Co-Founder, TermInsuranceBrokers.com, Goldenzweig Financial Group, Las Vegas, Nevada
You should get a life insurance policy when you have a need for the coverage. Many times a need arises when certain life events happen such as getting married, having a child, running a business with partners.
For personal insurance, many people get life insurance to protect their family from financial struggles in the event of their death - in these cases, the need may be your family maintaining their current lifestyle (income replacement), paying off your child's college tuition, mortgage, cars, burial expenses, or other outstanding expenses.
For business insurance, if you have business partners, you all may want to set up a buy-sell agreement to instruct what will happen to the ownership of the business in the event one of the partners dies or set up a key-man policy.
Many individuals also buy life insurance for estate planning purposes (e.g. paying off taxes for asset transference) - you can look in to creating trusts to handle how you want the life insurance proceeds to be distributed (e.g. a revocable or irrevocable life insurance trust). In these cases, you want to work with an independent life insurance agent/broker who has a strong background in estate planning - they will likely have referrals to estate planning attorneys as well.
That is a great question! Life insurance is one of those things where the younger you are when you get it, the cheaper it will be. I pay $5 a month for the policy that my Dad bought for me when I was a child. If I were to purchase the same policy today, I guarantee you I'd pay a whole lot more. My practice is to advise protecting yourself and your children by purchasing a policy at as young an age as possible. Children unfortunately pass, or develop illnesses that can be devastating financial hardships, or prevent them from getting affordable insurance later in life. I hope that helps, if you'd like more detail, please drop me a line. Thanks for asking!
You can get life insurance whenever you want. Chances are, if you are thinking about it, you already have a need for it. Life insurance is one of those things that it almost never helps to put it off, unless you have to due to a recent medical diagnosis. Because prices go up as you age, it will probably never be cheaper than it is today.
Insurance Adviser - Broker, SC Insurance Services, Oahu, Hawaii
My advise is to get a Whole Life insurance policy as soon as possible! As Jim commented above premiums are lower the younger you are. That's true for all types of life insurance, but the real advantage to buying a policy early is when you buy a Whole Life policy from a Mutual company that pays dividends on top of the minimum interest on your cash value. The longer you let the cash value grow the more you'll have at your disposal when you want or need it to supplement your retirement income!
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For personal insurance, many people get life insurance to protect their family from financial struggles in the event of their death - in these cases, the need may be your family maintaining their current lifestyle (income replacement), paying off your child's college tuition, mortgage, cars, burial expenses, or other outstanding expenses.
For business insurance, if you have business partners, you all may want to set up a buy-sell agreement to instruct what will happen to the ownership of the business in the event one of the partners dies or set up a key-man policy.
Many individuals also buy life insurance for estate planning purposes (e.g. paying off taxes for asset transference) - you can look in to creating trusts to handle how you want the life insurance proceeds to be distributed (e.g. a revocable or irrevocable life insurance trust). In these cases, you want to work with an independent life insurance agent/broker who has a strong background in estate planning - they will likely have referrals to estate planning attorneys as well.