Charlie_Boy
Dryer sheet aficionado
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2007
- Messages
- 43
Perhaps asked before, maybe many ties. In the early 80s, soon after I and my wife were married, I took out a universal life insurance policy through USAA. We both grew up poor but I was in the service and wanted to provide some cash in case something happened to me.
Like most universal policies it pays a death benefit and also builds up a cash value. We never paid too much attention to it as we prospered, we bought term insurance policies over time when we thought we needed them, have always lived below our income even when times were tough, and now in retirement, we still do the same. All of our term policies have ended except for one and that ends early next year, but this policy remains. It guarantees 4.5% interest, and that cash value is now over $45K, so the death benefit is now around $100K. I know, not that large sum of money, and we can continue to ignore it, but the monthly insurance cost of the policy is now almost equal to the monthly interest we earn, and it will soon be downhill from here.
We don't have any long-term insurance so I guess we could consider those funds a small worst-case scenario. Any suggestions appreciated. Should we cash it in and buy CDs or bonds and add to an existing ladder, or buy some type of long term/insurance policy and perhaps add cash to it? I should add I am 77 and in good health, walk a mile every day, my wife is 68, in even better shape, in fact, a health nut, a fanatic hiker who belongs to several hiking clubs and sneers at anything less then five miles, does Yoga, Zomba, Roomba, and everything else with an "a" at the end of it. Mostly looking for suggestions.
Like most universal policies it pays a death benefit and also builds up a cash value. We never paid too much attention to it as we prospered, we bought term insurance policies over time when we thought we needed them, have always lived below our income even when times were tough, and now in retirement, we still do the same. All of our term policies have ended except for one and that ends early next year, but this policy remains. It guarantees 4.5% interest, and that cash value is now over $45K, so the death benefit is now around $100K. I know, not that large sum of money, and we can continue to ignore it, but the monthly insurance cost of the policy is now almost equal to the monthly interest we earn, and it will soon be downhill from here.
We don't have any long-term insurance so I guess we could consider those funds a small worst-case scenario. Any suggestions appreciated. Should we cash it in and buy CDs or bonds and add to an existing ladder, or buy some type of long term/insurance policy and perhaps add cash to it? I should add I am 77 and in good health, walk a mile every day, my wife is 68, in even better shape, in fact, a health nut, a fanatic hiker who belongs to several hiking clubs and sneers at anything less then five miles, does Yoga, Zomba, Roomba, and everything else with an "a" at the end of it. Mostly looking for suggestions.
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