Insurance – Financing Your Retirement

Nobody likes to deal with insurance. Once they are closed, most of them try to waste as little thought as possible on the matter and have the relevant documents dusted up in file folders. However, it is worth checking your existing insurance policies from time to time to ensure that they still meet your own needs. Retiring is a good time to do this. Others should be adapted to the current situation in life. This may save you money.

Below we have compiled an overview of important and unimportant insurance for you in old age.

Liability insurance

Private liability insurance is essential in old age advised the Consumer Advice Center North Rhine-Westphalia. Conversely, those who live alone with their children in an apartment in old age can have their liability insurance taken out. This protects you if someone else harms you, but they do not have liability insurance themselves. In this case, your insurance will pay for the damage.

Automobile liability insurance

Anyone driving a car must have car liability insurance anyway. Comprehensive insurance covers damage to the wagon caused by wild animals or natural hazards such as hail and theft. Fully comprehensive insurance also covers accidents and willful damage caused by third parties as in cases of settlements. You can save if you are the only user of your car.

The contributions are also calculated based on how many kilometers you drive each year. If you travel less in old age, you should report this to the insurance company.

Household

Household items include not only furniture but also clothing, books or the bicycle parked in the basement. The insurance value should therefore not exceed the sum insured. Otherwise, the insurance will not pay full damage. If you are in a smaller apartment move and dispose of a large part of your household goods on this occasion, you should report this to the insurance company in order not to pay too high contributions.

Home Insurance

Anyone who remodels their own four walls without barriers or adds a winter garden should report this to their insurance company to avoid underinsurance. Attorney Weidenbach advises that you also cover natural hazards, i.e. destruction caused, for example, by floods, avalanches or earthquakes.

Disability and daily sickness benefit

In this case, you have to cancel the insurance. You can find the deadline for this in the contracts.

Travel health insurance

In retirement, you can cancel this. It does not offer any protection for non-EU countries anyway.

Accident insurance

The latter can cushion the loss of income they have after an accident with accident insurance. However, the pension is not affected by an accident. Nevertheless, a corresponding policy can be particularly useful for older people who pursue dangerous hobbies. «If you don’t have the means to pay for it yourself in an emergency, senior citizen accident insurance can make sense,» says Elke Weidenbach from the NRW consumer center.

Again, a comparison is worthwhile, since the tariffs often differ depending on the age.

Additional private nursing care insurance

The benefits of the statutory long-term care insurance are not always sufficient to cover the costs of a care case . Additional private long-term care insurance can help close this gap. Private care at home is not paid for. In principle, it can also make sense to take out additional nursing care insurance in old age.

However, the contributions are calculated according to age and state of health. If you want to take out a policy late, you have to expect high costs. So check exactly what benefits you can expect from private long-term care insurance.

Funeral insurance

Many people do not want to burden their bereaved with the funeral expenses and therefore take out a death benefit insurance (Funeral insurance), in which the offspring receive money in the event of death. However, the policyholder often has to pay large sums. Sometimes even more than the bereaved ultimately get out. An alternative if you don’t want to burden your bereaved, you can save money for them directly.