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Life Insurance Love Stories

February is the month of love, and although Valentine’s Day is over, your love for those close to you never stop.  The act of insuring your love with Life Insurance is no better way to protect your loved ones and show them you how you feel. It can provide security when those left behind need financial help the most. “There are no guarantees. You have to prepare for those ‘what ifs.’” Lifehappens.org presents Real Life Stories. These are True Love Stories that illustrates why it’s so important for people to include life insurance in their financial plans. These families highlighted in these stories could have anticipated the challenges they’d face.


Think!! How would you and your family manage financially if faced with similar challenges!


Stephen Miller: Protecting the Future

A mutual friend with a new dog brought Stephen and Katie together. Stephen had headed to his friend’s house to meet the new furry member of the family, and when he got there, he saw Katie playing with dog in the backyard. “Katie was so outgoing,” says Stephen. “She was the nicest person you’ll ever meet.”

 That first meeting led to beach outings and concerts, and over time to getting married and thinking about starting a family.

It was Katie who suggested they get life insurance. Stephen admits he wasn’t too happy about the idea. They were young and healthy, so he didn’t see the point. Katie, however, convinced him to sit down with insurance professional Rose Goheen, who walked them through the process and presented them with affordable options. They both decided to get life insurance coverage.

When the couple welcomed Chase, they decided to reevaluate their life insurance. Given their expanding family and responsibilities, they both bought additional life insurance. It was during her recovery from giving birth to Reid that Katie realized something was wrong. Her doctor confirmed her suspicion that the abdominal lump she felt was something much more serious. In fact, it was an aggressive form of cancer.

Katie, with the love and support of her family, valiantly fought the disease, but just over a year later it claimed this young mom’s life. She was just 30.

 

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Kovacic Family: Everything Will Be OK

Michael, 32, was a fit and healthy family man. As he left to run a 10K race, he kissed his wife, Traci, good-bye along with newborn Calvin and “big” sister Josie. He never made it home. As he crossed the finish line, Michael collapsed and died. The Kovacic family would never be the same.

Thankfully, they had life insurance. Even though the young couple had been living paycheck to paycheck, their insurance professional had convinced them to buy an affordable policy.

Traci says the hardest part for her was knowing that the love of her life was never coming home. “But the reality is that everything else stayed the same,” she says. “The paychecks stopped immediately, but I still had to keep the lights on, buy food, pay the mortgage and take care of the kids. Having life insurance meant I didn’t have to make any immediate decisions or sell the house.”

“The life insurance saved us—and it still does today,” she says.

 

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Chich Family: It’s About Family

Jenny was single and in her 20s, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking about the future. In fact, she knew she wanted to have a family one day and that saving for retirement—even this early on—was a priority.

That’s why after meeting with insurance professional Jim Silbernagel, she decided to buy a permanent life insurance policy. She knew it would help her with both goals: provide the life insurance coverage she sought and the ability to accumulate cash value to help with saving for retirement.

Jenny’s dream of having a family did come true. She met Jim on a blind date, and once married, they welcomed a son, Michael, and then several years later twins, Samuel and Nathaniel. As often happens with growing families, finances got stretched tight, and Jim suggested they cancel Jenny’s policy to save money. Jenny was adamant that they keep it. Instead, they used some of the accumulated cash value to pay the premium and keep the policy in force.* That decision would be life changing for her family.

The Chich family was looking forward to welcoming their fourth child—a girl, but tragically Jenny died while giving birth. The shock to her family was overwhelming. While life insurance could never replace their vibrant wife and mother, Jim says that Jenny’s policy helped the family in the aftermath of her death. He was able to take a yearlong leave of absence from his job to care for newborn Emma and the boys, who were all younger than 6. “I was able to focus on my kids and not worry about how I was going to buy a gallon of milk,” says Jim.

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You may not always be there for your loved ones but you can always take care of them.  These Life Insurance Love Stories are examples of the benefits a policy will serve if an unexpected or tragedy occurs, and you know your loved ones will not bear a financial burden in addition to the loss they feel.

If you’d like more information on life insurance or would like to purchase a new life insurance policy, I can help. Kelly Burke Insurance represents the brand-name insurance companies you know and trust. Contact us at (708) 444-0050 or kelly@kellyburkeinsurance.com

Tips to Winterize Your Home

We all know that living in Illinois we can experience temperatures and wind chills that are below -20.  Our heating systems are not designed for. -20º to -30º temperatures with wind chills down to -50º, and can create a lot of damage to your house.

Homes can struggle to keep up, and the temperature may drop while the heating system is working at full capacity. To help your home make it through the winter without any mishaps, here are tips to properly winterize your home, inside and outside. 
 

Inside The House


  • Keep your house heated to a minimum of 65 degrees. The temperature inside the walls where the pipes are located is substantially colder than the walls themselves. A temperature lower than 65 degrees might not keep the inside walls from freezing.
  • Identify the location for the main water shutoff in your home. Find out how it works in case you have to use it.
  • Open hot and cold faucets enough to let them drip slowly. Keeping water moving within the pipes will prevent freezing.
  • If you use fireplaces, wood stoves and electric heaters, watch them closely and make sure they are working properly.
  • Remember to close the flue in your fireplace when you’re not using it.
  • When traveling, ask a neighbor to check the house regularly. If there is a problem with frozen pipes or water leakage, attending to it quickly could mean far less damage.
  • If you plan to be away for an extended period of time, have the water system, including pool plumbing, drained by a professional to keep pipes from freezing or bursting.

Outside The House


  • Keep sidewalks and entrances to your home free from snow and ice.
  • Watch for ice dams near gutter downspouts. Ice dams can cause water to build up and seep into your house.
  • Clear gutters of leaves and debris to allow runoff from melting snow and ice to flow freely.
  • If you own a swimming pool and temperatures are expected to dip below freezing, run the pool pump at night to keep the water flowing through the pipes.
  • Make sure all hoses are disconnected from outside spigots.
  • If your garage is attached to your house, keep the garage doors closed. The door leading to the house is probably not as well-insulated as an exterior door.
  • If ice forms on tree limbs, watch for dead, damaged or dangerous branches that could break loose when stressed by ice, snow or wind and damage your house or car, or injure someone on or near your property.
  • If your home suffers water damage, it is important to make sure that it is properly dried and repaired to prevent any potential problem with mold. Remember, mold cannot survive without moisture. 

Frozen or Burst Pipes


  • If you discover that pipes are frozen, don’t wait for them to burst. Take measures to thaw them immediately, or call a plumber for assistance.
  • If your pipes burst, first turn off the water and then mop up spills to avoid further damage.

Your Insurance Coverage


  • Standard homeowners policies will cover most kinds of damage that result from a freeze. For instance, if house pipes freeze and burst or if ice forms in gutters and causes water to back up under roof shingles and seep into the house. You would also be covered if the weight of snow or ice damages your house.
  • Most policies do not cover backups in sewers and drains or flood damage, which can also happen in winter. To be covered for flooding, you need a separate flood policy from the National Flood Insurance Program.
Questions
Questions

Feel free to email or call me with any questions or comments about my services or if you have any insurance related inquires.

Contact
Contact

Phone: 708.444.0050
Email: kelly@kellyburkeinsurance.com

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