The two biggest items that people don't want to deal with when it comes to money management are insurance and making a will.

Some of the real comments on buying life insurance, made to me during professional finance practice years, are illuminating.

“Why should I waste the money?” Actually, you have a point, except it is not a wasted on your beneficiaries.

“That won’t that benefit me!” Well, you're right – because you'll be dead.

“I don't believe in life insurance,” one extremely unhealthy-looking individual said. The non-working spouse looks stunned. Deemed uninsurable, this individual was deceased in a year.

“What difference does it make? We're all going sooner or later. Plus these insurance companies are just getting rich.”

“I resent paying for this. I make more money than my partner does. And even if something happens to me, she'll be fine.”

The assumption being made in this comment is that statistically, he assumes he will die before his partner/spouse. And because they have savings, they don’t need insurance, either one of them.

Except, the point of fact is that we cannot predict what can happen, e.g.: the surviving partner, either one of them, can become unwell very quickly in a long-term disability event (e.g. accident, cancer) and barely have enough to survive. That money that you earned and saved won’t last long, particularly if child support is needed as well.

“I’ve paid in all these years, at least I should get a discount.” Well actually, no, you won’t. Life insurance works on the premise of the law of large numbers of people in the pool each year. The older you get, the more statistically certain it is you're going to die sooner rather than later.

If anything, depending upon the policy contract, as you age it may cost more as you may be deemed less fit, and unhealthier.

The bottom line is you don't need insurance because you won't be there – but your family does!

What your decision-making process should be focused on is – for whom are you are insuring?

Answer: your spouse, your partner, your children, your family do need that care from you.

That’s what insurance is, caring about what happens after you're gone, caring about their financial security, about their emotions as they are forced through their grief to manage their lives without you!

Thousands of articles have been written about the risk in life.

When we are born, there's a risk.

We survived that.

We grow and learn about risk from our time as babies, children, teenagers, adults where we come to assume the responsibilities for ourselves.

We survived that.

Then, going forward we become responsible for our partners, our families and our relatives.

And, hopefully, we are still surviving risk.

Risk, known and unknown, is ever present throughout our life pathways.

It never goes away. We think it does, because we ignore it, but it is there.

When you pass the management of your life and the worry of exposed risk to an insurance company, you’ve set into place one form of financial security that you don't have to think about.

And that's why in last week’s article you saw that life and health insurance are the largest industries by revenue in the world. They are larger than investing, larger than financing, larger than manufacturing and construction.

Next week: What type of life insurance might be best for you? We’ll look at some various situations and discuss the pros and cons.

And we’ll look at how reinsurers insure life insurance companies/premiums – a significant industry in Bermuda.

• Martha Harris Myron is a native Bermuda islander with US connections, Author, YouTube Creator: The Bermuda Island Financial Literacy Network Channel, Google News Contributor, and a retired qualified international financial planner. Contact: martha.myron@gmail.com