Life With Frenchie

I recently blogged about my ongoing search for life insurance. I will admit, I have fallen victim to the Internet and become “lazy” when it comes to comparison shopping. I don’t even like to pick up a phone and call around to get quotes. I love being able to just go directly to the insurer’s web site and input a few answers and get a quote in minutes. What’s even better is being able to find one site to go to and retrieve quotes from multiple carriers.

It’s not always about being lazy, though. Sometimes it’s about convenience. I know that when I was making my various moves between states, it was so much easier to shop for insurance online prior to my move. I’m also at an age in my life where I may soon have to start thinking about taking care of my parents who currently live in two different states.

More and more, relocations and moves cross more than just state lines. I have family that live both in the states and in Canada. I, for one, would have no idea where to begin searching for insurance products in Canada. Luckily, I could visit Life Insurance Canada and get quotes on life insurance products available in Canada. You could even shop for quotes for life insurance for smokers on the site. I can also calculate how much life insurance I would need to purchase to replace my current income for a given number of years. That tool was very useful, even in my search for insurance in the U.S.

Some people still are very cautious about shopping for financial products online, but it has really improved over the years. But, even if you don’t want to go through with your actual purchase online, getting an online quote definitely makes shopping for insurance, of any kind, virtually painless.

I’m not really sure how “legit” this is, but you gotta give the guy an “A” for effort! 

One of my favorite places to go for quality information is the Actuarial Oupost. I am always guaranteed to find, if not useful, entertaining information. Today, I was pleasantly surprised to find something that might help me in one of my deficient areas - the kitchen. Apparently, if cheese can be put in a can, so can anything else.  I have always kept my distant from that delectable delight, but for this new product, I may give it a try. What am I talking about?

PANCAKES IN A CAN! Otherwise known as “Heaven in a Can” (okay, not really, but in my easily amused world, it is!). The site even provides a very helpful video demonstration of this amazing product. Honestly, it doesn’t look all that bad. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be sold at any stores near me, so if there is a God, one of you will be near a store that sells this and I will receive a can for my birthday!

Halloween, that is! Well, Halloween came, and went. All in all, I’d say we had a good Halloween in our house.

After our pumpkin carving fun Sunday, we bought MM her costume for this year. Yes, I’m one of those parents that waits until the last minute! I didn’t even buy the candy until I was headed home yesterday evening. Anyways, we ended up at Target, which is where we began about a week earlier but I refused to spend $30 on a kid’s costume! Between the bookend trips to Target, we also visited iParty and some random Halloween shop across from the mall. Costumes were no cheaper there! So, where was I? Oh yeah, Target. One thing I discovered is that MM no longer fits into kids’ costumes. Even the ones that may have fit were not going anywhere near her body! There was no need for a child to be wearing something that tight and revealing. We moved over to the adult aisle. Now the dilemma was to find something both age-appropriate and size-appropriate. Oh, and lest we forget, cheap! We settled on a Twister costume. With the 30% sale, it was less than $20. VICTORY! I really wasn’t expecting much in way of excitement over the costume, but it turned out to be a hit– particularly among the “older” crowd.

The “big event” itself was also great. MM had a friend over from school and we set out with our neighbors and their kids. Normally, I wouldn’t consider our neighborhood of about 250 homes big. But, once you have to walk it and stop at every house, and then some, it becomes ginormous! Several of the kids had to dump their pumpkins out into Target bags multiple times. I’d say that the kids did very well. I, on the other hand, was beat! Today has been the longest day of my life. I’m glad this only happens once a year and hopefully, next year, MM can go out on her own.

Being an “actuary in training”, you’d think that I’d have my insurance needs in order. Huh! You don’t know me very well, do you? Over the past year, El Presidente and I have been co-mingling more and more of our finances. Most recently, we have updated our auto and homeowner’s insurance policies. While finalizing these policies, we started thinking about the other areas of our lives that were not covered. The biggest gap was life insurance.

I guess this was just overlooked since, in the past, I usually was covered through my employer’s group plans. This being the case, I am really only familiar with Term Life coverage. I never really thought any further on the subject beyond opting to receive the company provided coverage. Now that I am not receiving life insurance, I have started to look into it a little more and have realized that a term policy is probably not suitable for my needs.

Once again, my limited actuarial skills are not enough to make me anywhere near an expert on what to consider for life insurance, so I looked around and found a site to get insurance quotes online (I LOVE the Internet!). Luckily, I found a site that not only gave you estimated quotes from multiple carriers (all of whom I recognized), but it also gave me more information about the different kinds of life insurance policies, like whole life.

I still have a lot of poking around to do to figure out which way to go, but being able to do it all in one place sure makes the task a lot less daunting.