I'm the sole income earner for our household (my wife is at home with our wee ones). I've found that it's a lot easier to plan for my own disability/death than for hers.
For instance, I get relatively straightforward short-term and long-term disability insurance through my company. Should I become disabled, I get a percentage of my salary. But because my wife does not work, we've struggled to find a straightforward way to get (reasonably priced) disability insurance for her.
I'm assuming that many of you who are either self-employed or are in a household in which one person is not currently working have faced similar challenges. Anybody have any recommendations about how to overcome them?
Get the minimum insurance you will need to take care of your kids and pay any debts that would be hard or impossible to pay if your wife were to become disabled.
Anytime you buy insurance you have to be ready to do some math. If you make enough to cover a caregiver (often covered or partially covered under health insurance) for your wife and have a strategy for taking care of your kids then you may not even need it.
I'm fortunate enough to live close to both my parents and my wife's parents. Because of this and because we have decent savings we decided against disability and life insurance for her. We are in the process of getting better life insurance for myself but are keeping it as low as possible to cover our debts and living expenses until the children are old enough to go to work in the coal mines.
There is a spreadsheet included with this book [1] that helps you figure out how much life insurance to get your non-working spouse. We signed up for private term life - it was substantially less expensive than my employer's optional term life plan. Plus it's decoupled from whatever job you happen to hold at the time!
Create an account on ssa.gov to estimate your Social Security Disability benefits and Social Security Survivors benefits. Mine are plenty enough for me to live comfortably on but I have a very, very modest lifestyle without any debt.
If fact you should create an account on ssa.gov and irs.gov no matter what so nobody else does it for you if your identity is stolen.
For instance, I get relatively straightforward short-term and long-term disability insurance through my company. Should I become disabled, I get a percentage of my salary. But because my wife does not work, we've struggled to find a straightforward way to get (reasonably priced) disability insurance for her.
I'm assuming that many of you who are either self-employed or are in a household in which one person is not currently working have faced similar challenges. Anybody have any recommendations about how to overcome them?