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Life insurance is
protection against financial loss resulting from
death. It is an insurance company's promise to pay
your beneficiary a specific amount of money when you
die in exchange for timely payment of premiums.
Why do I need life insurance?
Although you may not
think about it, your ability to earn income is a
significant asset and life insurance helps replace
lost income in the event of your premature death.
Here are some reasons people buy life insurance.
The death benefit may be used to:
-
Replace income the family would need to maintain their standard
of living after the death of a wage earner.
-
Pay off a mortgage loan and other personal and business debts or
to create a rent fund.
-
Create a fund for children's education.
-
Pay final expenses, such as funeral costs and taxes.
-
Create a family emergency fund or a fund for a family member with
special needs.
Term or Permanent:
Which is best for you?
Generally speaking,
there are two categories of Life Insurance,
term life insurance
and
permanent life insurance.
Often, the solution is a combination of both, since
most people have a need for both temporary (term
insurance) and lifetime (permanent insurance)
protection.
To help you decide,
consider five basic factors:
-
Death benefit
-
Duration of coverage
-
Premiums
-
Cash value
-
Net cost of insurance
Death
Benefit
Permanent life insurance
provides a death benefit for as long as you live.
Term life insurance
provides a death benefit for a stated period of
time.
Duration of Coverage
The longer period of
time that insurance protection is needed, the more
consideration you should give to permanent life
insurance. For short-term needs, term life insurance
may be appropriate.
Examples of permanent
needs are:
-
Use of death benefit to pay bills or provide
money for loved ones
-
Use of death benefit to pay final expenses
-
Use of death benefit to provide money for a
favorite charity
-
Use of death benefit to pay estate taxes
-
Fund a business buy/sell agreement or provide
key person protection
Examples of temporary
needs are:
-
Use of death benefit to pay educational expenses
-
Use of death benefit to pay off home mortgage
-
Use of death benefit to pay off an automobile
loan
Cash
Value
Guaranteed cash values
can provide money later to help with temporary needs
or emergencies.
Permanent life insurance
accumulates guaranteed cash values and may be
eligible for dividends:
Term Life
Term life insurance
provides death protection for a stated time period,
or term.
Term life insurance is
perhaps the simplest form of life insurance. It was
developed to provide temporary life insurance
protection on a limited budget. Since term insurance
can be purchased in large amounts for a relatively
small initial premium, it is well suited for
short-range goals such as life insurance coverage to
pay off a loan, or providing extra life insurance
protection during the child-raising years.
Term insurance policies
usually providing level premiums for 5, 10, 20, and
30 year periods. These policies can be renewed or
continued at higher premiums in most states to age
85 or 95 as stated in the policy.
Features of Term Life Insurance
-
Initial affordability
-
Adjustable premiums:
Term life insurance policies have adjustable
premiums. This means premiums may raise or lower
at some point specified in the policy based on
projected changes of investment earnings,
mortality experience, persistency, and expenses.
However, premiums may never be raised above the
maximum premiums stated in the policy.
-
Renewability:
Level term policies allow the policyholder to
continue coverage past the original coverage
period of the policy. Each time the policy is
renewed the premium increases to the amount for
the then attained age of the insured. This right
is usually offered for a specific period, which
varies depending on the type of policy.
-
Conversion:
Term policies
are convertible to age 75
in most states.
Conversion allows the policyholder to
exchange a term life insurance policy for any
permanent life insurance policy
offered by the Company at any time while the
policy is in force (subject to established
policy minimums).
Permanent life insurance
coverage for as long as you live and continue to
make timely premium payments.
With level premiums and
the accumulation of cash values, whole life
insurance is a good choice for long-range goals. The
guaranteed cash values can provide money later on to
help with temporary needs or emergencies.
Features of Whole Life Insurance
-
Premiums generally are level and payable for life:
Since premiums are level, the younger you are when
you purchase a whole life policy, the less expensive
the annual premiums will be.
-
Dividends: Whole life insurance policies can earn dividends. Dividends
result when our actual life insurance costs turn out
to be less than we assumed in setting our premiums.
When this happens, Companies may return a portion
of your life insurance premium to you as a dividend.
Dividends are not guaranteed, since we don't know
our actual costs in advance.
-
Guaranteed Cash Values: Unlike term
life insurance, which does not accumulate any cash
values, some of the money you pay into your whole
life policy accumulates as guaranteed cash values.
If you choose to surrender the policy, these
guaranteed cash values would be available to you.
Or, as long as the policy is in force, you may
borrow against them as a policy loan at the current
policy loan interest rate.
The amount of your guaranteed cash value depends on
the kind of whole life policy you have, its size and
how long you have had it. The growth in cash values
is tax deferred under current federal income tax
law. Borrowed amounts reduce the death benefit and
cash surrender value.
What is Universal Life Insurance?
Universal Life Insurance
is a flexible-premium, adjustable benefit life
insurance policy that accumulates account value. The
flexibility of this policy allows you to change the
amount of insurance as your needs for insurance
change. Some changes require underwriting approval.
As with all life
insurance, the main purpose for buying a Universal
Life insurance policy is the death protection
provided to your loved ones at your death.
Benefits of Universal Life
Flexibility -- You
decide how much life insurance you need -- and
subject to certain requirements and limitations, you
can adjust the death benefit and premium payments to
fit your changing needs.
Security -- You help
protect your loved ones against possible financial
hardship in the event of the insured's death.
Tax-Free death benefit
-- Under current tax laws governing individual life
insurance, life insurance proceeds are generally
income tax free to the beneficiary.
Tax-Deferred account
value growth -- Your policy's Account Value earns
interest at the company's current interest rate --
federal income tax deferred. The current interest
rate is approximately 4% a year.
This is a general description of coverage. A
complete statement of coverage is found only in the
policy.
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more about
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