I'm Insured With Teacher's Insurance By Laurel1 on Apr 29, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Back in the 80s when I was in grad school, I was an Assistant Instructor (not the same as a teaching assistant!) and taught English as a Second Language for three years. One of the benefits was getting $100,000 in life insurance at a ridiculously low price, as well as a "pension" through CREF (college retirement equity fund, I think... it's been a while).

My initial premiums were about $22 every six months. They've increased as I've gotten older, but I'm still paying right around $200 a year for $100,000 in life insurance. I couldn't do that well anywhere else. Part of the reason is that for the first several years, a portion of the premium is invested in a bond fund. Then after the first 10 years or so, your share of the return from the fund goes against the amount you would pay for the premium, resulting in a lower premium. It has gone up and down some with the stock market fluctuations, but not in a very big way.

The best thing is that I've been able to keep this even though I haven't taught since then. This enables me to have more insurance than I may actually need (I'm single, no kids) but who knows how much debt I'll rack up before I die? Seriously I'm hoping to pay it all off before I shuffle off to the great unknown, but I feel better knowing that none of my family will be responsible for any of my bills, and there'll be enough money to cover my "final expenses" as well as a bit left over for my sisters or my niece and nephews. All teachers should take advantage of this!