Why Life Insurance Should Be Part Of Your Divorce With Todd Stelnick

Tim: Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with Divorce661.com. Today, we’re speaking with Todd Stelnick with LBW Insurance and Financial Services.

And today, we’re talking a little bit about Divorce and Life Insurance and how the two kind of interplay together.

As why we have Todd, on video today because he brought up an interesting point of insurance should be possibly something you should consider when going through a Divorce.

Before we get in to that Todd, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about your company here in Valencia and get some interesting facts and if it’s a family and business and what not.

So if you wouldn’t mind sharing that with folks. And give them a little background about the company and maybe yourself.

Todd: Yes, we’re a family owned business since 1922, full lines of insurance.

We do anywhere from life insurance, long term care disability, group health care benefits, individual health care benefits to commercial business insurance, personal loans, home and auto and earthquake insurance and also financial services.

What I specialize in is controlling individual’s risk and by implementing a life insurance or a long term care or disability to protect individuals for all different circumstances.

Tim: So you guys pretty much do everything. Is there anything you guys don’t do insurance wise?

Todd: No, that’s everything we do right now.

Tim: Pretty much everything?

Todd: Pretty much everything.

Tim: Okay. So when it comes to Divorce, we’re talking about issues let’s say, if there’s spousal support being paid or child support being paid there should be some consideration as to looking in to protecting the spouse who is receiving spousal support or child support.

Is that correct?

Todd: That is correct. Nowadays, most judges and attorneys are recommending a life insurance for the spouse that is really the breadwinner that more of the financial aspect behind the family for the protection of the kids.

That’s the risk involve that if somebody stops paying a certain amount of money rather it’s child support or alimony where they’re going to get this money.

To fulfill that prescription, we fulfill it with a nice, easy life insurance policy.

Tim: So let’s run maybe a scenario. So let’s say husband work, wife didn’t work. We see that quite a bit.

There’s an order for spousal support or child support. Getting this, let’s talk about child support first.

What is that generally the recommendation for like a term policy? How would you calculate?

How much that would be in child support? How long would the term for? What do you see?

You said you’ve been writing some policies for some Divorce cases. What kind of terms and how are those decisions made?

Todd: So if you have a kid that an age 2-5 or a couple kids, you really want to do a term policy that would take you of just a little bit over when they reach the age of 18 years old, so, maybe 15 year or 20 year term policy if you have any of the kids that ages.

That way, if something happens to the husband, then the wife will get certain amount of money towards the kids.

And the kids would be beneficiaries or we would write policy where the beneficiary is the wife with a contract saying that this money is for the children cost.

And the term policy is really not expensive at all. You’re looking at anywhere from maybe about $500, $700 to outmost $2,000 per year annually.

It’s really a cost-effective way where if you’re paying over of course next 12-15 years for your kids, $200,000-$300,000, it’s a really easy way where if something happens God forbid and some unknown time that you’ll still be able to get that money until your kids reach the age of 18 years old.

Tim: Yes. So it sounds like it’s really important that if you have a spouse who is the solid income earner in the marriage and is now paying child support spousal support if they die without insurance policy essentially this spouse who wasn’t working and who was receiving support will literally, the money will stop coming in all together.

And that is why this is so important.

Todd: Correct. Because what we want to make sure, these families out there don’t change their lifestyle.

And we want them to continue with their lifestyle or continue to have their lifestyle going.

So we don’t want their kids that are playing sports do not play sports because they don’t have the money to play or take extra tutoring classes for education.

We want to make sure that they have the money to make sure that they’re still doing the same lifestyle that they’re doing just as if that individual is still living.

Tim: Okay. Could you give us an idea of how you would calculate support or should I say like a term policy.

How do they’re going to know how much of the policy they should buy?

Todd: So if somebody is paying a child support of $1,000 per month and their kid at the age of 8 years old, they would at least they need to cover at least 10 years.

I always say let’s cover 10 years or a couple little more, so, in just times just to be easy Math $12,000 by 10 gives you a $120,000 that kind of benefit which is what we would want to cover.

You would probably put in a total of course of 10 years if you don’t use it.

Maybe about $20,000-$30,000 at most, and if God forbid if something happens, then the children would end up getting a $120,000, so, that’s how that kind of work for everybody.

Tim: Okay. So I think that was some great information if you’re going through Divorce to keep that in mind.

You can give Todd a call. Can you let folks know how they can get a hold of you?

Todd: Yes, you can get a hold of me. My email address is [todds@lbwinsurance.com 06:47] or you can call me at 661-702-6009.

Tim: So make sure you give Todd a call if you are going through a Divorce.

You can get some coach from him. It’ll probably cost you not much at all to cover your children and make sure they’re taken care of, so,  if something unfortunately happen to you while you’re paying either spousal support of child support.

This is Tim Blankenship with Divorce661.com. Thanks for tuning in. And we’ll talk to you soon.