There's nothing that makes you feel so alive like getting a letter. Well, a certain kind of letter. It's a letter they don't send to dead people, so if you receive it you know you must not be deceased. I am, of course, talking about a bill for life insurance. Nothing quite as reassuring as paying your life insurance to let you know that you're still breathing.
I remember that for the longest time I couldn't figure out how life insurance companies made any money. I mean, everyone dies, so you would think that everyone who has life insurance would die too. That means their beneficiaries would get the insurance money, but you never pay the same amount as you are insured for. So how can they make money paying out more than they take in?
The answer is simple, of course. It doesn't work that way. There are a lot of things I don't know about, and insurance is definitely one of them. Calculating how much and what type of insurance you need is more than just difficult, it's spooky. You have to imagine not being around and watching your loved ones trying to do without having your personal or your financial contributions. Then you have to try an valuate yourself. You can't insure yourself for too much more than you're really worth or you'll end up not being able to afford your insurance and have to live a lower standard of living just to make payments that aren't justified so your family can be better off with you dead than living. I personally think it's a good idea to be a little underinsured, just to make sure your family wants to keep you around.