Rob Stock details the traditional insurance life-cycle in a recent column at stuff.co.nz. This is a good start and may make sense for many people as they contemplate how insurance will work for them. That qualification is deliberate.
I say ‘many’ people because there are plenty of people to whom this life-cycle will not apply, including people that: do not get married or have one life partner, do not or cannot have children, get married but divorce, their partner dies, they re-marry, they are in a same-sex marriage, they re-start their career, or they change country, and so on.
Because life is more complicated than the story-books there are often situations which require a more complicated answer. Planning for the allocation of inheritance to children from previous relationships equitably with a new partner and further children, plus managing the financial implications of second and third careers are the two most common situations, but there are many, many others.