When you’re single, you can live a lifestyle that doesn’t require much insurance. You might arrange to have some health coverage and the minimum required for your car to run legally, and then you can call it a day. It’s amazing what happens though once you have children. With children come additional responsibilities – all of which seem to require some form of additional family insurance.
Health Insurance
The doozy here is health insurance. You absolutely must have some way to be sure that your children are being properly cared for health-wise. There are many different visits for immunizations, check-ups, well visits and baby care plans. That’s in addition to the health insurance you need to actually make it through the pregnancy and delivery.
If you already had health insurance through your company, this may be a no brainer, but if you’ve never really paid much attention to the health insurance plans, this is a great time to start. In addition to that, by adding your little one to your insurance plans, you can expect your monthly premium payments to increase as well unless you’re really lucky and have great company insurance plans. Your state likely provides some sort of minimum health insurance plan for children that is affordable. These plans may be good options for you as you’re trying to be sure that your child is well covered at least.
Life Insurance
Once you make sure that your child’s health is covered, you need to be sure that her future is covered as well. Every parent needs some sort of life insurance in case the inevitable happens. Your life insurance may be adequate through your company program, but if you don’t know, you need to check it out.
The amount you buy in life insurance is likely never enough, but start calculating what it would take to pay off your home, provide for childcare, take care of your expenses and be sure your child lives comfortably with your surviving spouse – or without either of you – indefinitely or until she turns old enough to handle herself. It is scary business to plan for, but it’s even scarier to think about what would happen if your child and spouse didn’t have any insurance at all to count on.
Homeowners Insurance
New babies bring new expenses, and one of the most common is a new home. What goes better with a baby than a new house, after all? If you’re investing in a new home or have just bought yourself a great fixer-upper, your first step is to research your homeowner’s insurance. Now that you have a family to consider, you’re not going to want to go a single day without working electricity, and the idea of crashing on a buddy’s couch after a hurricane is a long-gone dream.
You need coverage and you need it to be there every single time something happens at home. Let’s suppose a hurricane does come through and does some serious damage to your home. Good insurance is the difference between couch crashing and having a paid hotel room for the weeks it takes to put your home back together again. Ask yourself which is more comfortable with a little one underfoot.
Renter’s Insurance
If you’re starting a family on a shoe-string budget (and who isn’t), you might not be able to afford your own home and the insurance that goes with it right away. That doesn’t mean you should just throw caution to the wind. You absolutely need renter’s insurance, regardless of what your contract says is covered. Renter’s insurance will cover the cost of your belongings inside an apartment or rental home should the worst happen – fire, theft or flood. And when you’re living with neighbors in apartments, a lot of things can happen.
With renter’s insurance you don’t have to pay much out of pocket every month and you’re able to rest at night knowing that you’ll be able to give your child everything you need should your apartments prove to be less than safe in the long run.
Auto Insurance
You might be willing to drive around with minimum or even no automobile insurance. But you should never drive your baby around that way. Once you have a child in the backseat, not only will your driving change and become much more caution and careful, your attitude toward safety, seat belts, car seats and other drivers will change as well.
It’s no longer amusing when cars cut each other off in front of you – it’s dangerous! That idiot could cause a wreck and possibly hurt your baby or at least your bank account that is dedicated to the costs created by that baby. Talk to your auto insurance provider about the best plans to protect your car from the idiots on the road. And go ahead and talk about those teenage years – you might need awhile to adjust to the costs that are coming down the road in another 16 years.