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Archive for the ‘Life Insurance’ Category

Whenever you try to decide on which life insurance companies you would like to deal with, you will surely find a lot of reliable life insurance companies. It will not be fair to mention only a few because there are literally thousands of them. But there is way to find the best and most reliable insurance company. Finding the best and most reliable is sometimes tricky so need to know a few things in order to get the best results.

The first thing you have to do is decide on what type or form of life insurance you want or need at present. Do you need a term life, a whole life or a universal life? A term life insurance will only cover you for specified period of time and renewals can get more expensive as you aged. While whole life gives you the flexibility and protection as well. With these type you can change the amount that you want to be insured and as well as the premiums. Then see if the company you are interested is offering them.

You may now need to contact your government insurance department or the better business bureau and inquire if they are legitimate. Also if they are allowed, authorized or licensed to sell insurance in your state. If they are licensed in your state, then they are reliable. The main reason for this is if something wrong happens and they are not licensed to do business in your state, you cannot get help from your state or local government.

Research and compile a list of life insurance companies that you may be interested. Check with the better business bureau if they have any reported business misconduct. This can be red flag if someone has complained against them. Check too with the consumer advocates on better business conduct if they have a clean sheet. You may also want to check with friends and family members if they know anything about your list of insurance companies. You can also check with your co-workers if they have any good or bad experiences with your probable insurer.

Find an independent research firm that rates insurers. These research firms can provide you more accurate and honest rating of any insurer you may have on your list of probable life insurance companies. Finding their financial ratings can give you a better look and understanding of well you are going to be protected. Because what is the use of insuring yourself if the company may close their doors in a year or two.

Finding the best and most reliable life insurance companies is not as difficult as you may think. All it takes is some few basic steps and voila, now you have it.

Let us define variable life insurance, also referred to as Variable Appreciable life insurance. It is a form of whole life insurance that provides the beneficiary of the plan with permanent protection. This type of policy is termed “variable” because of the root nature of the monies used to fund the policy. This plan allows the holder to set aside a certain sum of money to be invested in equity funds, money market funds, bond funds, or any combination of the said funds. These investments, just like any other form of monetary investment, will fluctuate with the movement of the market and the stock exchange. Therefore, the value of this policy will be determined by the set value of the uninvested monies plus the value of the monies invested in the market.

Many variable life insurance policies allow for a hold on the value of the policy. This hold ensures that the total value of the policy will not fall below a certain amount. This amount on hold only pertains to the death benefit and has nothing to do with the total cash value of the policy. The cash value of the policy, which is the amount of money the holder can draw upon during their lifetime, will have no cash minimum.

The Benefits of a Variable Life Insurance Policy

This insurance policy allows the holder to invest untaxed monies. These monies will remain untaxed until the life insurance policy is used. Potentially, any monies earned by the investments can be used to lower the premiums on the life insurance policy.

The Potential Hazards of a Variable Life Insurance Policy

This type of life insurance policy holds a certain amount of risk. As with any monetary investment, the cash value is not guaranteed. Thus, gambling with the cash value of the variable life insurance policy can render the policy worthless aside from the guaranteed death benefit. The death benefits as stated when the holder begins the policy may also be reduced. Variable life insurance companies will offer a guaranteed death benefit, but this amount may be significantly lower than the amount obtained at the inception of the policy.

This is a policy which holds the potential for great gains but you can also stand the chance of losing the overall value of the death benefit to the point of a minimum value as we define the variable life insurance policy.

Best life insurance policy helps to secure your life risks. So, always buy better to have better life. Various factors which are required to be considered in buying process are:

Life insurance need:
The suggestion behind this is to make your family financially independent in case of your absence. This insurance is necessity if you are only bread winner in the family and you have some liability to pay out like bank loan, mortgage etc. Best policy supports your family financially if something happens to you. In addition to this it also act as a money saving strategy.

Understanding types:
Term Life Insurance: In this policy you pay fixed amount premium every month and your life is secured for a particular period of time. When your policy lapses you loose all the money you put in. This policy is cheaper and covers risk but it has no pay out.

Whole life insurance: This policy secures your entire life. The amount you pay is put into an investment fund, your premium usually remain same for the first few years before going up. This policy is expensive but pay out is there.

Calculate Sum Insured:
This is critical factor which need to be considered carefully. Calculate your assets and debts value and also compare your annual income and expenditure. Then find out by how much amount your family will face financial crisis if something happens to you. Then this amount difference would be your sum insured money.

Compare & Buy Cheap Life Insurance:
Insurance quotes comparison is must before buying. To save your time compare insurance quotes online it hardly take one minute to get quotes by various companies on your computer screen. Insurance rates comparison also saves your money because every company has its own strategy and it may possible one company is charging fewer premiums in comparison to other.

A no-load life insurance policy is a cash value building life insurance policy life whole life, except the premiums are lower and your cash value grows faster. This is because the parts of the traditional whole life insurance policy premium that pay for advertising, agent commissions, and corporate overhead are cut out–hence, it is “no-load”.

No-load life insurance policies are almost always sold by life insurance brokers. Because these agents are licensed to dozens of companies, they don’t depend on making a killer commission with every sale just to put bread in their mouth. What’s more, the insurance companies who offer the no-load life policies can still find it profitable to sell these policies through brokers because the companies don’t have to pay for the broker’s advertising, telephone bill, training, any base pay, office supplies, benefits, or utility bills.

Insurance brokers are usually compensated on no-load life insurance sales by receiving a flat, one-time fee from the company. Their fee is part of the one-time set up fee that you will pay should you buy such a policy.

These no-load (sometimes referred to as “low-load”) life insurance policies aren’t sold in every state, so if you consider buying one you’ll first have to check to see if you can even get one in your state. And, don’t think that any of the usual other stipulations are waived. There are still medical questions to be answered and, if the face amount is high enough, a medical exam.

No-load life insurance policies are variations on the theme of traditional whole life insurance the one great appeal of which has always been its ability to grow cash value totally tax-sheltered, meaning you pay no income tax and no capital gains taxes unless and until you withdraw some of the cash value. With the rise of more sophisticated life insurance consumers thanks to increased knowledge spread by modern financial advisors and the Internet, the faultiness of whole life has been revealed.

Whole life takes many years before the cash value inside it even equals the premiums you’ve paid in, and then many more years before the cash value is anything to get remotely excited about. And the returns are only like those of a good corporate bond–very stable, yes, but today’s financial consumer knows about the power of Variable Universal Life Insurance which is a tax-sheltered and payment-bundled way of “buying term and investing the difference”, which has always been the countervailing answer of whole life skeptics and critics to whole life lovers. These VUL policies have premiums as cheap as those for term of the same face value but the rest of the premium, which is flexible, gets invested in general vehicles of your choice–and they can make substantially more money for you than the best corporate bond.

Therefore, people looking for stable cash value returns that amass more quickly while they also seek the lowest quality life insurance premiums might find no-load life insurance appealing. However, they should keep in mind that these policies have next to zero customer service attached to them.

While there are many critics of this, financial advisors and planners generally agree that the right kind of life insurance policy is a magnificent part of a good investment portfolio. You should consult with such a professional on such matters as tax bracket, your needed face amount, amount of premiums you can afford, and so on to determine if you should try to take advantage of the tax-sheltered growth that life insurance can offer you.

Life Insurance Without A Medical Exam?

Term life insurance with no medical checkup or, “non-med” life insurance policies are very popular now as insurance companies continue to look for more ways to differentiate themselves in the market. These types of policies don’t require a medical exam, so the policies are issued much quicker than a traditional policy. There is a trade off though. These policies typically come with a higher premium than standard insurance policies. This is mainly because the insurance company is taking a little bit of a risk by issuing a policy without a full medical exam.

Is term life insurance with no medical exam right for you? It might be worth it to pay the higher premium if:

o You do not want to go through with a physical or you are afraid of needles.
o You would like to get coverage quickly, sometimes in as little as 24 hours.
o You choose a return of premium rider, meaning that you’ll get all of your premiums back at the end of the term

What Are the Qualifications?

The insurance application will have a health questionnaire to find out about your health history. These questions determine whether or not you qualify. Each life insurance company has its own underwriting standards, but some examples of the questions that a company might ask on an application are:

o Your height and weight (to determine your body mass index)
o Your health history (do you have a history of cancer, stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.?)
o Your family’s health history (because of the role of genetics)
o Your driving history (have you had any speeding tickets or a DUI?)
o Medications you currently take

Can’t I Just Lie On An Insurance Questionnaire?

The answer to that is an astounding no. Since insurance companies know that not everyone will be truthful, they will verify your answers with information available through various databases. With your permission only, the life insurance company will check your answers against information that is available through the Medical Information Bureau, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and prescription databases. If you are generally in good health, then you should get approved for a term life insurance policy with no medical check up very easily. The best way to get a low rate on term life insurance with no medical exam is to do some comparison shopping first. With some basic health and family questions answered you will be well on your way to getting the coverage you are seeking.

Considering purchasing convertible term life insurance? How exactly does a convertible term life insurance policy work? Is it possible to find a cheap convertible term life insurance policy? These are all important questions to ask and to understand the answers to before you decide to make the important decision of which type of life insurance coverage to buy.

At the time of deciding what type of life insurance to buy, a person must know every single type offered in the market in order to truly make the best choice for their specific coverage needs. It is true that perhaps many companies simply refer to their policies as term or permanent life insurance, but a person must know that there is much more to that and such is the case of convertible term life insurance. In this article you will be able to know what convertible term is and the many things associated with this type of life insurance.

What Exactly Is Convertible Term Life Insurance?

Life insurance is perhaps easily understood because it simply is a contract between a person and an insurance company. The contract simply states that the person must pay monthly premiums for a certain period of time in exchange for a death benefit paid to the beneficiary in case of the insured’s death.

A term life insurance policy is simply a policy that will cover for a specific period of time, but with a convertible term life insurance policy you will have the ability to transform your policy from a temporary one to a permanent one.

What this means is that if you have a policy for 25 years and you have a convertible term life insurance policy, then you will be able to change the term policy into a whole, universal of variable life insurance policy (depending on the company).

Things To Know At The Time Of Purchasing Your Policy

Like any other product, there are a few things that a customer must know in order to make the convertible life insurance experience a successful one.

Health and Family History: At the time of applying for a policy, whether you are doing it online or in person at a local agency; make sure to have some general information about your medical history. Although companies have the right to access your files when you apply for a policy (with your permission that is), most of the times they will ask you questions about your health and family history. The more prepared you are to answer these questions, the easier the quoting process will be.

Amount and Duration of the Policy: You must also have an idea of how much life insurance you wish to buy at the particular time. The reason for this is that with term life insurance policies a person must choose an amount at the time of getting the policy. There are tools online or that the company has that will help you get the amount you will more than likely need. It is also important to understand that the particular amounts change from company to company. Also, make sure that you know the amount of time you want the policy to last. Some common ones include 15, 20, 25 and even 30 years.

The Beneficiary: Last but not least it is important to be completely certain of whom you want your beneficiary to be. The reason for this is that many people actually don’t know at the time of signing the policy and just put the first person in mind. However, many insurance companies are actually very strict when it comes to beneficiaries and they wont let a person make a change unless they fill out the appropriate paperwork. Nevertheless, it is important for a customer to know the company and their stand when it comes to particular beneficiary changes.

Lower Premiums Compared To Other Types Of Policies

Compared to many of the other types of policies, the convertible term life insurance policies give the customer a better choice. The reason for this is that a person will have the main option of converting the term life insurance to a permanent one or of simply letting the policy expire in their own hands. Having a term life insurance first also helps a lot, simply because term life insurance has lower premiums than a permanent life insurance policy.

The difference for these cheaper premiums is simply that with a term life insurance policy, the death benefit is not guaranteed to the beneficiary (particularly because the insured can still be alive at the end of the policy). Because of this reason, a person that chooses the option of having a convertible life insurance policy will have the great option of paying low premiums at first.

Medical Examinations

Another good thing about convertible term life insurance policies is that they allow a person to convert regardless of the medical condition and health of the insured. If the person in the policy chose the option of having a convertible term life insurance policy and they have paid premiums at the right time, then they have by law the right to extend their coverage if they choose to.

It is also important to highlight that this change in coverage must be made without the insured being forced to take a medical examination. The freedom of continuing the coverage regardless of everything and not having the chance of being denied might be the reasons why this insurance option is so popular nowadays.

No Premium Increases For Medical Problems

The last thing worth talking about when it comes to convertible life insurance policies is that at the time of changing your policy you cannot be charged any additional premium for any medical problems that you may have. It is important to highlight that I’m not referring to the fact that your premiums will not go up in value, because when converting from term to permanent there is always a chance of that. What I’m referring to is that at the time of converting your term life insurance to a permanent one by law you are protected against a raise in premium based on a medical condition.

No One Policy Is Right For Everyone

It is important to note that this type of plan is not for everyone, because some people just rather have a permanent policy right away or some others just want to be covered until they get retired. However, this might be exactly what some people are looking for simply because it starts as perhaps the low cost choice.

Compare Quotes To Find The Best Value

Compare the prices of regular life insurance quotes against the prices of convertible term life insurance quotes to find the best value. If you want the freedom of having a term policy and being able to convert it in the near future to a permanent life insurance plan that covers you for life then go ahead and start shopping around for your convertible life insurance plan!