Author

Simone Halloway

Estate Strategy & Life Risk Expert

With a background in family law and financial planning, Simone focuses on the "what if" scenarios that most families avoid. She breaks down complex beneficiary structures and explains how to utilize life policies as a protective shield during periods of extreme transition, such as illness or career shifts.

"Life insurance isn't a 'set it and forget it' product. It is a living document that must evolve with your family. I help people bridge the gap between financial survival and long-term generational security."

Editorial Methodology

Term vs. Permanent Strategy
Beneficiary Protection
Crisis Liquidity

Professional Credentials

• J.D. (Estate Law)
University of Chicago

• Family Law Background
Financial Planning Specialist

Focus Areas:

Base: Evanston, IL
Generational Security
Transition Protection

Latest Articles

Why You Should Buy Life Insurance in Your 20s (Cost Benefits)

At 25 the death benefit is not really the point. What you are buying is a fixed price and a guarantee of insurability that a future diagnosis cannot touch. This guide covers why fewer than one in ten applicants gets the rate shown in online calculators, the caveat nobody mentions about buying very early, why the standard advice about student loans is now out of date for most borrowers, and where permanent insurance should sit in your order of operations.

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The Role of Life Insurance in Estate Planning and Inheritance

Most published advice on this subject still assumes a federal estate tax cliff that was eliminated in 2025. The exemption is now $15 million per person and permanent, reaching well under 0.1% of estates — but twelve states and DC tax estates at thresholds starting as low as $1 million, several with a cliff that taxes everything once you cross it and most without spousal portability. This guide covers where the exposure actually sits now, the three-year rule that undoes a badly sequenced trust, and the filing surviving spouses routinely skip.

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The Truth About Life Insurance Medical Exams: How to Prepare

Preparation for a life insurance medical exam can remove distortions so the results reflect your actual baseline. It cannot change your health, and attempts to mask results are detected and cost far more than any rating. This guide covers what genuinely produces a false reading — a hard workout the day before, an ill-fitting blood pressure cuff, a morning coffee — what to disclose and why, how nicotine testing actually works, and what to do if the classification comes back worse than expected.

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Life Insurance for New Parents: Securing Your Child's Future

Two in five American adults with minor children have no life insurance, and most overestimate the cost of term coverage threefold. This guide covers what is specific to new parents: why the application window matters and how carriers treat each trimester differently, the pre-pregnancy weight record that can change your rate class for six months after birth, the two riders worth adding while you are healthy, and why naming your child as beneficiary sends the money through a court instead.

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How Much Life Insurance Do You Actually Need? (The Calculator Guide)

Run one ordinary household through the four standard methods and the answers range from $1.21 million to $2.5 million — a spread of more than a million dollars on identical facts. This guide works through all four side by side so you can see what each is actually answering, then covers the parts most calculators omit: what a non-earning parent is really worth, why the funeral figure everyone quotes is three years old, and why you should not subtract your employer's coverage.

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Term vs. Whole Life Insurance: A Transparent Comparison

Most people overestimate the cost of term life insurance by three times or more — which means the comparison usually starts from a false premise. This guide sets out what actually separates the two products, why the estate tax argument for whole life changed permanently in 2026 when the federal exemption rose to $15 million, what cash value does and does not do for your beneficiaries, and the one condition under which buy-term-and-invest-the-difference genuinely works.

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How to Use Life Insurance as a Wealth Accumulation Tool

The mechanics behind infinite banking and high-cash-value life insurance are real: tax-deferred growth, loans without underwriting, an income-tax-free death benefit. What sales material leaves out is the cost structure, the years before a policy breaks even, and the fact that IUL illustrations have been under continuous regulatory tightening since 2015 because they mislead. This guide covers where permanent insurance genuinely fits, how to read an illustration, and the ten questions to ask before signing.

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Employer-Provided vs. Individual Life Insurance: Key Differences

Roughly one in six employees does not know they already have life insurance through work — and most who do know assume it will be there when they need it. It usually ends on your last day, leaving a window of about 31 days to port or convert it before the right disappears permanently. This guide covers the difference between those two options, why supplemental coverage at work is often the worse deal for healthy employees, and the tax rule that applies above $50,000.

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