Term life insurance is the most basic and usually the most affordable. Policies can be purchased for a specified period of time. If you die within the time period defined in your policy, the insurance company will pay your beneficiaries the face value of your policy.
Policies can usually be bought for one- to 30-year time spans. Annual renewable term insurance usually can be renewed every year without proof of insurability, but the premium may increase with each renewal. Term insurance is useful if you can afford only a low-cost option or you need life insurance only for a certain amount of time (such as until your children graduate from college).
Permanent Life Insurance
The other major category is permanent life insurance. You pay a premium for as long as you live, and a death benefit will be paid to your beneficiaries upon your death. Permanent life insurance typically comes with a “cash value” savings element. There are three main types of permanent life insurance: whole, universal, and variable.
Whole life insurance. This type of permanent life insurance has a premium that stays the same throughout the life of the policy. Although the premiums may seem higher than the risk of death in the early years, these “overpayments” can accumulate cash value and are invested in the company’s general investment portfolio. You may be able to borrow funds from the cash value or surrender your policy for its face value if necessary.
Access to cash values through borrowing or partial surrenders can reduce the policy's cash value and death benefit, increase the chance that the policy will lapse, and may result in a tax liability if the policy terminates before the death of the insured. Additional out-of-pocket payments may be needed if actual dividends or investment returns decrease, if you withdraw policy values, if you take out a loan, or if current charges increase. Guarantees are based on the claims-paying ability of the issuing company.
Universal life insurance. Universal life coverage goes one step further. You have the same type of coverage and cash value as you would with whole life, but with greater flexibility. Once money has accumulated in your cash-value account, you may be able to vary the frequency, as well as the amount, of your premiums. In fact, it may be possible to structure the policy so that the invested cash value eventually covers your premium costs completely. Of course, it’s important to remember that altering your premiums may decrease the value of the death benefit.
Variable life insurance. With variable life insurance, you receive the same death protection as with other types of permanent life insurance, but you are given control over how your cash value is invested. You have the option of investing your cash value in stocks, bonds, or money market funds. The value of your policy has the potential to grow more quickly, but there is also more risk. If your investments do not perform well, your cash value and the death benefit may decrease. However, some policies provide a guarantee that your death benefit will not fall below a certain level. The premiums for this type of insurance are fixed and you cannot change them in relation to the size of your cash-value account. Any guarantees are contingent on the claims-paying ability of the issuing company.
Variable universal life is another type of variable life insurance. It combines the features of variable and universal life insurance, giving you the investment options as well as the ability to adjust your premiums and death benefit.
As with most financial decisions, there are expenses associated with life insurance. Generally, life insurance policies have contract limitations, fees, and charges, which can include mortality and expense charges, account fees, underlying investment management fees, administrative fees, and charges for optional benefits. Most have surrender charges that are assessed during the early years of the contract if the contract owner surrenders the policy.
A good rule of thumb is: Don’t insure yourself against misfortunes you can pay for yourself. Insurance is there to protect you in case of an event with overwhelming expenses. If anything short of a calamity does occur, it will usually cost you less in actual costs than the insurance premiums you would have paid.
Broader is better. Purchase insurance that will cover as many misfortunes as possible with a single policy; for example, homeowners insurance that covers not only damage to the house itself but also to its contents. Carefully examine policies that exclude coverage in certain areas, the “policy exclusions.”
Always buy from a financially strong company. Take the time to shop around for the best prices with the most coverage for your specific situation. You may be able to save money by buying multiple policies from the same agent.
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