Refuel #27

🔥 Refuel | Issue #27
A Newsletter from Faith + Gasoline
📅 Subject: “Is Life Insurance the Right Move for Your Parents?”

💙 I want to thank you for putting Refuel in the top 30 percent of Beehiiv newsletters💙

🛠️ Welcome to Refuel

Hey fam,

Here’s a question I get a lot:

👉 Should I buy life insurance for my parents?
👉 Or cash in the policy they already have?

It feels like a smart way to cover funeral costs or leave something behind. However, the truth is that life insurance is one of the most misunderstood aspects of family finance and caregiving.

This issue breaks it down—so you can make decisions without wasting money or missing out on hidden benefits.

🔥 This Week’s Theme: Protect, Don’t Gamble

📖 Verse of the Week:
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” – Proverbs 15:22

Money is complicated. Wisdom is protection.

🚗 Story from the Road: “Calling the U.S. Government”

When my mother passed, I had the joy of contacting OPM - the office that handles everything for government employees. Yikes. Elon Musk had just taken the government hostage, and they wouldn’t answer the phone. It used to be challenging to get them, but it had become impossible while DOGE was there. I did several very intense Google searches and eventually found some forms to claim my mom’s life insurance, which eventually triggered the process to get started. That was the only policy she would pay for, and that was the cheapest the government offered. She was never gonna do the ones you see commercials for all of the time. And should you?

🕵️ What That Insurance Really Is

• Guaranteed Issue Whole Life

  • No medical questions, no health exam.

  • Anyone in the eligible age range (often 50–85) can get it.

  • That’s why they call it “guaranteed acceptance.”

• The Catch: Limited Payout

  • The ads say “just $9.95 a month,” but they don’t tell you the death benefit is tiny.

  • For example, $9.95 might only buy about $1,000 of coverage for a 60-year-old man.

  • To get $10,000 in coverage (enough for a basic funeral), you might pay $90–100 a month—forever.

• Graded Death Benefit

  • If the policyholder dies within the first 2 years (except accidental death), the company only refunds premiums plus a little interest—not the full payout.

💡 When It Makes Sense

• If your parent is older (70s or 80s), in poor health, and cannot qualify for traditional life insurance.

• If the family needs something to cover funeral expenses, and there are no savings or prepaid plans.

• If the premium fits comfortably into their fixed income without creating new hardship.

🚫 When It Doesn’t Make Sense

• If your parent is younger (under 70) and reasonably healthy.
  👉 Traditional term or whole life will provide more coverage for less money.

• If you can set aside money in a dedicated savings account instead. Over 5–10 years, you may save more than such a policy would ever pay out.

• If you expect the policy to leave a “real inheritance.” It’s for burial costs, not legacy wealth.

📊 Bottom Line

The Colonial Penn type policy can provide peace of mind for families with no other options—but it’s expensive dollars for small coverage.

👉 If your parents are healthy enough, shop for standard term or whole life instead.
👉 If they aren’t, a guaranteed issue policy can be a last-resort way to avoid passing funeral costs onto the kids.

Bottom line is - you have to ask your parents what they have been buying or signing up for at work. I realized this as I took on my mom’s care: so many families don’t know what policies even exist. And sometimes, those “small” policies make the biggest difference.

📊 What You Need to Know About Life Insurance for Parents

1. Buying a New Policy for Aging Parents
✔️ Possible if they’re healthy enough. Premiums rise fast with age or illness.
✔️ A term policy may not be available after a certain age.
✔️ Whole life policies can be issued later in life—but the cost may outweigh the benefit.

👉 Bottom Line: Buying insurance at 75 for a parent with health issues is usually not cost-effective. But if your parent is younger and healthy, a modest policy can help.

2. Checking for Old Policies
📌 Many parents already have life insurance from:

• Old jobs (employer coverage)

• Credit unions or church groups

• “Burial” or “final expense” policies

Don’t assume nothing exists. Ask. Look. Dig through files.

3. Cashing Out vs. Keeping

• Cash Value Policies (whole life/universal life) may let you borrow or surrender for cash. This can help with caregiving costs.

• But: cashing out reduces the death benefit.

• If you need money now for medical or living expenses, it can be a lifeline.

4. Funeral Coverage Alternatives
Sometimes the smartest move is simply setting aside savings or opening a “payable on death” account for funeral expenses instead of buying pricey insurance.

⛽ Quick Refuel: ✅ 5 Steps to Handle Parental Life Insurance

✅ 1. Inventory what exists. Ask parents directly, check mail, old bank statements, and safety deposit boxes.

✅ 2. Call the insurer. Verify if the policy is active and what type it is (term, whole life, universal).

✅ 3. Run the math. Compare premiums vs. expected payout vs. current needs.

✅ 4. Don’t overpay. If your parent is 80+ with health issues, high-premium new policies rarely make sense.

✅ 5. Plan ahead. If no policy exists, create a funeral fund and make sure the account has a beneficiary or is payable on death.

📌 Takeaway: Insurance isn’t about “winning money.” It’s about covering what matters without draining your family’s future.

📌 Next Steps

If you find value in this newsletter and want to support this work, our Cash App is $faithandgasoline

📘 Recommended Read:
Refuel: The Caregiver’s Handbook - This digital download is the perfect introduction to long-term caregiving! Buy it for yourself or a friend. Many of you are caregivers, you just don’t know it yet!

📢 Forward this to your sibling, cousin, or parent. Don’t let life insurance be the mystery no one talks about until it’s too late.

💙💙 Community is the new currency 💙💙

Life insurance isn’t about “if”—it’s about how and when.
The right policy—or the right decision to walk away—can be a gift of peace for generations.

Go be great. 🚀💙
Love you.

With faith & fuel,
Judith A. Culp
Founder, Faith + Gasoline