If something happened to you, would your family be okay?
Most people are shown a product before anyone has established what the actual financial problem is.
The what-ifs every family should be able to answer.
Protecting the people you love starts with knowing where you stand — a little planning now takes care of them financially, no matter what happens. These are the questions that keep parents and spouses up at night — and the ones most plans never quite answer.
If something happens to you
If something happened to me, would my family be okay financially?
Not a rule of thumb — what their actual obligations and income needs would be, and for how long.
How long would our savings and insurance support them?
How long what you already have would last is the starting point. Often it’s longer or shorter than expected.
What would still need to be paid for if I weren’t here?
Mortgage, debt, education, care for a dependent, a surviving spouse’s retirement — each lasts a different length of time.
How much life insurance do we actually need?
The number should come from your situation, not from a multiple of salary.
The coverage you already have
Is the life insurance I own still working?
Is it doing what you were told it would, is it still the right fit, and can it be improved or restructured?
Do I have too much, too little, or the wrong type?
All three are common. All three are expensive in different ways.
Someone is recommending a permanent life insurance policy. Is it right for us?
What problem is it solving, what does it assume, and what are the alternatives?
Paying for home health care and long-term care — on your terms
Will I have the money to choose my own care, or will someone else choose for me?
Staying in your own home, the assisted living you’d pick, a nursing home you’d actually want — those choices depend on having money available when the time comes. Having the cash is what keeps you in control. We work out what it would take so the decision stays yours.
What would it cost if I needed long-term care?
Help at home, assisted living or a nursing home can go on for years. We measure what it could cost your family, and how much of it you could cover on your own.
Would paying for care drain my spouse’s retirement?
Care is often paid from the same savings meant for the healthy spouse. We measure whether it would leave them short.
Would it eat into what I planned to leave my kids?
Without a plan, care costs can come straight out of what you meant to leave them. We show how much is at risk.
Would any of my current insurance pay for home health care, assisted living or a nursing home?
Some policies include benefits that pay for this kind of care; many don’t. We read what you own and tell you plainly what it would and wouldn’t pay for.
What’s the most efficient way to keep that control?
Insurance built to pay for care, life insurance that can also pay for care, or covering part of it yourself. We compare what each costs against what it would actually pay, and find the most efficient way to keep your options open.
If any of these keep you up at night, that’s where the first conversation starts.
Life Insurance Needs Analysis
A structured look at income replacement, debt, education, childcare and an emergency reserve — measured against what you already own.
It produces a number and the reasoning behind it, not a recommendation and not a quote.
The cost of doing nothing
The useful question isn’t how much coverage to buy. It’s what happens financially if the risk occurs and nothing has been put in place.
Once you know what’s at stake in dollars, you can compare the options against something real.
- The money it would take to replace lost family income
- Obligations that would remain after a death
- Education and care costs still ahead
- An estate without enough cash on hand
- A surviving spouse’s retirement gap
- Care costs that drain savings meant for retirement or the kids
- Coverage you have now that ends before it’s needed
When the question is what you leave behind
Estate planning tends to produce documents. What it doesn’t always produce is the cash to make those documents work on the day they’re needed.
Where would the cash come from?
Taxes, settlement costs and obligations come due on a schedule that rarely matches when illiquid assets can actually be sold.
How do you treat heirs fairly when the assets aren’t divisible?
A business, a farm, a property — one child wants it, another doesn’t, and “equal” and “fair” stop meaning the same thing.
Does the insurance fit the plan your attorney drafted?
Ownership, beneficiary designations and trust arrangements have to line up with the documents. Often they were set up years apart by different people.
We don’t draft documents and we’re not a law firm. We work alongside your attorney and CPA on the financial side of the question — working out how much money is at stake and evaluating how, or whether, to fund it.
Opinion is not expertise.
Everyone has an opinion about life insurance; few have the training and experience behind it. Financial risk management and life insurance are our expertise, not our opinion.
Most life insurance is bought once and never looked at again.
Policies drift. Costs climb, the policy doesn’t perform the way the original projections showed, the person who sold it moves on — and no one is watching it for your family. Some policies were sold, not designed.
Been handed a proposal, or shown a permanent life insurance strategy? We evaluate it on its own terms — what it’s solving, what it assumes, and the alternatives.
Prefer to start on your own?
Protection Map is a self-guided look at how your household would hold up through four major life disruptions.
You can't get where you're going if you don't know where you are. Protection Map shows where your household stands — the risks, the gaps, and what it would take to close them.
Learn about Protection Map
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If the situation is complex or unclear, the first conversation is to understand it and see whether we can help.
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