It was a good story to hear — a woman stood up and said that despite losing her job, she was not panicking as her late husband had left her money thanks to taking out life insurance.

Although bitter sweet, it was still one of the more positive stories to come out of a series of meetings this month on the subjects of life insurance.

This month saw three presentations on ‘Using Life Insurance to Aid in Business Continuity’, ‘Managing Risk with our Income Using Life Insurance’, and ‘Estate Planning Using Life Insurance’.

Although the feedback can hardly be said to provide statistical proof, it does appear that there is a big problem with under-insurance for life insurance. What was also plain to see is that people did not really know the different uses of life insurance.

For, instance Hil de Frias, a director at Bermuda law firm MJM, opened the eyes of many people when he suggested that it could help business continuity as well as estate planning.

He said that life insurance was understated as far as estate planning is concerned. For instance, he suggested that it could be used to pay death taxes — they can be a very considerable amount and if no provision has been made, they will come out of the existing estate.

It can also be used for business continuity to ensure that the business is compensated for the loss of a key employee, making sure there is a source of capital to help keep the business going.

Life insurance can also be used as collateral against a personal loan and with term-limit life insurance, it can be used to pay off the remainder of the mortgage on retirement.

In the US, September is Life Insurance Awareness Month and I was delighted that the group Women Wear Stilettos Bermuda supported the initiative to raise awareness of life insurance and hopefully we can make September Life Insurance Month every year in Bermuda.

Jonathan Robinson is a sales manager with Colonial Life Assurance