, and then something happens to you, that you get knocked six feet under with your most treasured people in the world - your family - looking down on you as you go ahead and meet your Creator?

If you have any of those financial instruments stated above (and I'm pretty sure you have, or else!), do you think the money you have right now is enough to give back to your loved ones? Do you think the money you have right now can give them the assurance that everything is going to be fine, financial wise when you are gone?

What am I really talking about here? Here's an example.

PYF: Hard to Do? Here's A Story

This series of blogs will talk to you about the importance of paying yourself first - the most powerful money management system I have ever known. Introduced to me in a seminar by a success coach last year, then tested and proven by the best selling personal finance authors I have come across in my self-education, this simple-yet-effective wealth management is the best thing that I've ever known about money and this can help me and you keep track of on the road to financial prosperity and freedom. And I wouldn't preach about this if I don't walk the talk.

If you got here by accident, I advise you go back to the introductory post about paying yourself first here so you could go along with the ride smoothly.



Honestly, in my experience, paying myself first was not as easy as it started. During the times when I received allowance from my parents, I always end up on two situations at the end of the day - one is that I would still have money because I learned to "save" for some useless thing. Another is that I end up with enough money just to get home.


Imagine if I had learned about paying myself first during my younger years when I was still studying. Think about how broke I have been in high school in college. Very little to no savings to say the least. If you had told me to pay myself first during that time, I would never hesitate to shake my head and not talk about it.


"So I'm not good at my money. It drains out of me almost every day. Then you expect me to save? Or pay myself first just as you said?"


I was sort of a loser at saving. At money. At finance. Nothing.


As I grew a little older - and wiser - I realized that things like these had to stop. All I ever thought of was that while you have money, you might want to spend it because it only comes to you once in a blue moon.


I was wrong.


I later realized that money had an immense value in each and every one of us. And the only way to harness its true value is to manage and take care of it before it leaves our hands and wallets.