I have received a notice that my life insurance premium will go from $26 to $166 as of July 12. It seems like a sizable jump, and I wonder if someone has mistakenly filed me in the smoker’s category. In any case, it’s clear that I have passed an age threshold at which the powers that be are betting on my mortality.

I took out the policy when my youngest was 5, and now she’s 15. But the house mortgage has 10 years left, and in the event of my untimely demise, I would not want to saddle the children with that.

I already do not own a cell phone, nor have cable TV, nor pay a hairdresser, nor frequent restaurants, though I’m sure there is always some place else one might cut.

I started to ask myself whether life insurance is really necessary. After all, the first $3,120 was a waste, inasmuch as I didn’t die. And there is nothing to show for a term policy in the end. I started to wonder if I should just trust God to take care of me and keep me alive and skip the whole business. Or, if God’s preference is to take me home, then to trust him with the money to come my children’s way for funeral and living expenses.

That sounded like a reasonable Christian thing to do until I started thinking of it another way. If it’s trust in God we’re talking about, maybe I should be trusting that if I continue paying life insurance, he will be faithful to come up with the money for me monthly.

But all that’s not going to stop me from shopping around for a less crazy premium.

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