D'Costa Financial Group
Ross and Janis lived a typical Canadian life. They were married, had two children, Melissa and Kyle, and both worked outside the home.
An avid golfer, Ross also went on fishing trips with friends and helped coach his son's hockey team. Janis played the piano, enjoyed bike rides with her friends, and was treasurer for her daughter's soccer team. They played in a mixed curling league.
Besides soccer, Melissa was active in gymnastics and volleyball, and went out with friends to movies on weekends. In addition to hockey, Kyle played baseball, snowboarded, and often had friends over to play rented video games.
Suddenly, their world came crashing down. Ross was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He needed full time care after it spread to his bones and became incurable several months later. Janis had no choice but to quit her job and care for Ross. She had tried to work part-time, but had trouble concentrating and kept making mistakes.
When he was healthy, Ross earned over $50,000 per year. He did not have disability insurance of any kind. Ross and Janis had to support the entire family on less than $1,000 per month of disability benefit from the Canada Pension Plan. Even if Ross had a disability plan, it would only replace a fraction of his income and could not replace any of Janis' salary.
Adjustments had to be made. They had to give up hockey, gymnastics, movies, video games, all their extra-curricular activities. They had to take out a loan against Ross' life insurance policy. This, of course, reduced the total amount paid on Ross' death.
Copyright © 2008 Life Letter. All rights reserved. For information purposes only and not intended to provide specific advice. Readers are advised to seek professional advice before making any financial decision based on any of the ideas presented in this article. This copyright information presented online is not to be copied, or clipped or republished for any reason. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy and will not be held liable in any way for any error, or omission, or any financial decision.
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- "It won't happen to me." Yeah, right.
