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.

No words can capture the devastation that Stephen and his boys felt at Katie’s loss. “It’s horrible to lose your soul mate and best friend,” he says. “But I have two boys to support, and I want them to know their dad can carry on.”

Life insurance has helped with that process. “Nothing can bring Katie back, but having life insurance meant we didn’t lose everything,” he says. “I don’t earn enough alone to afford living in our house. Life insurance has eased my financial worries on so many levels.”

Thinking back to that first meeting with Rose, Stephen says: “Katie was the smarter one. She knew to plan for the future “our future“ with life insurance.”

Being a small-business owner is rewarding. It gives you the freedom to do what you love and to control your destiny. This appealed to Mike Jaap, who took a wealth of experience and built a metal recycling business. It paid off with exponential growth and profits.

His insurance professional Bill Cassidy was there to offer him advice—unique advice he hadn’t heard from his other advisors. Bill recommended that Mike put a whole life insurance policy in place to protect his family and as a means to build cash value.

Then came the economic crisis of 2008. His business took a huge blow when markets contracted and several major oversees clients were unable to pay their bills. Mike thought it was the death knell of his business. That is until he called Bill.

Distraught, Mike laid out the facts. His bank had withdrawn his line of credit. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to keep his business afloat, which would mean laying off a few dozen employees as well.

Bill had a simple question for him: “How much money do you need to keep your business going right now?” Perplexed, Mike gave him a figure. “No problem,” said Bill. “We can have that money in your account in two days.” What Mike had forgotten was the power of his whole life policy and the cash value it had accumulated over the dozen years he had had it.

The infusion of money from a loan against the cash value in his policy allowed Mike to regroup and keep his business going, and in the process it protected his family financially as well as his employees. Once things were stabilized, Bill and Mike set up a plan to repay the loan, so the money would be there in the event that outside forces again came to bear on his business.

Mike is thankful for these living benefits of life insurance that help him weather the financial storm. “There were a lot of sleepless nights, but my whole life insurance policy allowed me to stop worrying and keep my business,” he says.

*Withdrawing or borrowing funds from your policy will reduce its cash value and death benefit if not repaid, and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured.

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.

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.

And his advice to other families is simple: “Be prepared. You may look at the cost of premiums as scary, but if you work it into your budget you don’t even realize the money is going out. Just make sure your life insurance is taken care of.”

*Withdrawing or borrowing funds from your policy will reduce its cash value and death benefit if not repaid, and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured.

Jamey and Robyn Koonsman met in college and realized they shared a love of the land and the animals that populated the ranches they grew up around. Once married, they shared their passion with their daughters, Hope and Jordyn. The family spent their free time attending stock shows and rodeos. Hope loved nothing more than showing steers and truly owned the ring when she was in it, and Jordyn took a shine to rodeo riding.

While it’s nothing a family should ever have to suffer, Hope died unexpectedly when she was just 19, the result of a birth defect the family thought was long in the past. It proved fortunate that the couple had done life insurance planning early on with their insurance professional Paul Miller. Not only had they bought a combination of permanent and term life insurance for themselves, they had purchased permanent life insurance for both girls. Their plan was to gift the policies to the girls once grown. Instead, they used Hope’s policy to pay medical bills and to start a foundation in her honor.

Layered on this tragedy was Robyn’s ongoing fight with breast cancer. She had been battling the disease over the course of eight years. Then, less than two years after Hope died, Robyn lost that battle at age 37. In the wake of her death, life insurance did what it was meant to: pay for medical bills and final expenses, and allow Jamey and Jordyn to continue living in their home without financial concerns. Jordyn has also been able to pursue her rodeo riding, which has sustained her through these tragedies.

Jamey says that when they originally got life insurance in their 20s, they never expected to use it. So his message to others is simple: “You’re never too young to get life insurance, because you never know what will happen. Make sure you take care of your family, so if something does happen, they won’t struggle.”