How Getting Married Changes Your Insurance Needs

Getting married will change many things in both your and your spouse’s lives. You’ll likely spend a lot of time, effort and money planning for and having your wedding, and even more time, effort and money setting up your new household. Combining two lives into a single venture can certainly take some getting used to.

In addition, getting married can change what the two of you need to do with respect to your insurance requirements. Remember that insurance is the foundation of a secure personal financial scenario, and it should be one of the first things you reexamine whenever there are major changes in your life.

Here are some ways that getting married can change your insurance needs.

• Life Insurance. It’s not particularly uncommon for young, single and childless individuals to ignore or completely forego life insurance. After all, with no one depending on them financially, there’s little need for a single person to provide financial resources for someone else when they pass away. But when you get married, particularly if one of you will be the sole breadwinner, then that person will likely want to obtain life insurance coverage so that their spouse is adequately protected.
• Employer Provided Life Insurance Policies. You may have some measure of life insurance provided through your employer. Some professionals are automatically given a policy as an additional employee benefit by their employer. But the standard coverage amount is usually a 1x or 2x multiple of their annual salary. When you become married this amount may prove to be inadequate. As you approach your marriage, review any employer provided policies and reassess your overall needs.
• Health Insurance. Once you’re married you’ll likely have the opportunity to either join your spouse’s health insurance coverage, or to have them come onto your policy. Depending on the terms of your individual policies (assuming each of you already have coverage), and you may find that you’ll be able to jointly save you significant amount of money by having a single policy.
• Other Insurance Policies. Similarly, with respect to policies such as car insurance, you may find that as a married couple you can spend less by taking out a single policy rather than insuring your cars on separate policies.
• Beneficiary Designations. When you get married you may want to add your new spouse as a beneficiary to any insurance policies that have a provision for benefits. You’ll need to make this consideration not just for life insurance, but also things like your investment and retirement accounts.

Most importantly, making changes to your insurance policies when you get married is a joint activity that both of you will need to devote the proper time and attention to. Maintain clear and honest channels of communication with your new spouse to make sure that you’re able to make the right decisions.