Do I need life insurance?
If you have anyone that depends on you financially or if you do not have enough for burial expenses if you pass away, you need life insurance.

Basically, if you are a parent that wants to be certain your children are provided for and their college expenses will be covered. If you want the peace of mind in knowing your spouse will be supported financially if something happens to you. If you do not want to burden your loved ones with end-of-life expenses such as burial costs or estate taxes. If you have debts that you do not want to pass on. If you have a family business that you want to protect. You need life insurance.

Yes! This is the most important part of understanding life insurance. Understanding how different policies work is very important in developing a game plan to protect your loved one’s future. There are two standard types of life insurance policies:

Term life insurance is considered to be the most basic of life insurance that can be purchased. This is because term life offers just pure death benefit protection only, without any cash value builds up within the policy. Because of this, term life insurance is often very affordable – especially for those applicants who are younger and in good health at the time they apply for the coverage.

With term life insurance, coverage is purchased for a certain length of time, such as for ten years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years – and in some cases, even longer. There is also a 1-year renewable term life insurance option that is offered by many of the best life insurance carriers.

Typically, when purchasing a level term life insurance policy, the amount of the premium will remain the same throughout the period that the policy is in force. Provided that the insured survives throughout the time period of the policy, and he or she wishes to remain covered by life insurance, they will need to re-qualify for a new policy at their then-current age and health status.

Whole Life Insurance
The simplest type of permanent life insurance coverage is whole life. With this type of coverage, the premium amount is locked in and will remain the same throughout the entire lifetime of the policy. This can be helpful for those who need to stick to a budget. It also means that if a person purchases a whole life policy at a very young age, they will still pay the same amount of premium when they get older – regardless of advancing age, or even an adverse health issue.

In some cases, where a person’s pre-existing conditions require the individual to buy high risk life insurance, some graded whole life policies are the only option.

The cash that is in the cash value component of a whole life insurance policy is allowed to grow on a tax-deferred basis. This means that the gain on these funds will not be taxed until or unless they are withdrawn – allowing them to compound exponentially over time.

At first, the cash in a whole life insurance policy will grow slowly. This is because the majority of the early premium dollars will go towards paying the agent’s commission and the insurance costs. However, over the years, the cash in a whole life policy can steadily grow, often with a minimum guaranteed rate of return.

Some whole life insurance policies will even provide dividends to their policyholders. Because these are considered to be a return of premium to the policyholder, they are also not taxed. Dividends can also help the cash value in a policy grow significantly – although they are never guaranteed.