10 Minutes on This Site Helped a Single Mom Protect Her Son’s Financial Future
Most days, Rebekah Pearsall’s alarm starts buzzing at 6:30 a.m. Unlike many of us, she resists hitting snooze.
The 30-year-old single mother doesn’t have that kind of time.
She climbs from bed and gets herself ready. She wakes up Riley, her 7-year-old son, and gets him ready. Then they’re off — hitting the streets of South Riding, Virginia.
She drops him at school before heading to her job as a dental assistant and office manager. After putting in eight hours, she picks up Riley from his after-care program and shuttles him home. Time for dinner.
Then they’re back out the door for Riley’s activities. He’s an active kid, playing basketball, practicing karate and swimming.
“Between work and my son’s activities, I barely have any time,” Pearsall says.
Like many of us, she has one of those lengthy mental to-do lists — the type that’s filled with tasks she’s been meaning to do. Securing life insurance has been floating around that list for years now.
“Since my son doesn’t have a biological father in his life, I wanted to make sure he was secure if something were to ever happen to me,” she says.
She assumed finding the right policy would take hours, if not days — researching, studying fine print, pulling policy quotes and scheduling doctor’s appointments.
She certainly didn’t think she could do it in 10 minutes.
How This Busy Single Mom Secured Affordable Life Insurance
When Pearsall was growing up, she saw a friend lose his parent. She saw how much he’d benefitted from his parent’s life insurance policy — how it helped him get a head-start on life.
She wanted that for Riley if (God forbid) something ever happened to her.
But she just kept putting it off. It felt like a big task she never had a chance to block off time to accomplish.
But then she read an article at The Penny Hoarder that mentioned Ethos, an online life insurance provider. Its website says you can secure a life insurance policy in 10 minutes.
She figured she had that much time, so she started the application process. It really was only 10 minutes long. Plus, for most life insurance policies, Ethos doesn’t require a medical exam.
Because Pearsall needed more than $1 million in coverage, she had to complete a simple medical exam, which consisted of a few questions and a blood test. Even this was way easier than she imagined. Ethos helped her schedule an appointment online, and a lab tech came to her home to complete all the required tests.
The process took no time.
Her Ethos representative, Josh, even texted her application updates and was available if she had any questions.
Once the lab results came through, Pearsall secured a $1.4 million 20-year policy. She pays $74 a month — not much different from her monthly phone bill. With that perspective, Pearsall says it’s more than a reasonable price.
“That’s totally doable,” she says. “It’s so worth it.”
Seriously… It Takes 10 Minutes to Sign up
Depending on where you are in life, you can get life insurance through Ethos for less than the cost of a dinner out every month.
The 10-minute digital application requires no medical exam, unless, like Pearsall, you’d like coverage for more than $1 million. If that’s the case, Ethos will schedule a tech to come to your home or workplace.
You’re right: Death isn’t a fun topic, especially when you think about the family you’d leave behind. But you want to make sure they’re secure in case anything does happen.
In this case, Pearsall knows her son Riley will be OK if it comes down to that.
“I’ve been sleeping great since I got this,” she says…
…until her alarm starts ringing at 6:30 the next morning.
Carson Kohler ([email protected]) is a staff writer. She doesn’t have any dependents. Just a houseplant.
