Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company’s LifeBridge program is a philanthropic program intended to help provide education to children of working parents. Since 2002, MassMutual has been offering free ten-year, $50,000 term life insurance policies to eligible families. In order to qualify, says MassMutual, a family must be in a good health and earn between $10,000 to $40,000 a year.

Any benefits paid through LifeBridge are distributed into a trust, which pays for the educational expenses of your child. Should your income go above the income limit after you qualify for LifeBridge, the life policy will still remain in effect and the only exclusion is in the event of suicide within the first two years of the policy.

Whether you’re a full-time or part-timer working parent, you may be eligible, but you should first check with MassMutual. Since the program started about 9,500 free policies have been issued totaling about $450 million in coverage. Since its inception, the LifeBridge program has paid on six claims through the program.

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Having your own business can be a complex series of ups and downs and provide you with a wide range of emotional situations. This becomes even more of a dynamic when you have a partner in the business. You have to be aware of what would happen if one of the key members of your staff (including you or your partner) were taken out of the picture.

Key person life insurance can provide coverage that will ensure protection for any business, regardless of size or complexity. Taking away key personnel from a small business can be every bit as devastating as a large corporation losing lead persons. Having a key person life insurance policy in place will allow for an infusion of cash in the event that the key person, covered under the policy, dies.

With key person coverage, the day-to-day operations of the business will be minimally impacted by the sudden loss of this person’s expertise and experience. The business can then use this money to immediately replace the key person to allow the business to run efficiently again as soon as possible. This makes excellent business sense, especially for those businesses that have stocks and shares and that have to answer to others for even the smallest cost overruns. By losing a key person, many businesses will find it difficult to maintain profit levels while that person is replaced.

Another Reason for Key Person Coverage

Another reason many business partners have key person life insurance in place is so that when they pass on, their shares in the business can either be bought by the other owner or passed on to their heirs. In this way, your heirs will not have to participate in a business that may or may not welcome their participation. A key person life insurance policy will make sure that there are funds in the company to allow for buying out partner shares in the business, if necessary or desired.

photo credit: “T” altered art