Or call 1-800-548-2329 for advice, information, comparisons, prices, or quotes on Life Insurance.
Life Insurance - How do you choose life Insurance? How much do you need?
Life insurance exists to serve your purposes and protect the people you want to protect. It can have other benefits in taxes and transfer of assets. Term Life usually gives the most death benefit per dollar spent but doesn't build cash value. Whole Life and Universal Life can build up cash in addition to death benefits. For more explanations or to get our help, continue down this page, or click here to contact us or start a quick quote.
GBW Insurance can help you choose life insurance products. For life insurance quotes, information, and advice in New Jersey and New York, call us at 1-800-548-2329 or hit the contact or get-a-quote buttons on this page. Whether it’s to protect your family or ease transition in a business, estate planning or life planning, our specialists can help you.
You can get more information on our pages dealing with Term Insurance and Permanent Life Insurance.
For a blog discussing life insurance issues click on this link. http://gbwlifeinsurance.wordpress.com/
Life insurance products for groups are different from life insurance sold to individuals. The information below focuses on life insurance sold to individuals.
Term Insurance
There are several different types of term insurance you can consider:
- Renewable Term Insurance
- Convertible Term Insurance
- Level Term Insurance
- Decreasing Term Insurance
- Increasing Term Insurance
Term Insurance is the simplest form of life insurance. It pays only if death occurs during the term of the policy, which is usually from one to 30 years. Most term policies have no other benefit provisions.
There are two basic types of term life insurance policies—level term and decreasing term.
Level term means that the death benefit stays the same throughout the duration of the policy.
Decreasing term means that the death benefit drops, usually in one-year increments, over the course of the policy’s term.
In 2003, virtually all (97 percent) of the term life insurance bought was level term.
For more on the different types of term life insurance, click a quote link or call us at 800-548-2329.
Whole Life / Permanent Insurance
There are four basic types of permanent insurance:
- Whole Life
- Joint Whole Life
- Survivorship Life
- Universal Life
- Variable Life
- Variable Universal
Whole life or permanent insurance pays a death benefit whenever you die—even if you live to 100! There are three major types of whole life or permanent life insurance—traditional whole life, universal life, and variable universal life, and there are variations within each type.
In the case of traditional whole life, both the death benefit and the premium are designed to stay the same (level) throughout the life of the policy. The cost per $1,000 of benefit increases as the insured person ages, and it obviously gets very high when the insured lives to 80 and beyond. The insurance company could charge a premium that increases each year, but that would make it very hard for most people to afford life insurance at advanced ages. So the company keeps the premium level by charging a premium that, in the early years, is higher than what’s needed to pay claims, investing that money, and then using it to supplement the level premium to help pay the cost of life insurance for older people.
By law, when these “overpayments” reach a certain amount, they must be available to the policyowner as a cash value if he or she decides not to continue with the original plan. The cash value is an alternative, not an additional, benefit under the policy.
In the 1970s and 1980s, life insurance companies introduced two variations on the traditional whole life product—universal life insurance and variable universal life insurance.
For more on the different types of whole life/permanent insurance, click here for quick quote, or call us at 800-548-2329.
To take your own look at calculating the life insurance value of a life, use this link to go to the non-profit Life Insurance Foundation for Education. They can show you different ways to calculate the needs of your loved ones or the value of your future earnings. Click here for their calculator. And please ask us for advice on ways to handle your needs. 1-800-548-2329
With Permission © Insurance Information Institute, Inc. - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED -
