Life insurance: any real need in late 50s?

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House is paid off next year. Anyone else just view themselves as “self insured” when their kids became adults?

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This would be the normal thought outside of the insurance salesman office, yes.

Life insurance is insurance, its meant to cover things you can't afford. So its really your wife having insurance on you if she can't afford to lose you. Or you have life insurance on your self for your kids.

Its not horribly expensive to keep low end term policies of $250k or so either, just for the piece of mind and so your wife can go on an extra nice vacation if you die.

Kind of depends on what you want out of it. There isn't a right or wrong answer here. As mentioned, you can absolutely be self insured. If retirement is already pretty much taken care of, house as you said, etc. You have the permanent policy for immediate funeral expenses and such.

Some out there want to do some legacy building, additional money for family just to make sure there are no issues later in retirement if something were to happen prematurely and they weren't there, etc. I can guarantee I'd personally never feel bad leaving my wife more than she needed .

So, short answer, yes there are real reasons for keeping some. Also, there are real reason not to keep any additional, just depends on your situation. Being self-insured is absolutely a possibility.

Just need to sit down with your wife and run the numbers. they key is making the money last for her in the event of an early death. You dont want her to struggle because you are gone. By the time you hit your 50s, your house should be nearly paid off or completely paid off, so a mortgage is covered.

at a minimum you want funeral expenses covered (easily with the $25k policy) how many years does your wife have till 65 for Medicare/SS. can she make it there without financial burden? if not then you need some kind of coverage to fill the gap.

But it comes down to what kind of risk to you want to cover, and since the riskis all held by her, she needs to understand what the worst case scenario can be when deciding.

A lot of people look at it like “I’ve paid in this long it would be a waste not to keep it” but the fact is if you’ve outlived the need for it should you die, congrats…you won. The cost over those years was to protect your family…so it did it’s job.

Unless you’re worried about loss of income to your family, estate taxes, burial costs or having to buy out a business or shared property there’s really not much use in it.

If you don’t expect to die in the next few years I’d cash it out or end it.

I’m licensed to sell insurance, I’ve convinced more people to give up their life insurance than I’ve sold…including my parents. Unless you have estate tax issues, at retirement, if you have no debt there’s not much reason to carry any policy.

Also, even though the work policy is “pretty darn cheap” it can still cost more than outside term insurance. Of course, every situation is different but just a few things to think about.

I'm late 50s and have a $1 million term that will end when I am 65. I still have a kid at an expensive college and have a mortgage. I don't want my wife to have to sell the house (or worry about it), if something happens to me soon. I won't get a new policy at 65, as by then we'll be retired or almost retired with no dependents and little debt.