While everyone needs car, homeowners and health insurance, there are specific types of insurance that are very pertinent to seniors or retirees. These senior insurances are detailed below, and the failure to have any of these protections could the difference between a comfortable retirement and years of heartache.

Life Insurance

While the common reason to get life insurance is to replace income for the family should we die and out income stops, seniors or retirees are not dependent on their labor for income. Therefore, it seems that senior life insurance would be superfluous. But life insurance for seniors has other uses to solve other problems, such as providing liquidity at death for a surviving spouse, ease of estate settlement and division, creating a pool of money for special needs—to create an estate and to pay estate taxes.

Health Insurance

No one should go without health insurance. However, senior health insurance is different in that private insurance is required in combination with government coverage. A typical senior health insurance program would include Medicare to cover 80% of health care costs and private insurance, or Medigap coverage, to cover the other 20%.

Funeral Insurance (burial insurance)

While it’s true that a funeral can easily cost $20,000 most people of any means have the financial resources to cover their funeral, so special insurance may not be necessary. However, it is an excellent idea to have a funeral program structured so that you heirs don’t need to take on this burden at their greatest time of grief. It could make sense to combine your funeral arrangements with funeral insurance as a package that relieves heirs of all financial and funeral planning concerns.

Long-term Care Insurance

Typically, in out working years, we have disability insurance to provide income in the event of our disability. Since we are no longer working in our retirement, it’s wise to obtain a long-term care insurance in the event of disability. Since we are no longer working in our retirement, it’s wise to obtain long-term care insurance in the event of disability due to age. Long-term care insurance policies provide income to cover the extra expenses for the help you need for shopping, cleaning, cooking, bathing, dressing, driving, and getting around.

As you can see, there are many types of senior insurance issues that apply specifically to retirees past 65 years of age.