Purchasing Life Insurance After the Death of a Spouse

After losing your spouse, you may need plenty of time to allow yourself to grieve. Part of this process can be done without any excess stress when you file the life insurance claim immediately following the death of your loved one. You will already have had the expense of a funeral handled among other things like final medical expenses, possibly.

The Real Benefits of Coverage

You will have been able to take advantage of what a life insurance policy was designed to do and that is to ease the burden you are going through immediately after the loss of your loved one. There are many different factors that will affect the next financial steps you take once the claim has been filed, processed and the insurance money has been put to the use you and your spouse purchased it for. If you and your spouse each had individual life insurance plans, you may not need to purchase a new life insurance policy.

However, say you listed your spouse as the beneficiary on your individual life insurance policy. At the very least, you would need to change the beneficiary if you did not already have a secondary beneficiary designated on the policy. Designating your new beneficiary may be as simple as listing your eldest child or parent as the new beneficiary. You will need to make the change with your insurance company.

But, while doing this perhaps you have realized a few things that will affect continuing with the existing policy. For instance, if after filing the claim for coverage on your spouse's policy you found that the amount covered about enough for the actual funeral and final expense costs, perhaps you want to raise your limits. If you pass away, hopefully, many years from now, you want to keep your new beneficiary from possibly having to face a financial challenge despite the life insurance in place.

The cost of a funeral may be quite different in the future, so perhaps you will want to change the limit for their protection. Or, since you have made a realization that you want more for your beneficiary out of the policy perhaps you simply want to shop for an entirely new plan. If you do not have any children, perhaps you do not need to purchase any new or additional life insurance. It could be that the insurance pay out you selected with your spouse was intended to provide for various expenses in addition to the funeral.

For a couple in their sixties or seventies, retirement savings may be a source of money suited to the expenses the surviving spouse will face. If this amount or sum has not, of course, been impacted by the costs of the spouse's funeral and final expenses the remaining life insurance benefits may help them get by without any financial difficulty until they pass away. If there are no children or other heirs to speak of, an additional life insurance policy simply does not need to be purchased.

For a younger married couple who purchased a term policy, there may be a definite need to purchase a policy for the surviving spouse. Many term plans are purchased to cover the loss of income a family faces upon the death of the breadwinner. The insurance claim money may be going to child care, mortgage payments and other expenses. These funds were not designed to last for decades, so to protect their children the surviving spouse may well decide that it makes sense to go about purchasing life insurance after the death of a spouse.

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