I Will Teach You To Be Rich: No guilt, no excuses - just a 6-week programme that works

by Ramit Sethi

2. INSURANCE. As you get older and more crotchety, you’ll want more and more types of insurance to protect yourself from loss. This includes homeowner insurance (contents and/or building) and life insurance. If you own a home, you do need insurance, but young, single people don’t need life insurance. First of all, statistically, we hardly ever die, and the insurance payout is useful only for people who depend on your livelihood, like your spouse and kids. Beyond that, insurance is really out of the scope of this book, but if you’re truly interested, I encourage you talk to your parents and their friends and search for “life insurance” online to research the various options. You likely don’t need to buy a bunch of insurance options right now, but you can certainly set up a savings goal so that when you do need them, you’ll have money to use. One last thing: Insurance is almost never a good investment, despite what financial salespeople (or clueless parents) will tell you. So use it as protection from downside risk — like for fires or accidental death when you have a family — but don’t think of it as a growth investment.