Corn on the cob --> disability insurance

Silas just learned how to eat corn on the cob yesterday, and via a very grown-up, dad-ian train of thought, that reminded me that I finally needed to get life and disability insurance. Any advice (what kind, where to get it) from the peanut gallery?

Meanwhile, here's a brief cob interlude for you (in Silas' first YouTube appearance):

Comments

[CB]

Term life is cheap and provides a great death benefit - but that's about it. You just pay your premium and wait to die. You can also purchase variable life coverage, which is more expensive, but has several advantages - (1) It also has a death benefit; (2) It can be used as an investment/retirement tool (the amounts paid toward your premium pay some administrative costs, but the bulk of them go toward various funds, much like a 401K, that you can choose, which then accrue interest subject to market fluctuations); (3)your policy builds up a cash value, which you can then draw on later in life through taking tax-free "loans" on the cash value of the policy. A lot of financial planners use these policies as one of the primary bases for their programs. If you'd like to find out more about this stuff, I have an uncle who does it for a living in Portland, but travels up to your area often to service his clients at Microsoft, etc. He'd likely be willing to talk to you about it without too much pressure to purchase from him. His name is Dan Heck - 503.624.4600.

As for disability insurance, most long-term coverage doesn't kick in for a set amount of time - usually 60 or 90 days, I think. So you should either have some short term coverage to cover you in the interim, or save up a rainy day fund sufficient to cover your living costs for 2 or 3 months. I have long term coverage through my employer, and short term through Northwestern Mutual, which is generally rated among the best in the industry - whatever that means. I think my premium is around $40 or $50 per month. I've heard AFLAC does a great job as well.

Or you could do like most people and just pray nothing ever happens. Seems to work for most of them.

Hope this helps.

[Paul]

You mean pray and vote Democrat. Have you seen McCain on healthcare?

Thanks, Chris, I figured you'd have some wisdom from high atop Dad Mountain. I'll probably give your uncle a call. I wonder if I met him once, at your wedding or way back at your folks' Portland house.

[CB]

You've probably met him. He's my uncle Jim's brother, who I know you've met. Good guy, but he does have services to sell...

BTW. Speaking of McCain, Barack's here in Bend tomorrow and I plan on going. They're giving away tickets at Obama HQ, which is completely inundated with folks wanting tickets. I was there at 8 a.m. this morning and there was already a long line, even though they aren't actually giving out tickets until noon. When Bill was here a few months ago schtupping for Hillary, he drew 3500, they had to turn away another 2000!!! (If only he could run again!) They're expecting to beat that for Barack. There's hope even here! Good to see...

[Paul]

Yes we can. Mang.

[elf in the basement]

So the first corn on the cob for the kid was out of season corn?
Does disability insurance cover your shame?

[Paul]

Are you kidding? I can't afford that. That's why I'm voting for universal shame coverage. (That's right, I'm voting for Hillary.)

[Angelique]

Oh my, the tiny crunching noise is priceless!