Life Insurance
Life insurance is one of the most important investments you can make. It’s an investment in yourself and the future of your loved ones, and it’s a way to secure your financial responsibilities to your family.
Your life insurance policy can be used to pay off debts and estate taxes, provide money for continuing mortgage payments, and keep your business up and running upon your passing. But most important, it can be used to ensure that
your family’s dreams for the future become realities.
Life Insurance Policy
As your personal situations change (i.e., marriage, birth of a child or job promotion), so will your life insurance needs. Care should be taken to ensure this product is suitable for your long-term life insurance needs. You should
weigh any associated costs before making a purchase. Life insurance has fees and charges associated with it that include costs of insurance that vary with such characteristics of the insured as gender, health and age, and has
additional charges for riders that customize a policy to fit your individual needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s impossible to say, because the kind of coverage that’s right for you depends on your circumstances and financial goals. But, generally speaking, term offers the greatest coverage for the lowest initial
premium and is a great solution for people with temporary needs or a limited budget. Permanent insurance may make more sense if you anticipate a need for lifelong protection, or if the option of
accumulating tax-deferred cash values is attractive to you. Also, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Often, a combination of term and permanent insurance is the right answer.
Determining how much life insurance you need requires an examination of your current and future financial obligations, along with the resources your family could tap.
Your future obligations are a
combination of what it would cost to help your surviving family members meet immediate and ongoing needs like funeral costs, taxes, food, clothing, utilities, mortgage payments, and your future obligations
like college and retirement funding.
There are four main types. Whole life insurance is the most traditional form of permanent life insurance. With it, the face amount (the death benefit) and the premium (the amount you pay for protection each
year) are fixed at the time you buy your policy and stay the same even as you age. You also get a guaranteed rate of return on your cash values. Of course, any guarantee relies on the claims-paying ability
of the issuing insurance company. For more information on other kinds of life insurance give us a call.
If you miss a premium payment, you typically have up to a 31-day grace period during which you can pay the premium with no interest charged. If you own a term policy and fail to pay your premium within the
grace period, your insurance company will typically terminate the policy. If you own a permanent policy and fail to pay your premium within the grace period, your insurance company, with your authorization,
can draw from your policy’s cash value to keep the policy in force. In some flexible-premium policies, premiums may be reduced or skipped as long as sufficient cash values remain in the policy. However,
this will result in lower cash values and a shortened coverage period.
