To live life fully, you must provide for yourself as well as for others for whom you are responsible. You must account for the possibility that you may die prematurely. One of the main ways of managing the risk of premature death is to buy life insurance, which we discussed earlier. There are two main types of life insurance. Term life insurance provides a simple death benefit with no accumulation of cash value but significantly lower premiums. Cash-value policies offer a death benefit plus a cash-value component that grows, tax deferred, over time and cannot be cancelled. For more information on life insurance, see the section on Insurance 2: Life Insurance on this website.

In order to live life fully, you also need to plan for the possibility that you may become unable to provide. Medical advance directives cover this possibility by allowing you to establish a living will and/or designate the special power of attorney for health care. This special power of attorney for health care gives someone else the power to make medical decisions for you should you become unable to make these decisions for yourself. Exercise caution when establishing powers of attorney, such as durable power of attorney, special power of attorney, or general powers of attorney. Someone who has your power of attorney can do anything that you can do, including sell your house, your car, and enter into agreements. An example of medical advance directive for Utah is found in Learning Tool 14: Utah Advance Health Care Directive.