Life insurance touches nearly every man, woman and child in the country. Every week of the year, people buy almost a million of these types of policies.

Insurance companies help take the financial sting out of a loss of life by collecting money from the subscribers to the program, investing the amount, and distributing a sum of money back to the subscriber or to the subscriber's estate after death.

Financially, most people can justify the cost of having some life insurance. Life insurance is one means of adding to or building an estate. Life insurance also acts as a protection against loss of the insured's income or assets.

Life insurance is protection for dependents. Your dependents can include children, parents, spouse, or anyone who is dependent on you for financial support. In a sense, creditors are also "dependents" in that they are depending on you to repay your debt. So creditors should be added to your list of dependents.

Life insurance is not an investment nor is it a savings plan. The American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI), a trade association in the life insurance industry, said in an issue of their newsletter:

Life insurance is not designed to provide for the possibility of economic gain in return for a risked sum of money. That's an investment. Nor is it designed to accumulate deposits of money building toward an individual or family financial goal. That's a savings account. The purpose of life insurance is "to provide a guaranteed death benefit to protect your dependents against financial loss."

Someone may tell you that everyone needs life insurance. Anyone needs life insurance if his or her premature death would result in financial loss to others or deprive them of a financial gain.

In other words, the need for life insurance depends on a person's situation.

For information and answers to specific questions about your life insurance policies, contact your agent or the representative for your group life insurance plan.