Life insurance for widows

Last night my wife and I were poignantly reminded of the strong need for life insurance to protect the well-being of widows. Let me tell you how it happened.

For several years, we have followed a routine on Sunday evenings of watching an attorney from my wife’s hometown of Columbus, Ohio, who presents an overview of the week’s global news from a biblical perspective. If you want to know his name, you can email me at the address below. He does his online broadcast from his church in Ohio after their morning worship. It’s usually about an hour and 20 minutes of news and perspective that you won’t find anywhere else.

Last week, at the beginning of his broadcast, the attorney made an announcement that their senior pastor was very sick with double pneumonia and had just been hospitalized with COVID-19. This week the broadcast began with the sad announcement of their pastor’s untimely death; he was only 49 years old, and he left behind a widow and children.

As sad as this news was, it was made even worse by the fact that, because of preexisting conditions, he had not been able to obtain life insurance to protect his widow. Our hearts ached when we heard this news.

Just so you’ll know I have no vested financial interest in what I’m about to say in the rest of this column, I have no affiliation whatsoever with any life insurance company! But as a God-fearing believer, I do have a vested interest in the well-being of widows and orphans because the Bible tells us repeatedly that we should. Just for one example, James 1:27 says, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress…”

Of course, there are various ways to carry out this mandate, and in this instance, we will send a contribution to the pastor’s widow, whose husband couldn’t provide her with life insurance protection because of a pre-existing health issue.

But one of the very best ways, in our time, to provide for widows and orphans is with life insurance. No, I’m not suggesting that the readers of this column go out and buy more life insurance; I suspect that most of you are beyond that age and many of you probably have pre-existing health issues too. (If you don’t, you’d be the exception!) And, of course, at our ages, most kinds of life insurance are not very affordable.

What I do want to suggest to you is to have conversations with your kids and grandkids about the wisdom of their buying life insurance while they don’t have pre-existing conditions and while it’s much more affordable. I am so glad I did this very thing many years ago so that I rest easily each night knowing that if I should predecease my wife, she will be well cared for financially with life insurance. And if she goes before me, our kids will be blessed with some extra money in the estate.

But here’s the challenge that you need to be ready for when you have this conversation with your kids: they probably have other wants and needs on their minds that seem much more important to them at this time. On top of that, they believe, as many of us did at their age, that they’ll “live happily ever after and always in good health.” It’s your job to convince them, without discouraging them, that life doesn’t work that way. I hope you’re successful!

Thanks for reading All About Seniors … see you next week.

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/.

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