Make-A-Will Month in Arizona: Your August Family Plan
By ASJ Insurance & Financial Services Inc. | August 2026 | Reading time: ~6 minutes
Every August in Arizona, the same thing happens. The sky turns bruise-purple over the mountains, the dust rolls in, and the monsoon arrives — sometimes gently, sometimes all at once. We don’t get to schedule the storms. We only get to decide, ahead of time, whether we’re ready for them.
That’s why it’s fitting that August is also National Make-A-Will Month. It’s the one month of the year set aside to ask a question most of us keep postponing: if something happened to me tomorrow, would my family be okay?
Not okay emotionally — nothing makes that part easy. Okay practically. Would the mortgage get paid? Would the kids stay in their schools? Would your spouse have to make financial decisions in the worst week of their life with no map?
This post is that map. Here’s the August checklist we walk Arizona families through.
1. Start With the Income Question: Term Life Insurance
Your biggest asset probably isn’t your house — it’s the twenty or thirty years of paychecks still ahead of you. Term life insurance exists to replace those paychecks if you’re not there to earn them.
It’s also the most misunderstood bargain in financial planning. Most healthy Arizonans are surprised at how affordable a meaningful policy is — often less than a monthly streaming-and-takeout habit. You pick a term (usually 10–30 years, matched to your mortgage and your kids’ ages), and if the unthinkable happens during that window, your family receives a tax-free benefit to keep life stable.
Who needs it most: anyone with a mortgage, young kids, a spouse who depends on your income, or business debt.
👉 Get a quick, no-pressure quote at our Term Life Insurance page.
2. The Gift Nobody Talks About: Final Expense Coverage
Here’s a hard number: the median funeral with burial in the U.S. now runs well north of $8,000 — before flowers, travel, or a headstone. Too many Arizona families discover that number for the first time while they’re grieving, and too many funerals end up crowdfunded.
Final expense whole life insurance is a smaller, permanent policy (typically $5,000–$50,000) designed to cover funeral costs, medical bills, and small debts. It never expires, the premium never increases, and approval is often simplified — many seniors qualify without a medical exam.
If you’re a parent or grandparent, think of it this way: it’s the last act of responsibility, pre-paid, so your goodbye is a memory and not a bill.
👉 Explore options at our Final Expense page.
3. Protect the Paycheck You’re Still Earning: Disability Insurance
Ask yourself: how many months could your household run if your income stopped — not because of death, but because of a back injury, a cancer diagnosis, a car accident on the 101?
For most working adults, a long-term disability is statistically more likely than death during working years, yet far fewer people insure against it. Disability insurance pays you a percentage of your income while you can’t work, so your savings, retirement accounts, and home stay intact while you recover.
Arizona’s workforce is full of tradespeople, healthcare workers, drivers, and small business owners whose income depends entirely on their bodies showing up. If that’s you, this is arguably the most important policy on this list.
👉 See how it works at our Arizona Disability Insurance page.
4. Make Your Retirement Rain-Proof: Annuities & Guaranteed Income
Make-A-Will Month isn’t only about what happens if you die — it’s about what happens if you live. A long retirement is a blessing that comes with a math problem: how do you make savings last 25 or 30 years, through market drops you can’t predict?
An annuity converts a portion of your savings into a guaranteed income stream — a personal pension you can’t outlive. For Arizona retirees who want the electric bill covered every August no matter what the S&P 500 did, that certainty is the whole point.
Annuities aren’t one-size-fits-all, and they’re not right for everyone — which is exactly why a conversation beats a brochure.
👉 Start at our Annuities & Retirement Income page.
5. Round Out the Plan
- Long-term care: roughly 70% of people over 65 will need some form of care. Planning early protects both your savings and your children’s time. Arizona LTC options →
- Health & dental: between jobs, self-employed, or planning ahead of open enrollment? Compare Arizona plans →
- Travel insurance: escaping the heat this fall? Cover the trip before you book it. Travel coverage →
- The will itself: insurance funds the plan; a will and beneficiary designations direct it. August is the perfect month to update both. (We’re not attorneys — but we’ll happily coordinate with yours.)
A Lesson From Wupatki
If you need motivation, take the loop drive off US-89 north of Flagstaff to Wupatki National Monument. Around the year 1085, the Sunset Crater volcano erupted and buried the surrounding homes and farmland in ash. The families of the region didn’t scatter — they regrouped, and within a generation built Wupatki Pueblo: roughly 100 rooms of red sandstone, a community room, even a ballcourt. They turned volcanic ash into some of the most productive farmland in northern Arizona.
Disaster came anyway. Because they planned and pulled together, they didn’t just survive it — they built something bigger on the other side.
That’s all financial protection is: making sure that when the ash settles, your family has what it needs to rebuild.
Take the First Step This August
One conversation. Ten minutes. No pressure, no jargon, no obligation — just an honest look at where your family stands and what it would cost to close the gaps.
Book Your Free Protection Review →
ASJ Insurance & Financial Services Inc. proudly serves families across Arizona with life, final expense, disability, long-term care, health & dental, annuity, and travel coverage. This article is for general information only and is not legal, tax, or investment advice; products and rates vary by carrier and underwriting.
You must be logged in to post a comment.