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May 14, 2025 14 mins

What Is Life Insurance And Why Should You Have It?

Death is inevitable. Financial hardship for your loved ones doesn't have to be.
Timothy Walters dives deep into the world of life insurance, offering a refreshingly honest look at a subject many people avoid discussing. Drawing from his decade of experience helping families through the claims process, Timothy explains why life insurance isn't really for you—it's the ultimate gift for those you leave behind.

The podcast explores a common misconception: that life insurance is only necessary for married people with children. Timothy shares his personal choice to maintain coverage despite being single without kids, understanding there are still people he'd want to provide for after his passing. He recounts the emotional yet rewarding experience of handling his first death claim, where a widow with limited job prospects was able to maintain financial stability following her husband's death because he had planned ahead.

Most Americans are unprepared for the staggering costs associated with death. With basic burial expenses approaching $10,000 and cremation still costing thousands, final expense policies provide essential protection for families. Timothy breaks down the critical differences between term and whole life insurance, explaining how term policies offer significant coverage at lower costs for specific timeframes, while whole life provides permanent protection with the added benefit of cash value accumulation that typically outpaces traditional savings accounts.

The message is clear: the best time to secure coverage was yesterday; the second-best time is today. Whether you're looking to protect your family through their growing years or leave a lasting financial legacy, understanding your options is the first step toward peace of mind. Ready to explore how life insurance fits into your financial plan? Contact The Walters Agency for a complimentary consultation and discover how affordable protecting your loved ones can be.

To learn more about The Walters Agency visit:
https://www.brightway.com/agencies/tn/knoxville/0237/team
The Walters Agency
7009 Asheville Hwy
Knoxville, TN 37924
423-417-2070

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Walters Agency podcast, where
insurance meets peace of mind.
Hosted by licensed insuranceagent and owner, timothy Walters
, we're here to help families,homeowners and small business
owners throughout East Tennesseeprotect what matters most Our
mission creating win-win-winsolutions for insurance.
Let's dive in.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
You might not need life insurance for you, but your
loved ones will.
Timothy Walter explains whylife insurance is one of the
most important policies you canhave.
Welcome back everyone, skipMonaco, else slash.
Producer.
Back in the studio with TimothyWalters.
Licensed insurance agent andowner of the Walters agency.
Timothy, how's it going, man?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Man, I'm walking and talking, man Can't beat it,
can't beat it.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
That's very good, very good.
Well, something that's been onmy mind lately is life insurance
, and you know there's a lot ofpeople that don't even know
exactly what that is and thedifferent types of life
insurance.
So I wanted to ask what is lifeinsurance exactly and why
should you have it?

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, that's a great question.
Well, that's a great question.
And insurance, if I was goingto define it, I would say it's
security for your loved oneswhen you're gone.
You know, most of us even evenguys like me like I've not never
been married, no kids, and I dohave life insurance, because
there's still people that if Iyou know, if I went out here and

(01:42):
got creamed by a bus and exitedthis world in a spectacular
fashion like that there's peoplethat I would like to leave
something, to leave somesecurity to.
And life insurance is one ofthose things where I don't care
how wealthy you are or how pooryou think you are financially,

(02:03):
it's something you should atleast consider, you should look
into, you should educateyourself about it, because it
can make an incredibledifference in people's lives.
I've seen it.
I've been doing life insurancesince 2012.
I think I remember doing myfirst death claim my first year

(02:23):
back when I was with State Farm,Helped take care of a death
claim and that was tough, but itwas also good, because the
person who we filed the claimfor he was the primary
breadwinner of his family andhis wife did not have a
full-time job.
She met a stay-at-home mom.
For most of their relationshipshe'd been a stay-at-home mom

(02:47):
for most of their relationship.
She had no way to really enterthe job force and have the same
kind of earning power that herhusband had.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
And if he hadn't?

Speaker 3 (02:52):
had a solid life insurance policy, she and her
kids would have been in adifficult position.
They may not have been able topay their mortgage.
They may not have been able topay their bills and even if they
had, they still would have beenable to pay their mortgage.
They may not have been able topay their bills and even if they
had, they still would have beenfinancially stressed.
And most of us at some point intime in our life have been
financially stressed.
And it's hard.

(03:13):
It creates all kinds ofdifficulties.
It can cascade into yourrelationships with people.
It's not fun.
But because he planned aheadand he set that there for his,
his family, they were able tostay on their feet and yes, it's
a terrible thing, they had togrieve their loss.

(03:35):
I'm sure it was awful, but theyweren't dealing with that
bereavement and then staringdown the barrel of financial
catastrophe.
You know and that's.
That's a big deal, uh, huge.
I've seen where older folks youknow have their.
These policies are called finalexpense policies.
They're smaller typically 10 or$15,000 maybe, Um, and they're

(04:00):
sold specifically to folks overa certain age, basically to help
cover burial expenses.
Burial to die in this countryis expensive.
I don't even know what it isnow.
Back when I last time I read,it was almost $10,000 on the low
end to get buried and a lot ofpeople don't think about that.
I've literally had people say,well, I'm going to have my

(04:22):
family chuck me in the ground.
I've literally had people saywell, I'm going to have my
family chuck me in the ground.
Well, I mean, that's fine but,unfortunately, it's illegal on
your own land in a lot of casesanymore, so leaving that expense
$10,000, $15,000 to yoursurvivors most people, I think,
when they think about it, don'twant to do that.

(04:43):
So, having a discussion with agood, ethical, licensed agent
about you know what options areout there, what exists, what you
might be able to afford, whatthe benefits are because there's
actually living benefits thatcan be derived from life
insurance there's a lot ofthings that a good agent can
talk to you about.
And I would just say anybodywatching this if you don't have

(05:04):
life insurance, or even if youdo have life insurance and you
don't know exactly how it worksor how much you're covered for
or how it could benefit you andyour family, talk to your agent,
find an agent and have anhonest discussion with them
Because, like I said, my mompassed away several years ago.
She had life insurance and Iwas a beneficiary of some of

(05:26):
that and it helped me actuallyinvest in my business.
It helped me do some things inmy life that I want to do.
It had a lasting benefit to mepersonally.
My mom did that for me andthat's a big deal, huge deal,
huge deal.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, even in the last few years you mentioned how
expensive it is you know whatburial costs are.
You know a lot of people havemoved to not having services and
doing cremation.
But even cremation is not cheap.
I mean, that's still four orfive grand right there.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
You know.
So, yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Question for you what's thedifference between and this is
something that I've never reallyunderstood clearly, but what's
the difference between term lifeand whole life insurance?

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Well, two main differences.
So term life it goes for a termand a term of time.
So you know it could be youknow well I guess technically
any amount of time, buttypically you see, term life
policies go between five and 30years.
The advantage of a term lifepolicy especially maybe for
younger folks who are startingout who maybe don't have a lot

(06:38):
of, you know, a lot of cash, isyou can get typically a very
high death benefit.
You can get hundreds ofthousands of dollars of death
benefit for relatively littleand you can get that rate locked
.
Let's say, if you're a25-year-old man in good health,
non-smoker, yada, yada, yada,you can get really inexpensive

(06:58):
life insurance that will coveryou and your family for X number
of years call it 30 years andthat could do something like,
you know, cover the cost of yourmortgage if something happens.
That could cover maybe studentdebts that you might have
outstanding.
That could cover, you know,debt's a big deal in this
country.
Everybody's in debt.
If you're not in debt, youprobably already.

(07:19):
Just don't know it and you knowand that's something that a good
life insurance agent is goingto they're going to have a frank
discussion with you.
I mean honestly, they're goingto ask you hey, what's your
outstanding debt?
What are your assets?
What do you own that might beat risk if something were to
happen to you and your income?

(07:41):
It's not because we're beingnosy, okay.
It's our job to find out how wecan protect you and your family
.
And so, yeah, term life, thinkof it this way.
You know, you get your rate setfor X number of years and at
the end of that the policy goesaway and you can get a new
policy, but it's going to berated for your new age, health
conditions, all that kind ofstuff.
Whole life policy is permanentlife insurance until you die, as

(08:04):
long as you pay the premium.
So if you get a whole lifepolicy for $100,000 when you're
25 years old I say 25 becausethat's- the last time I feel
like I was in good shape.
Me too.
But as long as you pay thepremium on that, if you live to
be 100 years old, that insuranceis going to be there, and whole

(08:28):
life insurance a lot of it.
It does have some livingbenefits.
It typically accrues cash valueover time because the way
insurance companies make moneyon life insurance is they take
the premium and part of thatgoes to we call it keeping the
policy alive.
Basically it goes to paying theadministrative costs of the
policy and then most of it goesinto, you know, the stock market
or at other types ofinvestments.

(08:50):
And I'm telling you, theinsurance companies have been
around for a long time.
They don't.
They don't typically lose.
All right.
Most of their, most of thosepolicies are going to actually
accrue cash value at a higherrate than what you could get in
a bank deposit.
So you could put, you know, Idon't know, $1,000 a year in a
bank savings account.

(09:11):
Inflation is going to eat that.
You're going to lose thateventually.
Put the same amount of moneyinto a good whole life policy.
The cash value over time istypically going to outpace
inflation.
Now I don't know, last fewyears have been pretty crazy.
I'm not sure how that's workingon the short term but long term

(09:32):
.
If you're looking at things on along term, looking ahead basis,
it's a really simple way toprotect your family from again
the cost associated with youpassing away lost income,
because you're going to get thatdeath benefit regardless.
But I was thinking one of mywhole life policies.
I looked at the cash value theother day and I've got over
$2,000 of accrued cash valuethat I can actually pull out.

(09:53):
I could get a loan against itor I could just pull it out and
use it because it's my money andthat would not affect my death
benefit or anything like that.
So it's a great product.
It's a great way to protectyour family.
It's a great product.
It's a great way to protectyour family.
It's a simple way to you know,try to make your money work for

(10:14):
you a little bit.
And yeah, they're both goodpolicies.
A whole lot policies are moreexpensive overall than term
policies, but you get thatlocked rate your entire life as
long as you pay the premium hmm,so when making what, what?

Speaker 2 (10:25):
as far as deciding between term and whole life,
what do you recommend peopleconsider?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
It depends on what you're trying to accomplish.
Like I said, maybe you know,use an example young, a young
couple with a couple of kids,you know, maybe they don't have
a whole lot of disposable incomebut want to be protected.
So let's say, let's say the manis the primary breadwinner and
maybe the mom would also like tohave some protection for the
kids in case something happens.

(10:57):
So you could get maybe a termlife policy for both of them if
they're young and good health,or very little money per month
for the premium For a 30-yearterm.
Hopefully that's going toprotect them and their family
through the time their kids aregrowing up, through them paying
off their mortgage, throughsending their kids to school,

(11:18):
All of those expenses that areexpected when you're growing a
family, and you can have thatprotection, that large death
benefit, for again, relativelylittle per month, for again,
relatively little per month.
On the other hand, if theywanted to, you know, try to

(11:38):
maybe consider it almost as likean investment.
You know, getting a whole lifepolicy, even a small whole life
policy, to supplement the termpolicy, would be a great
investment because at some pointassuming they survived the end
of the term that that termpolicy is going to terminate.
They're going to be older,they're probably going to have
had some kind of medical issues,but if they still have that
whole life policy, they're goingto be paying the same rate as

(11:59):
they were when they were youngand in good health, because that
rate's locked.
As long as that policy isexistent and being paid for that
rate's locked, it's not goingto change.
It doesn't matter what happens.
That's why I always tell peopleit's better to get life
insurance when you're young,because over time you're going
to pay a lot less for it.

(12:19):
I got my first life insurancepolicy when I was 30 years old.
I wish I had done it 10 yearsbefore because I could have
gotten more coverage and paid alot less for it.
Of course I didn't have anymoney when I was 20 years old,
right, so it's a chicken and eggthing, but again, it's
something you can talk to anagent about.
A good agent, an experiencedagent, is going to be able to

(12:39):
kind of explain things what theoptions might be, what the
market is looking like.
If they're an agent like me whoworks with multiple companies,
they can check different markets.
But even a captive agent like aState Farm agent or something
like that I say State Farmbecause that's where I started
my career they can talk to youabout their products.
And again, talking to aprofessional and getting to know

(13:01):
what these things are and howthey work and how they can
benefit, you can't go wrong.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Can't go wrong.
Well, I know a guy that I knowa guy.
So any of our listeners, if youdon't have life insurance or
you need to get more lifeinsurance, Timothy's the man,
give him a call.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, Give me a shout , Like I said I'll.
I'll talk about it all day long.
You'll get sick of hearing it.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Very good.
Well, tim love it.
We'll catch you in the nextepisode.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Talk to you then.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
All right, man man have a good one that's a wrap on
this episode of the waltersagency podcast.
Ready to find the rightcoverage for your home, business
or family?
Call or text 423-417-2070 for afree 20-minute consultation.

(13:55):
Until next time, stay covered,stay protected and keep winning
with the Walters Agency.
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