The summer is the most popular time to get married. With marriage comes a lot of important financial decisions to make. One of these financial decisions is on insurance. Do you combine and have one auto policy or do you keep your policies separate? Do you need life insurance?

Here are some factors to consider:

• Married couples have lower auto rates. Actuaries determine insurance rates. They base their rates on statistics. Statistically speaking, married people get in to fewer accidents. Non-married people actually get into twice as many auto accidents.
• If you are buying a new house/condo now that you are married you can receive multi-policy discounts with your home and auto together.

On the other hand:

• If your spouse has a bad driving record with lots of tickets and accidents, your premium will go up. So it would be better to keep separate policies.
• If your spouse has a much more expensive car to insure than you, you may want to keep your policy separate.

Life insurance is always important to have, but once you are married many of your finances are combined. You make joint investments, such as buying a house/condo. With such large joint investments, it would be difficult for just one of you to make all the payments if something happened to your spouse. This is why life insurance is so crucial. It not a fun thing to do…thinking of a loved one passing away, but preparation is the best policy. Even if both of you have life insurance through work, it is also smart to buy a separate policy for each of you. If one of you loses his/her job, all the money invested into the company life insurance is gone. You don’t have life insurance anymore. On the other hand if you are putting money into personal life insurance policies they are always there. Think of your husband/wife, would you want them to struggle finically if something happened to you? Buying life insurance could be the most thoughtful and caring thing you buy!

If you have any questions on your policies after marriage, please call us and we can discuss all of your options! mancuso-nowak.com/coverage/personal/#/

* Beautiful wedding picture from one of our employee, Nina Arroyo!