There are so many types of insurance products. From the required home and auto insurance to the optional life insurance to the questionable long term care insurance, it can be hard to know which ones you need, which ones you might want, and which ones would just be a waste of money.

If you talk to an insurance broker about your concerns, they will most certainly encourage you to buy it. If encouragement doesn’t work, then they’ll push other emotions. There doesn’t really exist an insurance provider who will give you an opinion on whether or not you should carry a type of insurance. If you ask, the broker will gladly tell you how much of that type they’d recommend getting, but not whether you need it in the first place.

That’s why you need to take your concerns to a different type of financial professional. If you’d like an opinion on if you need a type of insurance, that is the realm of a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) certificant. As the CFP Board reports, “The CFP® Certification Examination is designed to assess your ability to integrate and apply a broad base of financial planning knowledge in the context of real life financial planning situations.” Currently, 12% of  the certification exam is on Risk Management and Insurance Planning. Ideally, you should find a CFP who receives no monetary compensation from any insurance purchases, such as a fee-only NAPFA advisor.

Insurance is a business, like any other. The people who are selling you the insurance are making money off of the product. That’s why many types of insurance are bad deals for most families .

If you do decide to get a type of insurance, consider getting a quote from LLIS to compare with other sources. They are a low-load insurance provider. As they say on their website, “We’re all salaried employees and build our business on relationships, not sales. Like you, no one on our team accepts commissions, referral fees, or kickbacks.”

A second quote may not help you decide if you need the insurance in the first place, but it may help you learn if the insurance you are being sold is the lowest cost. You can get a quote for free here: https://llis.com/clients/quote-request. They imply that you need to be working with a financial advisor, but you can put “None” in the Advisor Name. If they give you grief or you are worried about it, you can put our firm, “Marotta Wealth Management.”

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash