First and foremost, my condolences to you and your family. Thank you for sharing this story and allowing CB to help make the lives of his wife and children a little more bearable. I hope that amidst all of the emotions that you are processing, a spirit of comfort is one of them.

I work in a field adjacent to insurance, where I hear stories from individuals who found themselves unexpectedly needing a life insurance policy due to someone's untimely passing. Suffice it to say it didn't take more than a heartbreaking story or two to scare me straight into making sure my family was protected financially to the extent possible should something like that happen to me.

For anyone reading this who feels prompted to cross putting a life insurance policy in place off of their to-do list, check out term4sale. I have no affiliation with them other than being a satisfied customer, and I first heard about them from Brother Marsh's Fin 200 personal finance class.

The process is straightforward and doesn't require any information you don't already have on hand. You don't need to put in your contact information to see the different quote options, and you can generate estimates for polices of different terms and coverage amounts. At the end of the process you can put in your phone and email if you want to be contacted by a handful of the independent agents who sell coverage in your area.

Filling out the health questionnaire took maybe 30-60 minutes. Just make sure you're thorough in accurately reporting your medical history. If something gets flagged in the underwriting process you're still at a point where you have options (different insurers have different levels of medical risk they're willing to accept, and different levels of willingness to charge more to take on that medical risk). If something gets flagged after you're gone, your policy may be at risk of not being paid out, and your family will already have enough to deal with by that stage.

HCBW (consider getting a policy for her too, especially if you have younger and multiple kids) and I did our applications together, and one of ours got kicked back for a secondary medical screening (which we were expecting). The insurance company sent a nurse/MA/something along those lines to our home--they took vitals and a blood draw, and were out and on their way in 15 minutes. No charge to us since it was the insurance company doing their due diligence. They may have also asked for permission to request medical records for the condition too, but I don't recall for certain. In any case, I don't remember it being a hassle.

Throughout all of this the agent and I went back and forth on a couple of different term lengths and coverage amounts (at my request), but at no point did I feel the slightest push towards a whole-life policy or a more expensive term policy. Had that been the case I would have contacted one of the two other agents who had reached out to me.

All in all not as bad of a process as I figured it would be, and certainly worth a couple of hours of my time put something in place I hope my family will never need. If money is tight right now, consider getting a shorter term instead of a 30-year policy. Just make sure to re-evaluate once money is less tight and you have the means to secure more coverage.

By no means do I intend for this PSA to be Monday-morning-quarterbacking your BIL's situation. I hope that there does turn out to be a term policy through his work that wasn't known about before, and I know that as the early birds of CB take over tomorrow morning for the night owls of CB this evening that compassion will continue to be shown towards your sister and her children.