We have already written a map of protection by age band. This article offers another lens that some people find easier to use: planning around the major events of life. Because age is only a number, while events such as marriage, a child, or taking out a mortgage change the risk equation overnight.
Event 1: your first job
The first day you have income is the first day you have something to protect. What to do: open personal health insurance while your medical history is still unmarked; understand what the company's group scheme provides; and begin the discipline of keeping premiums within around a tenth of income. This is the cheapest point of your whole life — don't let it pass.
Event 2: marriage or a life partner
From one purse to a single financial team. What to do: tell each other what policies you each hold; update the beneficiary names to match your new intentions (an easy step, and the one most often forgotten); assess whether, if either income disappeared, the other could carry the shared expenses — and top up the life cover of whoever is the main earner.
Event 3: your first child
The event that changes the equation most sharply, because there is now someone wholly dependent for at least twenty years. What to do: raise the parents' life cover to span the long-term cost of raising a child (term cover makes this possible within a real budget); add health insurance for mother and child; start an education funding plan; and look for a waiver of premium rider in case something happens to the parent paying. We cover the details in our article on choosing insurance for children.
Event 4: buying a home, or taking on a large debt
A thirty-year debt is not an obligation to pass to the people behind you. What to do: increase life cover to match the debt, which can be done either with mortgage reducing term assurance (MRTA) tied to the loan, or with ordinary term cover equal to the debt, which is more flexible — compare the two before choosing. And don't forget fire insurance for the house, covering both the structure and the contents.
Event 5: starting your own business
The day you become your own boss, the employee benefits all disappear and a set of new risks appears. What to do: replace the lost group insurance with a personal health plan; add a daily cash benefit, because stopping work means income stopping; consider business liability cover; and once the business grows to have partners or key people, look into keyman and buy-sell arrangements, which we cover separately.
Event 6: retirement
The finish line of accumulating and the start of managing. What to do: check that the health plan can continue as long as possible, with a clear source of money to pay the premiums; reduce the life sum insured in line with the obligations actually remaining; start drawing the annuity income you built up; and organise all the documents and talk them through with your family, so that everything you have built is handed over in full.
How to use this lens
One simple rule: every time a major event happens, set a date to review your insurance within 90 days. Cover that is never adjusted to events is cover that quietly drifts out of alignment. If you have just been through one of these and have not reviewed yet, message us on LINE and we can update the plan together.
This article was inspired by material from the Thai Financial Planners Association (TFPA) and has been entirely rewritten.