Today marks the beginning of a month when the focus turns to a topic that most people don’t want to talk about or even think about: life insurance. But they do so at their own—and their family’s—peril. September is Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM). It’s a national campaign designed to draw attention to the fact that many people have no or inadequate amounts of life insurance, which, if not remedied, could have serious and long-lasting consequences for their families.

It’s not about scare tactics. It’s not about getting you to do something you don’t want to. It’s about staring reality in the face. LIMRA just published a study with some shocking numbers. But there is just one number that I want to focus on here: 11 million. Eleven million American families with children under 18 have no life insurance. 11. Million.

Numbers that big can often make your eyes glaze over … a thousand, a million—lots, right? Well, let’s make it individual. Let’s take a look at one girl, Tracy Basden, who found herself in financially dire straits because her parents had no life insurance. I’ve watched her video at least a dozen times, and it never fails to make me cry. Please watch it now.

Imagine your children without parents and without money. How does that feel?

Now here is an example of a family that had proper life insurance in place. Actress Leslie Bibb is the spokesperson for LIAM, and says that she was fortunate to have a father “that loved his family enough to expect the unexpected. His life insurance was his legacy of love to our family, allowing us to carry on with our lives and to continue living.” While also heart-wrenching, her story has a very different ending. You can watch it here.

Life Insurance Awareness Month is not a really a national campaign, it’s a personal campaign. What are you going to do today to ensure that your family is taken care of if you die prematurely? You can come up with a thousand excuses for not getting the life insurance you need—11 million families have. I urge you to spend a few minutes with LIFE’s online Life Insurance Needs Calculator to see what amount of insurance you may need. And keep in mind that buying life insurance may be much more reasonable than you expect. For example, a healthy 35-year-old male can get a $250,000, 20-year level term policy for about $170 a year.

Make today the day that you stop being part of the 11-million-family statistic.

How much life insurance do you need?

Most people have too much. This 5-step process can help pinpoint your needs.

These were the headlines for an article in The Chicago Tribune on Aug. 12, 2010. While the article itself is relatively reasonable, the headlines are misleading. Most people do not own too much life insurance. In fact, a LIMRA International report, which was released Aug. 27, 2010, shows that only 44% of Americans own individual life insurance, and 30% own no life insurance at all. Eleven million households with children under the age of 18 own no life insurance. Zero, zip, nada, none.

While the article does a fair explanation of how to determine the appropriate amount of life insurance you might need, I think it is reasonable to assume, based on the LIMRA statistics, that most people are, in fact, under insured, not over insured when it comes to life insurance.

The LIFE Foundation is dedicated to educating these consumers on the importance of life insurance and making sure they understand not just what it is, but what it does. This is our goal for September, which is Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM). LIMRA’s statistics make it all the more imperative for us to achieve this goal.

When Congress was debating health-care reform, prior to passage of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, there were what I considered inflated examples of individuals denied insurance, and claims not paid by insurers. These examples ignored the fact that historically insurers have paid 99.5% of all claims.

In many states, group plans, which are defined as employer-sponsored plans with two or more employees, offer guaranteed insurance coverage with no waiting period for preexisting conditions. Individuals with complicated medical histories can also obtain coverage, but at rates which are higher, in order to cover the risk.

One of unintended consequences of the new law, however, is that many carriers will withdraw coverage for individuals, as has already happened in Florida. Because the law permits anybody to get insurance at any time, companies fear that people, especially parents of children, will wait until they are sick and then seek coverage. This places the companies in danger of facing highly unpredictable costs, which there is no way to control.

As a financial consultant who sells and advises business owners and individuals about life and health insurance, I would like to share with you a real-life experience. I was referred to a young hairdresser who owned her own shop and employed two additional people. She was six months pregnant with her fourth child, and was estranged from the father of this baby. Her other three children were covered by her ex-husband. She had no health insurance.

Since she had a business and employees, we were able to establish a small group plan, which insured her immediately. Her premium was $300 a month. Two months later, complications occurred, and the baby was delivered early by cesarean section. (All her previous prior pregnancies were normal, and this pregnancy was as well, up until this point.)

Since the new baby girl was premature, it was necessary for her to remain in the hospital for over a month. Today, mom and daughter are healthy and doing well. Our client is back at work with the comfort of knowing her medical bills, in excess of $20,000, have been fully paid—no hassles, no questions asked. That’s what good insurance companies do: protect individuals and families at the time an unexpected life event occurs.

The new regulations are the wrong prescription for what ails health care. Free markets and less regulation—not more—is what is needed.

“Other Government Payments Affect Benefits: We are holding your Social Security benefits for November 2008 through April 2010. We may have to reduce these benefits if you received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for this period. We will not reduce your past-due benefits if you did not get SSI benefits for those months … When we decide how much you are due for this period, we will send you another letter.”

According to Crowe Paradis, this provision, taken from a recent Notice of Award of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, indicates that the beneficiary’s past-due benefits are being withheld pending an SSI investigation. Unfortunately, it is appearing in increasing instances, resulting in the tying up of tens-of-thousands of dollars in benefits that are direly needed by beneficiaries to obtain medical treatment, pay bills or pay off existing debt, sometimes for as long as 90 days.

If SSDI benefits will be your primary source of income if you were to become disabled, how will you pay these bills if the government is holding your money? If you have not insured your paycheck through employer-provided or individually purchased disability income insurance, you may find yourself in a similar situation if you become disabled.

Protect you paycheck. Talk to your agent or your HR department today about DI coverage.

How many times have you wished for a second chance? A do-over? Everyone has times like these: A barbed comment slips out of your mouth that you wish you could take back. A goofed up job interview that you just know you could ace given hindsight.

Then there are the more serious ones—events that we would really like to have a cosmic “rewind” button to push and make them right again: A fight with a friend that breaks the friendship in two. A commitment you put off that has serious consequences for your family.

Watch this very short video here that actually does allow for a do-over—a very, very big do-over. Go ahead, I’ll wait …

Now, if this could be you, I ask that you take steps to prevent it. Begin here.