For most people, their career is their most valuable financial asset. Nothing else they own is likely worth as much (several million dollars over a lifetime). And even if they do have something more valuable (like an investment portfolio), it was probably earned as a result of their career.

As with anything valuable, you need to take steps to protect your career. That's why financial websites recommend life, health, and disability insurance — to protect/replace the value of your career in case you die, get sick, or are physically unable to work. Having some of these insurances is wise for almost every worker. But there's another form of insurance that's equally essential.

This insurance is free — but it takes some work and planning. Its benefits go far beyond the time it takes to implement the steps involved. And in addition to increased income, this insurance may even give you more job satisfaction, less stress, and a longer life. Interested?

Finding affordable health insurance was one of the biggest obstacles we faced when I quit my job. My husband is a self-employed performing artist (juggler/musician). We had always relied on my job to pay for our insurance.

Health Insurance is a complicated issue. We knew we needed to have health insurance because without it we could face financial ruin; but I didn't want health insurance to stop me from quitting a job I hated to pursue my dream of working for myself.

Before I quit, I spent hours researching different health care options. This post is about what I learned.

This is the third part in a short series about insurance basics. In the first part, I explained how insurance works. In the second, I shared some general tips about how to save on insurance of all types. Today's article offers info about auto insurance.

You've had car insurance since you were old enough to drive, but how much do you really know about it? At its heart, your policy probably contains a few basic types of coverage.

Liability Insurance

In most states, you at least need to have liability insurance, which covers the cost of any damage you do to other people or things with your car. (But note that liability insurance doesn't cover injuries to you or other people on your policy; for that, you need PIP insurance, which I'll cover in a moment.)

This is the second part in a short series about insurance basics. Last week, I explained how insurance works. Next week (or possibly the week after), I will offer some tips on car insurance. Today's article offers some general insurance tips useful for most situations.

All insurance works pretty much the same way: You pay a premium (a set amount of money) to the insurance company, usually on some sort of schedule (monthly or yearly, for instance). In return, the company issues an insurance policy to you, which is a contract that gives you certain coverage, or financial protection. When you suffer an insured loss, you file a claim and the company pays you a benefit.

Consider the Purpose and Define Your Goal

Insurance is meant to protect you against catastrophes, not day-to-day annoyances. You use insurance to guard against things that aren't likely to happen, but which would cause financial hardship if they did occur.

I don't write a lot about insurance around here. For one thing, insurance is kind of boring. For another, I don't know a lot about it. Still, insurance is an important part of personal finance, and my silence on the subject hasn't gone unnoticed.

Josh wrote last week to make a request:

I've been reading your blog for about a year now, and I consider it a constant source of valuable information. However, one area that I find that it is lacking is in auto insurance. [...] I'm not writing this to take anything away from your site, but rather to politely ask that you cover this topic sometime in the future.

I hate to get all morbid on you, but if something happened to you today that temporarily or permanently (or immortally, depending on your religious persuasion) put you out of commission, would your family be able to locate all the necessary papers, people, and passwords necessary to continue or settle your affairs? Documenting this information is one of the 10 steps that I consider important to any estate plan.

What should be in this collection of sensitive material? Here are some ideas.

Where to Go for Help

Include the phone numbers and addresses of professionals you've worked with. This will help in sorting out your affairs, and give you the opportunity to recommend professionals whose services you think your family may need. This list could include:

I'm writing this post on my brand new MacBook, which I just purchased yesterday. I can honestly say I've never been less excited to buy a computer.

The reason for my ambivalence is that I already bought this laptop four months ago, replacing a seven-year-old "little iBook that could." But two weeks ago a water bottle (that I thought was closed) toppled over, splashing water on the MacBook. At first, it seemed like I was in the clear. All systems were go. Later that day, however, the MacBook started randomly "typing" characters on its own, and after two failed reboots, it died. Rest in peace, MacBook. You were too young.

On Friday, I shared a guest response to a reader question about life insurance. Many GRS readers rightly complained that it didn't do a good job of answering the question. One reader — Mike from Four Pillars and ABCs of Investing — took it upon himself to write this response.

One of the most common issues that people with any kind of dependents face is, "How much life insurance do I need?".

This is a tough question to answer in a simple equation; there are quite a few variables which affect the amount of insurance needed. First off, I'm only going to discuss term insurance. For most people, that's the only type of insurance to consider.

I've decided to develop a budget.

This probably sounds strange coming from a guy who has been anti-budget all his life. Besides, haven't I paid off all my debt? Don't I have a positive cash-flow of over $1,000 per month? Yes, these things are true. But I've noticed something troubling: I've begun to experience that lifestyle inflation I'm always warning others about.

Lifestyle inflation is the natural tendency to increase our spending as our incomes increase. When we get a raise at work, we're likely to spend more at home. A little lifestyle inflation is fine. But there's a real danger of becoming too comfortable with increased spending. Once we become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, it's difficult to cut back.

This article was written by Joe Taylor Jr. Taylor is an internal business consultant for a Fortune 500 company, who also writes about finance, culture, and design. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Ithaca College.

I remember an evening a few years ago, when the company I helped start had to close its doors. I'd sunk my entire savings into building a business that had thrived. As soon as bombs started falling on Baghdad in 2003, however, my largest client cancelled its contract and two other big customers totally shut down. Of course, my creditors didn't care about the reasons I hadn't been receiving payments on invoices we'd sent. They just wanted to get paid themselves.

My wife and I ran down the list of changes we'd have to make: downsize to a smaller home, cut the cord on cable television, maybe even cancel my life insurance policy. While we had to cut plenty of budget items to the bone, I kept scraping together a few bucks every week to keep paying that term life policy. After all, I joked at the time, it meant that I was at least worth more dead than alive.