If ever there was an event that froze in our memories the risks that our critical first responders take in service to their communities, it was the picture of firemen rushing up the stairwells of the World Trade Center towers before their inevitable collapse on “9/11”. While 340 dedicated firemen lost their lives on that day, the average number of annual deaths for the firefighting profession has been on the decline for the past 40 years. In 2010, 72 firefighters lost their lives, roughly one third of those being career workers, and the remainder being volunteers. When one works in a hazardous field where their life is in danger, the issue of having adequate life insurance is paramount.

Life insurance premium levels are determined by a combination of factors. Age, health, and whether you smoke or have other substance abuse in your history are the major factors, but your type of profession and the amount of risk it entails can overly influence how the statistics play out. Insurance is all about statistics, as far as cost is concerned. However, all insurance companies are different in how they price, which can also depend on the markets that they choose to serve. For this reason, comparison-shopping is always advised. There are many Internet firms that will assist you in finding
cheap insurance quotes online, but that step is but the first one in a straightforward process.

Term life insurance is typically the recommended form to acquire, but what options does a firefighter have in this industry? To begin with, one generally wants coverage to be a “24/7” affair, but if you should die in the line of duty, you are already covered by the Federal government, no application necessary. There is also a disability rider and a new amendment that provides additional educational assistance for your spouse and children. This coverage is provided by the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits (PSOB) Act, signed into law in 1976 and amended thereafter. Coverage limits are adjusted for the cost of living and today amount to $318,112 in term life benefits.

Outside of this basic cover, your employer and state government may have also arranged for an additional level of benefit. After taking these possibilities into account and doing a little preparatory work to understand the life insurance industry and its terms, planning for your family’s peace of mind is a five-step process:

1) Define Your Needs: Everyone’s financial situation is different. You must think in terms of what your family will face without you present. Are there debts to pay? Were you the only income producer? Do your children have educational costs to consider? For most families, the “rule-of-thumb” is to start at $1 million and work from there. An agent can help with these calculations when you get to that point;

2) Acquire Quotes: There are many services that can assist you here. Calling companies one by one is a waste of time in this Internet age. Focus on term life insurance. The other forms involve complicated investment strategies that can be left to later in life to ponder. You may also want more than one policy and to vary the terms on each policy. Flexibility is good since your situation will surely change in the future. Gather a minimum of at least three quotes to review;

3) Evaluate Your Options: In today’s insurance environment, competition is the word, and even the large, reputable companies are passing their technology savings along to you in lower premium quotes. The first quote may or may not be their best. Ask questions, and ask for a re-quote. Since you are looking for a long-term business partner, you will also want to check the financial soundness of your target companies. S&P and AW Best have ratings for insurance companies. Be sure to check these and any consumer evaluation services for complaints or problems;

4) Make Your Decision: Before you sign on the dotted line, read the fine print of the policy carefully to be sure that you are getting the coverage you want. Study the perils covered and the important exclusion section of the policy to see if any surprises are lurking. Also inquire about any other policy discounts or special allowances that may have been missed, like an excellent credit rating or lack of smoking in your past;

5) Review and Adjust: Life changes quickly, as do your financial conditions and family obligations. Reviewing your life insurance coverage on an annual basis is a good habit to acquire. Term insurance premiums also increase with age, so it may be wise to buy longer-term policies before the premium levels ascend quickly.

Acquiring adequate life insurance for a firefighter need not be a daunting task in today’s competitive insurance market. Persistence, however, is required.

All insurance polices have exclusions, your car insurance policy probably has a age exclusion and an exclusion against taking your car into any foreign country without notifying the insurance company. Term life policies are no different , apart from when your family claim and then find you were not covered it will be a lot more financially disastrous than having a car stolen when it is not insured. Most term life policy exclusions will make sense when we explain them.

Dangerous Activities
Do you think rock climbing is the best exercise ever, maybe you enjoy sky diving on your birthday? If you die doing any number of activities that are considered to be dangerous by the insurance company you stand a good chance of not being covered. You may thing that riding quads round the local hills and mountains for 3 or 4 days at a time is great fun, there is a good chance that your insurance company would think it was an uneccerssary risk and would not cover it. Having seen the results of accidents on off road bikes this is one of the term life policy exclusions I understand 100% and agree with.

If you do take part in anything that is even near the mark of what is safe and what is not then you need to tell your life policy provider before you buy a policy. If you are already covered then you should tell the company before you go and start the activity.

Aviation Policy Exclusion
If you own a private plane or you go in private air craft then you should speak to your policy provider as private aircraft are normally one of the main exclusions from any life policy. All insurance is based on statistical probability and since there is no way to know how much experience the pilot of your private plane has or what condition the plane is in companies generally just exclude all flights taken in private planes.

War
If your death is the result of a act of war then you are not covered. I would assume that if you were a photographer or reporter whose job took you to war zones you would have a separate policy issued by your employers. If you do go into a war zone without any kind of policy I have a question for you, Why?

Suicide Clause In Life Insurance Policy
This is the life insurance policy clause that is the best known and most heard about. People get themselves into dire financial positions and when they can not think of any way out they take out a life policy and commit suicide. Their family get paid and they can clear off the debts. That is the theory, the truth is that there is a two year exclusion, so you must have had your life insurance for at least two years and you must have paid your premiums for that whole time.

Increased Premiums
If you do a sport that may be considered dangerous or fly in private planes then you should speak to the company that cover you as they will almost certainly cover you for an increased premium. They won’t change the suicide clause and covering you in a war zone is not something that the normal term life policy provider would even look at, but for sports or hobbies that are outside the norm they can probably still work out the risk factor and that is what will decide the premium you pay.

Be honest from day one with whichever insurance company you deal with as there is no point paying for a policy which won’t pay out because you forgot to mention that you go skydiiving every month or so. Every insurance policy has term life policy exclusions and it is best to learn about them before you start paying for the policy

Lets be honest about this, there is a good reason why Life Insurance companies ask people to have health exams before they give them a policy. Insurance companies want to be able to accurately work out the risk factors involved. They do not want to insure you and have to pay out straight away, Insurance companies are in the business of making a profit, the more premiums they collect and the less they pay out the happier they are.

No Exams = Higher Costs
If you are looking for a life insurance policy with no health exams required you must be ready to pay higher premiums. The insurance company are taking a risk that you are not ill and they need to charge more to cover the increased risk, it is simple economics. The higher the risk the higher the premium.

Complex Pricing
When you are buying computers, houses or cars you will compare them by looking at the features they offer. Many people will do a spreadsheet with each of the models on and then compare apples with apples. This can be very difficult to do when dealing with life insurance. Companies do not price their policies the same, some will give you a price per $10k of cover some will give it per $1k. Now that may seem like an easy calculation to make, but it is not so easy to compare prices when you are being asked to sign on the dotted line by a salesman.

More Exclusions
Every life policy has exclusions, every policy I have ever heard of excludes suicide for at least two years for example. Any life insurance company that doesn’t require you to go for a complete medical check up would be crazy not to put a minimum policy term in the exclusions. This means that they will not pay out if you die within a year or two years (or whatever time limit they decide). This makes a lot of sense when you think about it, otherwise people would take out a policy the minute their Dr tells them they have something fatal.

Do Not Be Pushed
One of the problems with life insurance is that it pays huge comissions to salesmen, now this is not a problem for the salesman but it can be a problem for the end user if you are unlucky enough to deal with someone who is only after the commission. Do not be pushed into signing anything before you are ready, life insurance is not like buying a car, there are no “buy today or else the deal is gone” deals on life insurance. Take your time to fill in a spreadsheet and read the exclusions before you sign for any policy.

Do You Need No Exam Life Insurance?
Do you really need a life policy that has no exams or do you just think you do. Do you have a medical problem that you know about already (this may well be excluded anyway even in a no medical exam policy) ? Would your medical situation improve if you gave up smoking, maybe lose some weight. All these things should be a factor when you start to look at buying a life insurance policy. You may well find that buying a policy through the normal channels is as cheap as buying one that doesn’t require you to go see any docs.

Cheaper is Not Always Best
Make sure you do some research on the insurance company you are dealing with, buying a term life insurance policy from a company that will go to extreme lengths not to pay out after you are gone is not going to help your family and the money you save will not be worth it. No one but you can decide which policy is right for you and it makes no sense to take advice from anyone who has a financial incentive for you to buy the policy they recommend.

No Life Insurance at all
In 2010 it was reported that as many as one third of all households in the USA did not have any life insurance at all. So if the main breadwinner dropped dead tomorrow what would happen? Well the chances are that there would be financial disaster. Homes could well be lost and life would be thrown into dissaray. Realistically times are tougher now (mid 2011) for most Americans than they were in 2010 so the chances are that even more people are living without any kind of life insurance.

Life Insurance Is For Them Not You

Have Some Life Insurance
As well as the over thirty million households that have no life insurance at all there are a further third that are knowingly under insured. Having some life insurance is better than having none at all of course but it still means that in the event of death there is going to be financial hardship that could probably be easily avoided.

Money Is Tight
There is no other way to describe it, people are struggling to get by in this recession and everyone is looking for ways to trim their budget. If you are paying out large premiums every month for whole life insurance it is tempting to drop it. There are more outgoings than there is money every month so any money you cna save is good news right?

Ask About Your Life Policy Options
It is understandable that you want to save money wherever you can, and if you can save a hundred dollars a month by dropping your life policy then that seems an obvious thing to do. Before you go ahead and stop paying you should contact your insurance company and see if the policy has any cash in or surrender value, the other thing to ask about is a payment holiday. If they can give you a six month or more payment holiday (while still covering you, make sure that is the case) then it is a option worth considering

Look For Cheaper Insurance
Yes it is nice to have a policy which will make your wife the wealthiest widow in the street should you pass on, but does she really need all that money? If your mortgage is paid off and your kids are through college (or their college funds are fully funded) then you do not need as much money. Mortgages and college are the biggest expense for most people so if they are both covered you can get a policy with a much lower pay out. The best way to do this is to look at term life insurance rates. Term insurance is always cheaper than whole life because it covers you for only a specific amount of time and a specific amount of money, these factors make it much easier for the insurance company to work out the risk factors and thus the premium they should charge you.

Don’t Be Sentimental
Many people keep paying their life policy just because they can’t face losing all the money they have paid in each month. This doesn’t make any sense, the money is gone and unless your policy has a cash value there is nothing you can do about it. The idea of life insurance is to look after your family when you are gone so you should be looking at the best financial decisions for them and not worrying about money that has already been spent.

Term life insurance will give you the best bang for your buck and policys start very cheaply, but you should still shop around and get quotes as even a few dollars a month in the premium price can make a difference.

When people shop for life insurance they almost always look at term life insurance and then they find themselves looking at different terms and conditions. One of the most is important terms would be level term insurance.

What is Level Term Insurance?
Level term insurance is important because some life insurance companies offer term insurance, but it is decreasing term insurance. The difference between the two is significant.

Level Term vs. Decreasing Term Insurance
Level term insurance means you have the same amount of life insurance coverage you originally purchase. Decreasing term insurance means as time goes by your amount of insurance decreases. Families usually shop for the lowest rate, but do not realize they are not receiving full value for their money.

An example usually works best to describe the difference. Let’s take a look at level term insurance vs. decreasing term insurance. Both policies will start out with the same face amount or death benefit of $250,000. After 5 years the level term insurance policy still has a death benefit of $250,000 with the same premium.

My Coverage Lowered: Why Not My Premium?
However, the decreasing term policy went from $250,000 to about $210,000. The monthly premium stayed the same just like the level term policy, but the coverage amount decreased.

The “decreasing” part is important when comparing the two life insurance policies. Initially the decreasing term policy seems to be a great deal because it has lower monthly premium. Then until you realize the monthly payment stays the same, but the life insurance coverage is decreasing.

Level Term Insurance 20 to 30 Years
A level term insurance will cost more than a decreasing term policy, but you bought the policy to protect your income for the next 20 or 30 years. After examining the difference between level term insurance and decreasing term insurance you should see the distinct advantage of having a level term insurance policy.

Level term insurance is to protect a family or the breadwinners for a fixed period of time such as 20 or 25 years. The time when you are raising a family and do not have a lot of money saved up. Many life insurance companies will use a term called Theory of Decreasing Responsibility.

Theory of Decreasing Responsibility
The Theory of Decreasing Responsibility states that in the early years of your married life you have a lot of responsibility. You are buying a home, have credit card debt and raising children. During this time you are at your peak point of responsibility. You also are your peak of level term insurance need.

Most people can buy a 20-year to 30-year level term policy to protect both spouses income at an affordable rate. Once all the kids are grown and the home mortgage is paid off you can lower the amount of insurance. One of the big lies many insurance companies and agents will tell a family is they need the full amount of life insurance their whole life.

Do You Still Need $250,000?
However, more and more leading financial magazines and financial advisors believe a family only needs to have a large amount of insurance during their peak responsibility years. A solid financial plan would incorporate a level term insurance policy with an amount going towards retirement savings such as an IRA or Roth IRA. Remember the goal is to retire financially independent, but you still need some level term insurance just in case a spouse passes away early.

Once you accumulate enough money to retire you are essentially self-insured. Meaning you or your spouse can survive on the amount of money you accumulated during your career. A level term insurance policy is just a piece of your financial puzzle, but it is a big piece.

Consumers today can be easily confused with the number of life insurance types available to purchase. Should you buy a term policy, whole life policy, and universal life policy? Seeing all of these different life insurance types can make your head swim.
I want to review the three most common life insurance types: Whole Life Insurance, Universal Term Insurance and Term Life Insurance.

#1. Whole Life Insurance
Whole life insurance has been around for over 100 years. It is the life insurance policy your parents or grandparents own or owned.
Whole life has a combination of life insurance and savings combined. Over the years as you make your premium payments a portion of your premium pays for the life insurance and a portion goes to savings. Most people liked this type of life insurance since it had some type of savings tied to the life insurance policy. The savings interest rate is fixed and is usually 3% to 4%.

Problem With Whole Life
Saving while also getting life insurance sounds great in theory. But the problem with whole life insurance is the amount of cash that makes it into savings part of the life insurance policy. For the first 4 to 7 years there is very little savings (if any) you can withdraw because of fees and expenses. The main expense is the commission paid to the agent who sold the policy, whole life policies are very lucrative for whoever sells them.

Overall a whole life insurance does provide a good way to protect your family, but there may be other life insurance types better suited to your needs.

#2 Universal Life Insurance
Universal life insurance is similar to whole life insurance since both have a combination of life insurance and savings in their policies.
The main difference is the type of life insurance inside the universal life insurance policy. A Universal life insurance policy has what is called Annual Renewable Term Insurance. Annual renewable term insurance costs less for someone younger say in their 20s or 30s.
However, once your 50s or 60s the costs increase substantially and eats away your savings.

A reason why people like universal policies is the interest rate on the savings can be higher than a whole life insurance policy. The interest rate can be higher than 3% and usually will not go lower than 3%. The interest rate is tied to the performance of the life insurance company itself. If your life insurance company has a better year in their investments returns they could pay you a higher rate. This can lead to a bit of a roller coaster ride as insurance companies do not always make the same profits from year to year.

Universal life insurance is good for someone who wants to earn a higher rate and lower cost insurance inside the policy than a whole life policy. They need to be happy with the minimum rate offered as there is no guarantee that they will earn more than that.

#3 Term Life Insurance
Term life insurance is the same, but distinctly different from other life insurance types such as whole life insurance or universal life.
Term insurance does not have a savings element like the previous two life insurance types. Term insurance is sometimes called “pure” insurance because the policy only has death protection.

Fixed Term of Coverage
The other distinction is term policies have a fixed term or years. Hence the name “term” insurance. The most common term insurance would be a 20-year or 30-year term policy. In basic terms the life insurance benefit and premium would be locked in for a 20 or 30-year term.

You know exactly what you will be paying for the whole life of the policy and if your family end up having to claim during the time period you know exactly what they will get. Over the past 15 to 20 years more and more people are looking at term insurance as a better way to protect their family. The reason? It comes down to cost and the amount of coverage you can purchase.

4 to 5 Times The Coverage & Same Price
A family could get 4 to 5 times the amount of protection with a term policy when compared to a whole life or universal life policy by spending the same amount of money.

The downside on a term policy is the rate will increase at the end of the term. This is why most financial advisors and publication recommend you purchase the longest-term period available i.e. 20 or 30-year term. One other trick that people do to cope with inflation ( a million dollars sounds like a lot now but who knows what it will buy in 28 years) is to buy extra policies every few years. These can be smaller policies that just add extra money onto the primary sum, of course they will cost more as you will be a few years older.

The best advice is to educate yourself on the life insurance types available before you even get a quote and then make the best decision for your family.

Today very few people own their own individual life insurance policy. Most only have coverage through their work. The type of life policy that people normally get at work is term life coverage, but it since it covers everyone at work is known as group term insurance. Like anything that comes as a benefit from work there are good and bad points.

Disadvantage of Group Term
The main disadvantage of group term life coverage is the amount of coverage. Most work life insurance is only 1 or 2 times a person’s annual salary. Financial experts recommend a person should have at least 6 to 10 times their annual salary.
The amount of term life coverage you would need to properly protect your income would be between $300,000 and $500,000.

Life Insurance is Another Expense
Most people look at life insurance as just another monthly expense and something only old people should own. Since life insurance only benefits the ones you leave behind not you directly a lot of people ignore it. This is a mistake. Think of Life insurance as income protection insurance. When you purchase a life insurance policy you are protecting your income for a given period of time. The 6 to 10 times figure I discussed early is 6 to 10 YEARS of your income you want to protect.

If you pass away whoever you name in your will will get the agreed insured amount in one lump sum. So they will get 6-10 years worth of your income in one check.

You Protect Your Home & Car
Here is one way to look at term life coverage. You own home insurance to protect your home in case it burns down. Most homes are generally worth $100,000 to over $1,000,000. Even when a home is paid off people still own home insurance. Why? They don’t want to have to come up with $300,000 to rebuild a new house.

Shouldn’t you take the same philosophy when protecting your income? Is your home or car more important than your or your spouse?
How much of your income do you want to protect? A 30 year old, who earns $50,000 and works 30 years would earn over $1,500,000 over those 30 years without inflation or pay raises.

Once you die your income is gone, but your family still needs to live. A funeral is expensive and your spouse or partner will still have a mortgage or rent to pay, but you will not be there to provide your income.

Your House Burns Down
Term insurance works like your home insurance. For example, let’s say your home is worth $300,000 and is insured for $300,000. What would your insurance company pay if your home burned to the ground? $300,000.
A term life coverage policy pays the same. What would your life insurance company pay if you had $300,000 and you passed away? The life insurance company will pay your beneficiary $300,000. Another term for the coverage is called the “Face Amount of Coverage.”

How Long is Your Income Protected?
The other part of a term insurance policy is the “term” of the policy. The term means how long you locked in your premium and coverage. A 20-year term insurance policy means your rate and term life coverage is set for 20 years. At the end of the term you can decide to renew for another term or let it expire. The last part depends on the conditions set by the life insurance company.

Lock In The Longest Time Possible
A good rule of thumb is to lock in your rate and term life coverage for as long as possible. The reason is you do not want to have to renew your life insurance policy every 5 or 10 years at a higher premium. The healthiest most of us will be is today, no one knows what tomorrow will bring (which of course is the whole point of insurance), by signing your policy for 20 or 30 years you are hedging against any future health issues which may cause insurance companies to refuse you cover or increase rates on you.

A term life coverage policy is the best way to protect you and your family if something bad happens. After all the reason to have any type of insurance is to make sure bad situation from getting worse.

Bad Situation Need Not Get Worse
Most people do not have an extra $20,000 to buy a new car if their car is totaled in a car accident. We also do not have $300,000 sitting in the bank case our house burns to the ground. We also do not have an extra $300,000 to replace a spouses income for the next 6 years while we deal with grief and try to carry on with our lives.

Remember, whether it is car insurance, home insurance or term life coverage the insurance you bought is to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.

Life insurance is one product most people do not like to buy or purchase. The reason for this is that most people do not like to talk about death, especially their own. If we don’t talk about it maybe it will never happen seems to be the common train of thought. However, as the saying goes “there are only two things in life that is certain: death and taxes.”

Do You Need Life Insurance?
First of all you need to answer several questions to figure out if you need life insurance.
1. Are you married and have children?
2. Are you married with no kids, but depend on each other’s income to pay your house and other expenses?
3. Do you plan to be married at some point in time? (If over age 18)
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you need life insurance. Even if you think you will be single forever then you still have to think of the costs involved in dealing with your burial.

Best Type of Life Insurance = Term Insurance
For many people the best type of life insurance is term insurance. Term insurance pays a fixed amount of life insurance and your premium or rate is locked in for a certain term or years. So you know exactly what you will pay every month and you know exactly how much the insurance company will pay out once you meet the requirements of the policy (e.g you die).

A common type of term life insurance you hear about is a 20-year term policy. What does this mean? The insurance company will lock in your rate for 20 years and your coverage or death benefit is the same for 20 years. For most people twenty years is enough time to get their finances in order and get some money behind them.

Buy Term Insurance In Increments
You can buy a twenty year policy now and then buy another one in a few years. If you have no children right now and can only afford $100k of cover that is fine, in a few years when you have more responsibilities (and hopefully more money) you can buy an extra policy. This extra policy can be for either the same twenty years or a shorter term so the policies all run out at the same time.

These are sometimes known as top up policies.

Life Insurance is Income Protection Insurance
For example, you determine you need $250,000 of life insurance protection to protect your family. You purchase a 20-year term insurance policy because your youngest child is 4 years old. The reason for a 20-year time period is in 20 years hopefully all your kids will be moved out and on their own.
Term insurance is meant to do one thing for a family: Protect the income of a spouse replacement. If a spouse passes away the family still needs that income to continue to live the same house and go to the same school. No one can replace the parent or spouse who passed away, but you can replace the income the family needs to survive.

Follow the Advice of Experts on Term Insurance
Most financial magazines and advisors recommend people should have at least 6 to 10 times their annual after tax or take home pay in term insurance. Take home pay is the amount of income each is bringing home to pay their bills and living expenses. . If you bring home $50,000 a year you should have between $300,000 to $500,000 of life insurance.

It is sad when you read in the paper about some 35 year old killed in a car accident. By reading the obituary in the paper you can figure out the family did not have life insurance. Usually you hear about some spaghetti dinner to raise money for the family.
The reason is the family did not have life insurance and now the family has to figure out how to pay their bills. The family would not have had to worry about such matters if they took one or two hours to figure out how they can protect their family for the next 20 or 30 years. That’s it 2 hours to protect your family for 30 years with a term insurance policy.

How Many Years of Coverage?
Term insurance does not come in only 20-year terms. Most companies offer a 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30-year term coverage. The best is to lock in your rate for as long as possible. If you are 25 to 40 years old you should lock in a 30-year rate if you are eligible.
The reason is you at least know your rate and by age 55 to 70 you should have saved enough assets not to need the entire amount of life insurance.

Do You Have Kids?
To wrap up, if you are married with kids you definitely need life insurance. Raising children together is expensive and hard work, for your spouse or partner to raise them alone when you are gone will be even harder. Having money will never take away the pain of losing you but it will at least mean they do not have to worry about all the bills as well.

A good solution is a term insurance policy. The term should be at least 20 years and look to see if a 30-year policy is available.
Remember life insurance is meant to replace someone’s income. The amount of coverage needed is 6 to 10 times annual income.

When people are looking at buying life insurance cost is usually the #1 factor for buying or not buying. The cost of term life insurance is at an all time low. Term insurance is a great low cost way to protect your family.

The cost term life insurance has decreased substantially over the past 20 years. There are several factors, which are leading to lowering the cost.

#1. People are living longer.
People living longer may not be an obvious reason for lowering the cost of term life insurance, but it does. The reason is tied to mortality tables. As people are living longer there are fewer claims on term life insurance policies. These savings are passed along to the consumer.

If you compare the cost of $100,000 of term insurance 20 years ago the cost would be lower for the exact same policy with the same issue age. This is why it is a good idea to review your life insurance every 5 years, you can get new insurance at a lower price or you can buy top up insurance. I know people who buy new insurance policies every 5 years, they have usually got more disposable income than they had previously and it is a cheap way to increase their cover.

#2. More Companies Are Offering Term Insurance
In the past most companies only sold a Whole Life Insurance policy. These policies have a lot more fees and expenses than a comparable term life insurance policy. The consumer has become more aware of term insurance over the past 15 to 20 years. This is due to many major financial magazines such as Smart Money and Money Magazine recommending the benefits of purchasing term insurance.

The reason for the savings comes down to the Law of Large Numbers. The Law of Large Numbers spreads the risk across to everyone purchasing a life insurance policy. However, even though more families are purchasing term life insurance the actual number of total life insurance policies has decreased over the past 20 years.

#3 Depends on Your Age
Since people are living longer the actual cost of term life insurance has decreased for everyone regardless of age. This is great time to purchase a term life insurance policy because rates from insurance companies are at historic lows.

Health Can Be a Reason for Higher Costs
The problem many people make is delaying the purchase of life insurance. They want to wait until they have kids or buy a home. However, the cost of term life insurance is based upon your age and your health when you apply. Age and health are the two most important factors when determining your cost of term life insurance.

A potential health problem is an important reason for purchasing life insurance early in a married couples life. A lot of people do not consider buying a life insurance policy until they have kids. Their thought process goes like this: We don’t need life insurance now because we do not have any kids. We’ll just wait a couple of years.  The problem with this thought process is you do not know what your health will be like in 2 to 5 years from now. What if you become diabetic or gain a lot of weight?

Rated or Declined
Life insurance policies can be rated or declined for many reasons: diabetes and weight are just two of the most common reasons. A rated policy means the insurance company will approve you, but you have to pay more for the cost of term life insurance. The increased monthly payment is a reflection of the increased risk factor that people with diabetes or who are over weight represent.

The best advice is to buy a life insurance policy when you are younger and the cost of term life insurance is lower. You may think you don’t need it, but even if you died while young and single there are still costs involved with burial. Since the price of the policy is locked for the length of the term you are actually saving money in the long term.

Term life insurance coverage is currently at a historic low point price wise and you do like to buy things on sale or at low prices, right? Take the time to see if you qualify and purchase a term life insurance policy.

* You can withdraw money from your life insurance policy account

If you own a cash value life insurance policy, you can easily withdraw money and utilize the proceeds in paying off IRS debts. The cash value life insurance policy is the most beneficial among all the life insurance policies as it keeps on accumulating the cash value over the time of the policy and also provides the death benefit. As and when the policy holder wants to borrow money, he can easily withdraw the money accumulated in that particular policy. The cash value will appreciate with time and is also not subject to tax. Once you’ve accumulated a huge amount of cash value, you can easily withdraw it to pay off your debts.

* You can consider life settlement to pay off debt

Life settlement is a life insurance policy where the owner of the life insurance policy transfers or sells his policy to a third party holder in lieu of cash. As he exchanges his life insurance policy, the policy holder will receive cash that is more than the surrender value of the policy. However the cash value will relatively lesser than the death benefit. The third party who buys the life insurance policy then becomes the new policy holder and is liable to keep on paying the premiums. But the most important thing that needs to be kept in mind is that a life settlement option can only be considered by a policyholder who is a senior citizen, or more than 65 years of age. The proceeds of life settlement are subject to tax.

* Borrow money from your life insurance policy

Another option by which you can pay off debt that you owe to the IRS is by borrowing money from your life insurance policy. When you borrow money from your life insurance policy, you actually take a loan against the cash value of the policy. As you take a loan, you’re also required paying back the loan or else the value of the policy gets reduced. In case the policy holder expires before paying back the loan, the outstanding balance will be deducted from the benefits of the policy and the rest of the amount will be given to the beneficiary of the life insurance policy.

Therefore, if you’ve incurred huge amount of IRS debts, make sure you use your life insurance policy to pay off debt. Consider the points mentioned above so that you get to know the details o

Before you start to look into the whole life insurance rate which applies to you it is a good idea to have some understanding of the terminology that will be used and that you have some idea of what your options are.

Just as not all car insurance is the same , not all life insurance is the same. The two most common types of life insurance are term life insurance and whole life insurance. The life insurance industry started out just offering term policies and then expanded into whole life.

The simple explanation is that term life insurance covers a set term , if you die in that term then you collect and if you don’t die you get nothing, while whole life will cover you until the day you die.

There are a whole lot more options than just those two now, graded premium whole life insurance , level premium whole life insurance and variable rate life insurance. There are enough options to confuse anyone and being unsure of what you are signing for isn’t a good idea when your families future income relies upon you choosing the right life insurance.

Your whole life insurance rate is going to be higher than a term life insurance policy would be because there is a potential for payment while you are alive. Sounds like the perfect policy doesn’t it, get money to spend while still alive?

Whole Life Insurance Rate

The whole life insurance rate is a lot more than a term life policy, sometimes as much as 50% more, this alone makes them prohibitively expensive for most families. The cash element doesn’t come into play for many years, sometimes as long as ten years after you start the policy.

Rather than thinking about a possible cash payment later in life many people use their whole life insurance policy as a form of collateral for loans and mortgages. Many business people use their whole life policy to borrow against so they can start or grow their own business. As long as you are financially stable and will be able to carry on paying your insurance premiums there is usually no problem with obtaining a loan.

Before you sign up for any kind of life insurance you should not only compare the whole life insurance rate and the term life insurance rate , this is far to simplistic a way to try and choose life insurance. You should be looking at what is covered, any exclusions and also think whether you can really afford the offered premiums without having to struggle.

You can have more than one insurance policy on your life, you could take out a term insurance policy when you are younger (and presumably have less money) and then look into the prevailing whole life insurance rate when you are older.

When you realize the difference in monthly premiums between whole life and term life insurance you will probably take a deep breath. If you think you could maybe afford the whole life insurance rate why not do a test for a year, take out a term insurance policy and invest the extra amount that you would have paid into a whole life policy.

If after a year you have had to miss any of the extra payments you know that the whole life insurance rate was too high for you to be able to pay it.

The following are a few of the top things you need to know about obtaining term life insurance.

One over riding important thing you need to be able to know how to do is to distinguish between the varying types of policies. There are also various types of buying strategies that you need to be aware of in making choices regarding your term life insurance policy.

A very important factor to be considered in obtaining term life insurance is the question of how much coverage do you need?

Another question that should always be determined up front in purchasing term life insurance is the question of how long is a term?

Here are some pointers that may offer needed insight into answering your questions regarding the purchase of a term life insurance policy for yourself and your family:

First,it has been established that all insurance policies fall into one of two categories.

There are what is known as term policies, and they may be thought of as a more pure insurance coverage. Next, there are many variations of whole life insurance policies, some of which include an investment product with pure term insurance and over time they can build cash value.

Insurance is always a sold, but not bought, commodity because insurance sales personnel agents sell most of the life policies that are written in the United States. This is means the life insurance industry obviously has a vested interest in the sales of high-commission whole-life policies.

However, it’s also widely known and accepted that whole life insurance policies are more expensive in actuality than are term life insurance policies. Policies with an investment component are much more expensive than term life insurance policies. As a consequence of this fact, most people who buy whole life insurance policies cannot many times afford adequate insurance coverage for their needs, thereby leaving themselves under insured or inadequately insured.

Always get adequate term coverage to fill your needs when considering the financial stability of your family’s future after your death. Now that rates are currently at some of the lowest in history, it is a good time to take advantage of savings to be had in this area. Always be sure that you are matching your chosen policy to your needs and to those of your family as well. Buying while you are young is always the best option if you are able to do that, since older people who are not in the best of health pay more costly rates. However, it is also financially more advantageous to wait until you have dependents to purchase your term life insurance.

When you are young and single you probably don’t give much thought to your future and you certainly don’t think about dying at any point soon, so why worry about life insurance coverage?
This is why young people tend not to have any life insurance coverage unless it is automatically done through work or family.

So when do you start worrying about life insurance? Normally it is at the same time as you find someone you want to marry. As you get more responsibilities you start to worry about what would happen to them if you popped off. This is totally natural and it is why we have family life insurance, you can cover everyone with one policy if need be.

The two main questions I hear are, what does life insurance cover and what does life insurance cost? Beyond that you will hear people asking about the differences between insurance polices and maybe clarification of certain terms.

Life insurance is just like car or house insurance you can get it to cover as much or as little as you can afford and feel you need.
If you have a number of children, your spouse doesn’t work and you have a large mortgage to boot then you need more life insurance than if you have no kids and a independently wealthy spouse.

The idea with life insurance is that it should provide the level of financial security your spouse will need to carry on with life once you are gone. Like most things in life you can find a life insurance policy for just about any situation. Term life insurance coverage pretty much does what it says, it gives you life insurance for a fixed term of time.

When you are looking at  term life insurance you need to think about how old you are now and  how old your kids are and how much you owe on things like mortgages. With term insurance the payout amount stays the same for the whole term. If you buy 1/2 million dollars worth of insurance and pay 100 dollars a month for that now you will be paying that for the whole 20 or 30 years of the term.

Deciding which life insurance coverage is right for your family can be tough and it is all too easy to get talked into buying life insurance coverage that is more or less than you need at higher (rarely lower) monthly payments than you really need.

Depending on the need of the person there are two main term life Insurance coverage option he can choose from; one is the cheap decreasing insurance which basically pays off the balance of any mortgages which are on the name of the deceased and the other is the cheap level term life insurance which not only pays off the balance of the mortgages but also gives the family a lump sum amount in case of the insured person’s death.

Since the term life insurance coverage mainly aims at providing coverage for the mortgaged property after the insured person’s death, the experts of the insurance industry often recommend that these policies should be taken in several payments with the duration for which the property is mortgaged. In this way the insured person can rest assured that the family will not have to bear the financial burden of paying off the mortgages in case of the sudden death of the insured person. This is a great option that many people overlook these days and then they end up having to pay for the mortgage of their loved one in the end. This can be very detrimental to the family left behind because they not only have to deal with the death of their family member, but now they also have a financial burden left behind, therefore be sure to choose the term life insurance coverage that best qualifies for your situation.

While the term life insurance coverage is very reasonably priced, people need to be very careful when they choose to buy term life insurance. Since these insurance policies are very much in demand, a whole lot of companies are providing this insurance online and offline. People usually prefer to buy their term life insurance coverage online, however it is important that they verify the authenticity of the online company before buying their insurance from the online company since there are so many people on the internet that are just there to scam the innocent.

Online insurance companies provide the same term life insurance coverage as the land based companies; however the price that the online companies quote is usually much lower in comparison to the land based companies. The online companies are able to provide these low prices in spite of giving the same cover as their land-based counter parts because of the low overhead cost that they have. Being an online company saves them a lot of expenses and they translate these saved costs into attractively priced term life insurance coverage policies.

While buying the term life insurance coverage from the online companies is extremely beneficial, people should make it a point to read the reviews of the company. Reading reviews on different term life insurance coverage will you an idea of how long the company takes to provide their services and settle the claim. No one would want to make regular payments for the term life insurance coverage premium, only for their family to eventually find out that they cannot claim the amount when they are faced with the loss of the insured member of the family. Therefore it is recommended that everyone who plans to buy good term life insurance coverage, studies the details and reputation of the company that they intend to purchase the insurance from.