That was a question that showed up in my Quora feed this past week. I have voiced my opinion on this topic several times, stating that people are generally uncomfortable confronting their own mortality, but reviewing and discussing other people’s opinions may provide insight.
The most common reason cited was, paraphrasing, that there was no benefit in it for them. One responder actually said but it doesn’t provide any [benefit] at all as long as you are alive. That is a blatantly false statement; at best, it is extremely short-sighted. Cash value policies absolutely provide living benefits and even term insurance provides peace of mind.
Another reason was they don’t believe they need it because they’re young and healthy. Young and healthy just means that a) it is actuarially unlikely you will die soon, and b) life insurance is a cheap as it will ever be. But make no mistake about it, if someone is dependent on your income, you need life insurance no matter how young and healthy you are.
Thinking it costs too much is yet another reason listed. Anyone who thinks that is either old and unhealthy or uninformed. A 30 year-old male non-smoker in the second best underwriting class could obtain a $1,000,000 term policy with premiums that are guaranteed not to increase for 20 years for an annual premium of under $600.
It was also mentioned as a reason that some people have an intense fear of dying and that by planning for their death (by buying life insurance), they are actually willing it to happen. Well, there’s nothing I can say about irrationality. Some people are very superstitious and if that superstition relates to their demise, then they are probably not candidates for life insurance (but they should seek professional help).
The last reason is that people tend to procrastinate when dealing with unpleasant things. This of course is not exclusive to life insurance. We tend to put off planning for retirement, implementing an exercise program and anything else we find unpleasant. This doesn’t make us bad individuals, it just makes us normal human beings.
But if you look around at the successful people, you’ll notice that they get done those things that are important to them. They don’t procrastinate on the important things. They have found what works for them.
So none of these are valid reasons, they’re just excuses. And we can get pretty creative with our excuses when we don’t want to do something. But if we need life insurance because someone else is dependent on our income, we don’t need excuses. We need to do what’s required.