Life and health insurance have long been recognized as necessary and essential elements in an individual's or a family financial program. In a modern society, a sense of family responsibility meant that life and health insurance would grow in importance.

And still today life and health insurance continue to occupy an important role in the financial planning process.
This article has the purpose to provide an introduction to this process and highlights the means by which life and health insurance can assist in accomplishing one's financial plans.

A personal financial planning can be considered the process where an individual or a family decided to develop and implement an integrated plan to accomplish their objectives. The essential elements of this financial planning concept are the identification of financial goals and the development of an integrated plan to accomplish the objectives.

As all of us know humans are exposed to many serious perils, such as property losses from fire and windstorm, and personal losses from disability and death. Although individuals can not predict or prevent completely the occurrence of these dangerous events, they can provide against thier financial effects. The function of insurance is to safeguard against such misfortunes by having the losses of the unfortunate few paid by the contributions of the many who are exposed to the same peril.

The essence of of insurance is the sharing of losses and, in the process, the substitution of a certain small loss ( that is to say the premium payment ) for an uncertain, large loss.

In the peril under consideration is that of the death, the financial loss suffered can be reduced through life insurance. If the peril is instead disability, the financial loss can be compensated by the health insurance.

Insurance may be defined from two perspectives: that of the society and that of the individual. From the society's point of view, life or health insurance may be defined as a social device where individuals transfer the financial risks associated with loss of life or health to the group of individuals, and which involves the accumulation of funds: and this concept means that the insurance exists when there is a transfer of the risk from the individual to the group.

From the individual's point of view, life or health insurance may be defined as an agreement where one party pays a stipulated consideration ( the premium ) to the other party ( the insurer ), in return for which the insurer agrees to pay a defined amount of money if the person whose life is insured dies or suffers an illness to a stated time.