Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
Navigating Life's Uncertainties with Confidence
Picture this: a knock on the door shatters the calm of a Sunday morning, bringing with it the unexpected weight of reality. That's the moment many of us dread, yet so few of us prepare for. Life insurance isn't just a piece of paper; it's a promise to protect your family's future against the uncertainties of life. Join us as we unpack the critical role of life insurance in adulthood, revealing how everyone—from singles to grandfathers—can benefit from this vital safety net. Through real-life stories like Steve's time in the Navy and the unforeseen tragedy of Bruce and Julie, we highlight why it's crucial to act now, even if the topic isn't the most exhilarating.
Our conversation also navigates the often-overlooked need for advance planning with a next of kin box. This isn't just about organizing papers; it's about ensuring peace of mind for you and your loved ones. Learn the importance of stocking this box with essentials like a last will and testament and a living will, empowering your family to handle emergencies with clarity. We discuss the significance of having these conversations early, especially with young adults, about life-saving measures and organ donation. As we embrace the less glamorous side of adulting, understand that these preparations are a profound gift to those we care about most, ensuring their journey through life's toughest moments is a little less daunting.
On this episode of Death by Adulting. Life insurance. But I'm just a baby. Can I get insurance on Amazon? I don't think so. How to keep your important stuff important? The importance of an important papers box have I said important enough, Plus much, much more. Roll the intro.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome to Death by Adulting, the very important episode of Death by Adulting. Yes, and I'm your host, megan Scheibner, with my co-host just a baby.
Speaker 1:Dr Steve Scheibner. Yeah, no, I'm important, I baby Dr Steve Scheibner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm important, I'm a doctor, you are a doctor, this is one of those episodes that really falls into the category of you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. And it's life insurance, and why do we get it and who should get it and how do you get it, and there's so much to think about with it. It think about with it. It's one of those things that kind of slides by and then uh-oh, you needed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it's the adultiest of adult. Oh, it is Right, and I know it's like it's dry and you're thinking I want to go something more entertaining. Stop right now. This is probably the most important episode we've ever done, because you've got to get insurance and let's talk through what that's about and how to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, any kind of insurance is important as an adult Right.
Speaker 1:Well, the government requires you to get car insurance and health insurance, but you don't have to get life insurance necessarily, and that's the most important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you know it's an adult thing. Um, one of our sons texted me the other day and he said hey, mom, do you remember when I used to be on your health insurance? And I said yeah, and he texted and said those were good days.
Speaker 1:Those were good days.
Speaker 2:But he can't be on our life insurance. So here we go. So who needs life insurance? Adults? Adults need life insurance, and it's not an exciting thing to do, it's not a hey. This is the best date we've ever had.
Speaker 1:But it's definitely something that needs to be taken care of. Let's talk about, let's go all the way up the spectrum Single male, single female Do they need life insurance?
Speaker 2:Probably not. Maybe, though, you at least need insurance to cover your burial. Burial, do I?
Speaker 1:say that right? I would say it depends on how many assets you have and so forth, and kind of your position in life, whether you have life insurance or not, and your extended family, like if you want to take care of your mom, right, and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:So, but probably not as much as a newly married couple, right right, and that is one of the things with life insurance that your needs change. So as a single man, you might not need it. As a newly married man, you do need it. As a dad, you need it even more. Right, and and it changes over time. So, for us, when Steve was in the Navy, they highly encouraged everyone to get life insurance, so they set up a program for us to go to a presentation and we went and we heard a man talk about life insurance and, um, it was all naval aviators and their wives, and most of us had one, maybe two children, and we all bought life insurance at that time. And it ended up being really important, didn didn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, uh, you know, when you're young and you're bulletproof and you think you're going to live forever, you don't really want to think about these things, and so it's easy to put off the decision to get life insurance because you're going to live to be what, a hundred years.
Speaker 2:Right, everybody knows there's time.
Speaker 1:Uh, but that's not always true. And uh, you know. Now you say well, steve, you were in a high-risk occupation, you were a Navy pilot, and there's no doubt about that. And so it does wake you up and you've got to think maybe I need to get insurance to take care of her. Now you could say, well, if you're young she's going to go out and get remarried. Yeah, she might.
Speaker 2:Most likely she would Maybe not in this case that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1:In between time you have expenses and needs and all that stuff. So I need to take care of her, whether I'm alive or I'm not here anymore. And I think about Bruce and Julie. And Bruce Wolf has been gone for a long time, but Bruce was a peer of mine and we were at VP23 back in the day flying P3s, starting out life. We had the world by the tail, as I like to say, and in our early 20s and Bruce and Julie had just gotten pregnant with their first child. We had just come back, we'd gone on our first couple of deployments and been apart, and I think you and I had two or three children now. Yeah, we were expecting our third, our third child. We'd gone on our first couple of deployments and been apart, and I think you and I had two or three children now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were expecting our third, our third child.
Speaker 1:We were always overachievers, but Bruce and Julie had just gotten pregnant with their first child and after our first tour of duty we were in our late 20s but Bruce and Julie had been in that seminar and gotten the life insurance. Um, bruce went to the training command to help train students now to follow behind him in his footsteps and in a very tragic accident Bruce was killed in a trainer. Uh and uh. You know it's that morning where you get up and you put your flight suit on and you wave goodbye hey, honey, I'll be back. What's for dinner tonight? I'll see. You're on six o'clock, you know. A totally normal day then just descends into total despair when you get that phone call or the car shows up yeah, julie was waiting for bruce to come home to go out on a date right and the and the, the black suv pulls up in front and it's it's men from the squadron that are coming up to your door and you, you're thinking to yourself this can't be good.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't. And so, with that being said, bruce had perished in a tragic accident, but Julie suddenly goes from being a wife to a widow, and her source of income completely evaporated.
Speaker 2:And Julie never married again. Bruce was her, he was it.
Speaker 1:Right, and now that's not the norm? I wouldn't think Right. But Julie never married again. Bruce was her. He was it Right. And now that's not the norm? I wouldn't think Right. But Julie never married again. But Bruce took care of her through that insurance policy. And so I think having at least at a minimum a term life insurance policy and you have to sit down with an insurance agent, go over what your needs are there's lots of great agencies out there and people that will be straight up with you about it, but for me, passing away, the amount of coverage I got on you was less it was more for you than it was on me.
Speaker 1:So if you passed away, that's the. I don't want to get too confusing about this. If you passed away, I still got my job, I still got my livelihood. The income is still coming in.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's where you have to look at your family, because if the wife is the main breadwinner, um, perhaps the larger insurance is on the husband, If he's who's taking care of the children he's going to stay at home, right, because? There's going to have to be childcare if you have children, and so you, you started throwing out terms. There's term insurance.
Speaker 1:There's whole life insurance.
Speaker 2:So are you saying I shouldn't just go to Google and Amazon to get my life insurance?
Speaker 1:No, I'd say I'd sit down with a professional and have a conversation. Get yourself educated about it first. You know some people like a whole life insurance policy. A whole life insurance policy builds some equity so that when you get to the end of the policy there's some residual value left that you can cash out on. It's very expensive and you don't get as much insurance for as much money. It's a forced kind of really poor savings plan. You could do better on your own.
Speaker 2:It did pay for one of our children when your dad passed away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, but you got to be disciplined with that. I would say classic insurance is term life insurance, x amount of dollars a month and here's how much coverage you get, and the term is for 20 years or 25 or 30. At the end of that it's done. There's no residual value to it at the end.
Speaker 2:But if something were to happen in that 20 year times it would pay off and then you look at your life at that next moment and go oh, here's the life insurance I need for this right because you're 64 and I'm 62 and we have life insurance simply on you, correct, because if I pass away, you're fine right, but we've got enough money saved up now between my 401k so the nest egg has grown over the years and so I don't need as much insurance going into my latter years.
Speaker 1:If I perish, she's taken care of. But you know I've had this insurance for five, six, seven years now. So seven years ago the nest egg wasn't quite as big, so it's nice to have that extra layer of protection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have talked to some young couples who and ladies, I'm going to pick on us but are like well, I don't want to talk about death, I don't want to talk about dying, that's just not something. It's a loving thing to get life insurance. That's how we care for one another. And so we're going to say to you that's what adults do. Adults get life insurance, which leads to the second half of today's program, which is the other thing adults do. Children, teenagers, leave important papers laying around and they lose them. And when they need their vaccine record for college, they go. Oh, I know, my mom gave it to me, but I don't know where it went. Right, adults have an important paper box, and so we're going to encourage you to get an important flame proof flame proof uh paper box.
Speaker 2:And here are some of the things that you should keep in your important paper box and, steve, if I've forgotten any, just throw them in. Um, your passports should be in your important paper box Now. You travel all the time overseas, so your passport is with you.
Speaker 1:Mine's in the important because I use it all the time overseas, so your passport is with you, mine's in the important because I use it all the time for work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm different so our important paper box for many, many years had eight kid folders and our folder because your kids passports need to be in there and their vaccine records. Now it's just us and the important paper box. It's much less empty, but I gave the folders to the kids when they left home, when they actually when they left for college, they I gave them an important paper box. I got them a box and I put their folder in it. You should have your passport, you should have your birth certificate in it. Think, think to yourself what would be a pain in the neck to replace your marriage certificate, our marriage certificates, in there, um, your social security cards. Now, when we were newlyweds, I was one of those irresponsible leave papers laying around and we moved frequently, especially in the early years when Steve was in the training command, and I lost my social security card and I've been trying to replace it for going on 35 years now.
Speaker 2:It's just hard to do especially as an adopted kid with a different last name, right.
Speaker 1:And you get your maiden name and married name.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. So those are the things you want to have in your important paper box and you want to have it somewhere that everybody knows where it is Correct, right? Can you think of other things that should be? Oh, car titles, car titles Should be in the important paper box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's like primary and secondary things that go into this box. There's the stuff you're going to have for the rest of your life Social Security card, passport, birth certificate, marriage license, those sort of things and then there's like warranties that are in print titles to cars.
Speaker 2:Your mortgage.
Speaker 1:Your mortgage. You know the things that you go when you go to sell the car. You go where's the title of the car? Oh, I don't know. And then you end up having to, you know, write to the state for a new title. It takes six weeks to come in. Now the sale falls through and so all those things need to be in a box and and stop with the boomer comments. Okay on this, because there are some things that are still in paper. It doesn't make any difference what age you are. You're 21 years old and you still have some things that are in on paper your birth certificate is not online.
Speaker 1:It's not all kept on your computer or in your phone and a lot of things are your insurance cards and all that stuff. When you you have to show we get pulled over, you have to show the police, you can have all that, that's fine. But when you pass away suddenly, like bruce did, you don't want to have somebody go. I don't know what his password is. I don't even know where to find it in his phone, or I I don't know how to get into the cloud. An important paper box is just really simple.
Speaker 2:Okay, and now we want to speak. We don't often speak to our older listeners, uh, watchers, um, speaking of which, if you're watching and you're enjoying this, can I ask you to like and subscribe? That would mean the world to us and you'll always know when another episode is coming out. So, yeah, um, for our older listeners, um, I would encourage you to get and there's a commercial version of this, you can get called a knock knock box, which is simply a next of kin box and it's like your important paper box, although you put copies of all the things from your important paper box in it.
Speaker 2:So that should Steve and I perish together, our kids aren't flailing. You're not leaving them trying to sell things, trying to find wills, trying to find out where all the money is, the passwords for things. Get a knockbox. You can buy the commercial one we don't get sponsored by them, but I'd encourage it or buy one of your own that can be locked and then make sure a couple of your kids have the keys right right, and I think there's two things that we left off our list that need to go in that important paper box, and one is your last will and testament and a living will yeah, oh and a living will yeah, that's huge yeah
Speaker 1:and so let's just talk to that for a minute, because I told you the story about Bruce, who died unexpectedly in a tragic accident. But one of our daughters, her husband, 31 years old, had a stroke and he had an undiagnosed condition that caused the stroke to come on and he was rushed to the hospital. A massive stroke, half his brain, basically, was dead and they had to remove half of his skull and all of the decisions that go on in rapid fire succession within minutes of each other. Once you enter the doors of the hospital, you want to have a living will that tells the doctors and the nurses what they can and what they can't do. If you want to be resuscitated, have that written. If you don't want to be resuscitated, have that in writing. That living will will absolutely make everybody around you's life much better and easier at that moment that tragedy might strike in your life.
Speaker 2:And I don't think we realized how important it was until we watched it in action, because our daughter and her husband had literally only made their living will 10 days before and because they were starting a business. And the doctors, when they went into surgery, carried the living will with them and as they were making decisions, turned and looked at the living will. So you really want to think about the things that are part of a living will. With them and as they were making decisions, turned and looked at the living will. So you really want to think about the things that are part of a living will. You know, do you want your skull cut off now?
Speaker 2:We immediately did living wills with all our kids because we'd been kind of lax in that area. But the younger ones we said you know what if you, if you get a motorcycle against your mother's wishes, obey your mother mother, you know and you have an accident and cutting off your head is going to save your life, you know, perhaps you want to do it at my age I've had a good life I'm not sure that cutting off your head is going to save your life, but cutting off your skull, opening your skull, yeah, let's be clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's be clearer yeah, so you want to. You want to talk through those things, and so now, when we travel and speak to parenting audiences, we say, when your child gets a driver's license, make sure they have a living will, because you don't want to have to be making those decisions yeah, and you know, do you want to be an organ donor?
Speaker 1:no, that's a lot of times that's on your driver's license, depending what state you're from, right, which makes that decision a lot easier, but that could be something that you could put in your living will.
Speaker 2:All of these things that we talked about today the important paper box, the knock box, the life insurance really, what it comes down to is the character, quality of consideration. It's thinking about other people, because the truth is we're not going to live forever and and when we go we get to be with the Lord and it's going to be good, but the people who are left behind. We want to make it as easy as possible for them, I agree.
Speaker 1:So these are the adultiest of adult issues. They are.
Speaker 2:They're not exciting, they're kind of boring.
Speaker 1:But as I said in the intro, they're important, they're really important, they're very important, yeah, so take us up on it.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, this has been Death by Adulting. I'm your grown up, very adult host, megan scheibner, with my co-host, dr steve scheibner, and remember, when it comes to adulting what doesn't kill you, just makes you tired.