Mark Carolin

Archive for the ‘Insurance’ Category

Both whole and term life insurance policies are beneficial for consumers. Proper financial planning for most individuals and families will include life insurance in order to provide guarantees for the beneficiaries. In most cases, term life will provide the needed liquidity in times of need, but whole life will also provide needed benefits in certain situations.

Term Life Insurance

Term life has quite a few advantages and the most obvious is cost. Families can purchase policies with large face amounts for pennies on the dollar. These benefits will provide loved ones with funds to pay for mortgage expenses, raising children, tuition, debt, and everyday living expenses.

Term life literally buys time. Policies are usually purchased to cover a 20 or 30 year term. Conceivably, after this term has expired, the insured would have less debt, children would be young adults, and the family would be stronger financially overall.

However, term life will eventually expire and is quite expensive to convert to whole life. Should there still be a need for insurance after the end of the term, then the proposed insured would pay much more for a similar policy. Life policies are always much less expensive when for the young and healthy. If the insured has very poor health, then he or she may no longer qualify medically for life insurance.

Whole Life

Whole life is advantageous as it provides benefits for the entire life of the insured. Consumers need not worry about their future insurability as long as they pay their premiums. And a well structured whole life policy will eventually be a paid up life policy. Premiums will no longer be due and the interest earned will pay for the cost of insurance itself.

Consumers can borrow against their whole life policies and use the cash value in times of need. In this way, whole life plans are much more like an investment than term life. Additionally, the internal cash value can always be used to fund a single premium paid up policy. The face amount would be less, but premiums would no longer be charged by the insurer.

Whole life plans work very well to provide for known future obligations like estate and inheritance taxes. Life insurance can be setup outside of the estate and provide needed liquidity for tax, business, and personal obligations. Smaller final expense policies are always funded by whole life insurance.

However, these polices can be expensive and if they are not properly funded in the present or the future, then they can become a financial burden. In some cases, a whole life policy could lapse and become worthless to the owner and the beneficiary if premiums are underestimated or simply ignored.

In all, both whole and term life have a place in any financial plan. It is wise to discuss present and future needs with an agent and to perform a life insurance needs analysis. With proper planning, consumers will have peace of mind knowing that their obligations will be accounted for.

If you are a life insurance agent who wants to be more profitable, then finding the best life insurance leads would be your best move. Most agents have different techniques and strategies in generating life insurance sales leads to make their business more lucrative. Some would focus on one strategy and others would vary depending on what they think is best for a particular prospect. However, the real question would be how to find life leads that provide prospects that can be potentially turned into sales.

There is an excellent opportunity for insurance agents to build a quality lead generation site of their own. An agent can make a website in their local market and construct pages based upon what people are typing into the search engines.

Fortunately, the time you spend building this website can pay off because big commissions can arise from just one lead, paying for the time and money you have invested.

Insurance leads services, on the other hand, is where you let someone else do the search for you. This is what insurance leads services have to offer. Several companies provide such service in giving you quality leads that carries quality prospects.

These leads are sold to several agents like yourself where you can make use of to increase your sales instantly. This is probably the fastest way in finding quality insurance leads. Some companies would even offer a try-out for you to use their leads before you even purchase.

Nonetheless, if you do not have quality content and you ask for someone’s e-mail address or mailing address to sign up for your newsletter or auto responder, you may not get good results.

It is significant to buy leads from a company, which has experience generating internet insurance leads. Innovative internet lead generation companies have a propensity to rely upon questionable marketing tactics, and this could affect the quality of your leads.

Most of us thought we only needed to buy a big term life insurance policy when we were starting out in our adult life. We wanted to protect our kids and spouses if we should pass away. We probably had big mortgages to cover, and we also had plans for our children’s education. The policy would expire after a few decades, but that was alright, because we planned to have our obligations taken care of in that time, and we planned to outgrow our need for coverage. However things did not always work out like we planned, and now, in middle age or retirement years, we find that we could still use a life insurance policy.

The good news is that people are expected to live longer, even longer than they did a decade ago. Since we did live long enough for our term policies to expire, we can expect to live even longer! However, we may not have outlived our need for coverage. Top insurers recognize that, since people are living and working longer, they may still need to buy policies at older ages. Rates have dropped, and insurers are developing more policies that can be issued to older people.

A 65 year old in decent health can still buy term. They may not be able to find a 30 year term policy, but they can find 10 year policies at affordable rates. Maybe that extra 10 years will be enough to pay off an extended mortgage or get the kids out of the house. Many term policies do not even require a medical exam, but requirements vary, based on the age and health of the applicant, and also the amount of life insurance applied for. Actually, if you are in good health, you may find lower premiums if you take the time to have a medical exam.

If an older person has some more serious health issues, or wants to have coverage that will not expire, they can consider a whole life insurance policy. Sometimes these are called final expense policies, and they are designed to be issued to almost all older people, sometimes up to 85 years of age! Simplified issue policies only ask a few health questions, and can usually accept any applicants who are not terminally ill and who do not need to live in a nursing home. Guaranteed issue policies accept everybody who can pay the premium, though they usually cost a bit more for the same coverage as simplified issue policies. Another problem with guaranteed issue policies is that they usually have a waiting period before the full death benefit will be paid. Sometimes the waiting period is 2 or 3 years, and that is used instead of health underwriting to qualify applicants. So, if you are considering a senior life policy, try to qualify for simplified issue instead of guaranteed issue if you can. But guaranteed issue policies usually refund all premiums paid with interest even if the waiting period has not been satisfied. So, for an older person who cannot find any other insurance, it is still a good deal.

Mortgage life insurance is a type of insurance that ensures the remaining balance on a mortgage is paid in case of death of the borrower. Cheap mortgage life insurance is available which the borrower can obtain with a little research of the market. Cheap mortgage life insurance refers to a policy with low rates. However, the rates depend on the type of mortgage and amount.

Mortgage life insurance is necessary for all borrowers who are opting for a mortgage. This is done to offer protection to the homeowners and their families against losing their income in case of unexpected death of the earner. The borrowers are required to fulfill their end of the bargain by making periodic fixed payments to the insurance company. These payments are known as the insurance premium and are determined on the basis of several factors. The insurance company in turn promises to compensate the beneficiaries named in the policy in the unfortunate event of the client?s death. This premium is usually included with the monthly mortgage payment. The borrowers do not have to worry about making another monthly payment towards the insurance policy.

Mortgage life insurance provides peace of mind to the borrowers, as they do not have to worry about their families or other dependents losing the house in case of a premature death. Further, getting a life insurance policy for protecting the mortgage is usually not very expensive. As the amount of the coverage goes on decreasing with the mortgage amount, the insurance also gets cheaper. To find out the best and the cheapest mortgage life insurance, borrowers must compare the life insurance prices of as many carriers as they can. This task has become quite easy as it is now possible to request multiple quotes over the Internet by filling out a single form.

Brief term life insurance explanation. Life insurance companies offer two basic types of policies…term life insurance and permanent life insurance. By far the simplest in structure are the term life policies. They are also favored by most people today because of cost. They are less expensive than permanent policies. That results with you being able to buy more life insurance for your dollar. That makes sense since life insurance was designed to protect your loved ones in the event of your death. Let us therefore look at detailed term life insurance explanations. How do these policies work?

Term life insurance provides death benefit protection for specified periods of time. The periods range from 1 year to 25 or 30 years and some even up to age 65, age 80 or age 90.

1 Year Term

The one year term policy is more popularly known as the yearly renewable term policy or the annual renewable term policy. As the name implies it provides a death benefit for a very inexpensive level premium for one year. The reason it is thought of as a one year term policy is that even though you can renew it there is a premium increase each tear if you choose to do so. For the first 5 years or so, even with the increase, the premiums are still quite inexpensive. After that period it can get quite expensive.

Upon your death the full face amount will be paid to your loved ones, regardless of how you die other than by suicide. If you should commit suicide within a certain number of years, usually 2 years, from the date you purchased the policy the death benefit will be limited to the premiums paid. If you committed suicide after that 2 year contestable period the full face amount of the policy will be paid.

If you buy any these policies you have the option of converting to a permanent life insurance policy within specified periods of time.

5 Year Term

Now let us look at a 5 year term life insurance explanation. The 5 year term life insurance policy is considered by this author to be a better deal than the one year term policy even though it costs a little more in premiums. The reason for this conclusion is that the premiums remain level for the entire 5 year period. This policy has a level death benefit as well which is paid upon the death of the insured. This type of insurance can be purchased as a separate policy but some companies also sell it as a rider to a permanent policy.

10 Year Term

Another participant among inexpensive short term policies is the 10 year term policy. Let us examine a 10 year term life insurance explanation. This policy is very similar to the 5 year level term policy but the premiums are a little more costly. You can keep this policy up to 10 years and the death benefit is paid to your loved ones in the event of your death.

15 Year, 20 Year, 25 Year And 30 Year Term.

The main difference between the two policies described above and 15 year, 20 year, 25 year and 30 year term policies is that these policies can be kept for longer periods of time. The face amounts and premiums are level throughout with these policies. In some companies, however, the premiums of the 20 year term, the 25 year term and the 30 year term policies increase every 5 years. The first increase sometimes kick in after 5 years but in some cases the first increase occurs in 10 years.

Riders

Since I am giving you a term life insurance explanation I perhaps would be very remiss if I didn’t mention riders that can be added to your policy.

Most life insurance companies allow you to add a waiver of premium rider to most any policy which says that if you should become disabled for usually a minimum of 6 months the life insurance company will step in and waive your premiums for as long as you are disabled even if it is for the rest of your life.

The accidental death benefit rider provides that if you should die in an accident the life insurance company will pay your beneficiaries twice the basic death benefit. If you therefore have a policy for $100,000 the life insurance company will pay $200,000…double indemnity.

I sincerely hope this brief term life insurance explanation will help you make a decision whether or not this type of life insurance would fit your needs.

For further details and more on term life insurance explanations go to:

http://www.lifeinsurancehub.net/termlifeinsurancequotes.html

Universal life insurance is different from other forms of life insurance in that the premiums attached to universal life insurance plans are much more flexible and even the benefits to be paid out can be adjusted. Typically, these plans are reserved for individuals who are interested in life insurance coverage to extend well beyond 70 years of age.

If you are trying to decide if universal life insurance is the route to take, be sure you are well-versed on the following information: Refer to universal life insurance as ULI in rest of article

Universal-Life-Insurance is ‘Flexible’
The flexibility of ULI makes it popular amongst many buyers. In fact, you can decide on the type of coverage you need and even make changes to your coverage down the road as your needs change.

Universal -Life-Insurance Provides You with Tons of Options

ULI isn’t just for the individual, but also carries options for family coverage, and even affords you guaranteed insurability options as well as the ability to waive your monthly premiums if you ever become disabled.

Unlike most life-insurance policies, a ULI policy also allows you to obtain withdrawals and loans against your policy for cash value. However, it should be noted that if you have any outstanding loans at the time of your death, the value of the loan will be deducted from the benefits due to your beneficiaries. Additionally, you might possibly be charged for making withdrawals against your account, or even surrendering the value of your ULI. Yet and still, if you do decide to surrender, under a ULI policy, you will still get the full amount of what is due to you (or your beneficiaries), minus any unpaid loans or other charges.

Universal-Life-Insurance Helps You Save Money

Did you know that by obtaining a ULI policy, you are also eligible for the tax deferred savings component that comes attached? The tax-deferred savings works by crediting the interest you earn (at a predetermined rate) to your account each month.

Universal-Life-Insurance Provides Benefits Even after Death

By taking on a ULI policy, you are granted tax-free death benefits. When selecting the policy that is right for you, you can also choose a policy that will grant your beneficiary the basic amount of your policy, or opt to go with a policy that provides your life-insurance payout plus the account value.