Life insurance is a key target for procrastination in life.   Even if you have new financial obligations such as a new marriage, baby, or home, purchasing life insurance can still take a back seat to honeymoon, catching up on sleep, and Home Depot runs respectively.  There are many reasons people put off buying life insurance but it doesn't need to be that way.  Let's look at a quick way to get started with base level term life insurance.  Procrastinators beware.

First, why do people put it off?  For the various reasons we procrastinate on many similar purchases, money, time, lack of perceived importance and the most common reason...it's a pain in the neck.  Let's address each of these and figure out a way through the thicket of delay before it's too late (and too expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to qualify for life insurance).

We'll start with the cost concern and the very financial responsibilities that drive the need for life insurance are also expensive in themselves be it a new marriage, baby, or house.  That's not exactly the time you're looking to spend more on something like life insurance.  Don't let cost prevent you from protection yourself and your family.  This is our work-around for the cost concern.  First, start with term life insurance since is generally 1/10th the cost of whole life in all it's various forms.  You're much less likely to lapse the term life coverage with a sizably lower price-tag over the long haul.  Also, go with the amount you can comfortably afford even if it's not optimum.  Maybe start with $100K or $250K instead of a higher amount.  The cost is likely to very low...10's of dollars per month depending on age, health, and area.  Basically, apply for an amount that you will barely feel on a monthly basis.  If your Cable bill is $80/monthly, then buy as much term life as $20 will afford you.  You can always add more term life later on to supplement your original purchase but at least you have some protection to absorb the big bills should something happen to you.  Think of this as the middle of the road approach in terms of cost.

What about the time it takes to set up a term life insurance policy?  Sure...it's not a 2 minute deal but it's actually not bad in terms of actual time from your busy schedule.   It's broken up into two parts.  First, we can get the basic info and start your application with a 10 minute phone call.  The whole term life insurance underwriting process has shifted from a really long and complicated applications up front to more information gathering during the paramedical exam which is good news for you, the applicant.  Once the app is started in the system, a paramedical exam will be scheduled at your location and time of choice.   This usually lasts about 20-30 minutes depending on your health status.  That's it.  After this point, there's generally a fair amount of waiting but very little required from you.  The initial application phone call and the paramedical exam are the bulk of what's needed from you and the rest of the life insurance underwriting process will take place behind the scenes.

So we have address cost, time, and pain in the neckness (is that a word).  The key is to just get started with some base level of life insurance coverage and then re-evaluate once you come out of the ether from your current time/cost requirements.  Just a head's up, that may be a way out.