Every September, Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM) encourages us to reconsider the role of life insurance. The 2025 theme, “Take control of your financial future with life insurance,” highlights its importance not just for preparing for loss but also for safeguarding what you’ve built, ensuring continuity, and establishing a lasting legacy.
This month, we invite you to explore how life insurance can be a powerful tool for resilience that supports your loved ones, strengthens your business, and gives you confidence in the future.
What Is Life Insurance Awareness Month?
Led by the nonprofit Life Happens, this annual September campaign raises awareness about the value of life insurance. While its core purpose is to provide beneficiaries with financial security after a policyholder’s death, modern life insurance can also support broader financial goals and long-term planning.
Life insurance can:
- Keep families in their homes and cover education costs
- Help businesses transition smoothly after a partner or key employee passes away
- Serve as a financial tool for retirement and charitable giving
LIAM encourages people to think beyond loss and focus on how policies secure future goals, making it a crucial part of your financial planning.
Types of Life Insurance: Term Vs. Permanent
Choosing the right type of life insurance is a vital decision that depends on your stage of life, financial goals, and budget. Let us guide you through this process.
Term Life Insurance
This option covers a set number of years, often 10, 20, or 30. It is straightforward, a relatively low fixed affordable premium, and designed for income replacement or debt coverage during working years. Once the term ends, coverage stops unless renewed or converted.
Permanent Life Insurance: Whole Life and Universal Life
Permanent life insurance policies, like whole life and universal life, last for the policyholder’s lifetime, as long as required premiums are paid. Unlike term coverage, permanent coverage builds tax-deferred cash value that grows over time. This value can be accessed during your lifetime to:
- Supplement retirement income
- Pay large expenses or taxes
- Fund children’s education costs
- Cover caregiving needs later in life
- Establish a trust to preserve assets, such as a family vacation home
Whole life insurance offers guaranteed premiums, a fixed death benefit, and steady, predictable cash value growth. Universal life insurance, by contrast, provides more flexibility. Policyholders can adjust premiums and sometimes the death benefit, with cash value growth tied to interest rates or market performance.
Because of these features, permanent life insurance serves both as long-term protection and as a financial planning tool that supports broader wealth-building goals.
The Many Applications of Life Insurance
Life insurance is a versatile tool that can align with personal, family, or business priorities. With thoughtful planning, a policy can provide protection today while supporting long-term financial goals.
Protecting Families
When a primary wage earner dies, life insurance can keep the household on a steady footing. It helps with mortgage payments, tuition, medical bills, and daily living costs. In practice, it can mean children finish school, and a spouse maintains the family’s standard of living.
Supporting Businesses
Business owners rely on life insurance to secure continuity. Policies can fund buy-sell agreements, cover loans, and provide key-person protection. Without this planning, the death, disability, or serious illness of an owner or key individual can create serious challenges. Surviving partners may lack the cash to buy out an ownership share. Creditors might demand repayment at a vulnerable time, and operations can falter if leadership or expertise is suddenly lost.
Preserving a Legacy
Life insurance often plays a role in legacy planning. It allows families to leave financial gifts, fund charities, or set up trusts to protect meaningful assets. A well-structured policy can ensure a family property stays in the family or support a community cause long after the policyholder’s lifetime.
Take Control of Your Financial Future Today
Having the right life insurance in place provides a sense of relief and accomplishment, ensuring the protection of your loved ones and your legacy.
At Brooks, Todd & McNeil, our dedicated life and health insurance team provides compassionate, professional expertise, offering solutions tailored to each client’s unique needs to help secure their families. We offer:
- Access to multiple providers for more choice
- Customized solutions to meet individual needs
- Generations of trusted service in Connecticut
This September, take the opportunity to review your coverage. Whether you are safeguarding your family, a business, or your legacy, life insurance can help you stay in control of what comes next.
Brooks, Todd & McNeil can help you choose the right coverage for your needs. Contact us today to get started.
About Brooks, Todd & McNeil
Since 1839, the independent agents at Brooks, Todd & McNeil have been pleased to offer our community the best and most affordable policies from a variety of providers. To learn more about our products and services, contact us today at (800) 448-4567.