QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON LIFE INSURANCE

An easy-to-use life-insurance guidebook.

Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) Steuer notes that life insurance is “one of the least exciting topics to think about,” and here he offers a painless reference book to that gray world. The format of the book, framed as answers to frequently–and not-so-frequently–asked questions, will help readers make informed decisions about what kind of life insurance to purchase and how to monitor your holdings to avoid any nasty surprises down the road. Read in its entirety, the book provides a deep-immersion course (this exhaustive resource is certainly dense) on all aspects of the subject. But it’s also helpful in addressing the quandary of the moment, from something as basic as whether or not to buy term or permanent insurance to the material knowledge that can be gleaned from insurance regulatory information reports. Steuer lays out pros and cons, demonstrates how you can use mathematical calculations to arrive at a plan that best suits you, brings needs-analysis into play and tenders an array of quick facts that help put issues into perspective. Though the sentences are often halting and poorly constructed–“It stems from the old principle that if a villager’s house burned down, and then the other villagers would help to rebuild the house”–the information is solid.

Steuer’s premise is economic commonsense–when laying out tens of thousands of dollars, it’s good to know what you’re buying–and his guidance is valuable.