If you have young children, you need level term life insurance

Attorney Tom Olsen: Something else that I counseled young couples with young kids about and this- some of them might be thinking, "Hey Tom, you know what? We're a young couple, we've only been married and just got a child and we don't have anything. We don't have any equity. We don't have any money to bank." I understand that. I get that, but having your first child, the responsible adult thing to do is number one, talk about getting your estate planning done.

Number two, level term life insurance. It's just got to be part of your budget to have level term life insurance, it is, number one, so inexpensive, you can buy it over the internet, but you need to think in terms of, okay, if both mom and dad pass away and you're giving your kids to your sister to take care of, you better have some life insurance so it's not a financial strain on her.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Exactly.

Attorney Tom Olsen: Then number two, if you're a married couple and you need to have life insurance because if the husband passed away and he's a bread earner, boy, you better have life insurance to make for that loss of income. Even if the mom's a stay at home mom, you better have life insurance on her because if she's not there to take care of the kids, you're going to be putting them in some kind of daycare.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Exactly.

Attorney Tom Olsen: No matter what your situation is, if you've got young kids, you need to have level term life insurance, and the good news is that it's not expensive.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Correct, there are many choices out there and we obviously are asked this question quite a bit and of course, we are the ones that are promoting that part of your budgeting, part of your planning is to have term life insurance, and you need to factor that in. Even if you did not have other assets, it does not matter, the term life insurance is what would fund your estate if you were to pass away and that's how the money would be there for your young children.

Again, you don't have to feel that you have to have a lot of money or this in order to do these documents. No, it's about making sure that things are set up so that number one, the people that you want to take care of your young children, that they are able to do it because of these legal documents. Number two, who you want to be in charge of the money for your young children, it may be different than the people that are having them day to day, and number three, the funding, which even if you don't have another penny would be term life insurance.