Archive for October, 2008

What types of life insurance are available ?

Friday, October 31st, 2008

There is a confusing array of life insurance products, almost rivaling the mutual fund industry and its bewildering variety of choices. With over 1,500 life insurance companies active in the business and with each company usually offering several different types of policies, you can see that there are many thousands of different life insurance contracts available.

No guide, advisor or reference can feasible cover every type of policy and every nuance. Yet there are major similarities between certain types of life insurance contracts. For example, a universal life insurance policy issued by a company A will be similar to a universal life policy issued by company B. State Insurance Regulations make this so.

All life insurance policies promise to pay an agreed sum of money if the insured person should die while the policy is active, but all life insurance policies are not similar. A wide variety of plans are available. Some policies provide permanent coverage. On the other hand, others offer temporary cover such as term life insurance. Some life insurance policies like permanent life insurance help to construct cash values. Some policies combine different kinds of insurance (e.g, a permanent base policy with a term rider), and yet others let you change from one type of insurance coverage to another. The choice that you make should be relative to your needs and also according to your budget. A number of permanent life insurance plans permit you to put in extra, term life insurance all the way through the phase of your greatest life insurance need. Typically, the term life insurance concerns your life but it can as well be purchased for members of your family such as your spouse or children.

As such, when you step into the insurance market looking for a life insurance plan, you should take care to make the agreement with reputed companies. Such companies can provide you with extra services like guiding you towards buying a life insurance policy that will nicely fit into your budget. Purchase life insurance to get benefits on time.

What is endowment life insurance ?

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Endowment life insurance policies generally come in more than one form, with profit and without profit. The insurance policy usually has a maturity date when a lump sum of money is paid to the policy holder unless the later has died before that maturity date.

There exist a number of terms for a life endowment insurance policy. You can have a policy over ten, twenty or twenty five years depending on which insurance company or broker you are using. Obviously, the shorter the term the more expensive your life policy premiums are likely to be. Furthermore the premium amounts that are payable monthly are unlikely to change much over the term of the life insurance policy.

More than like the premiums you pay per month will be invested by the insurance company to yield sufficient returns so that the policy can pay you a ‘profit’ at the end of the term or at maturity. Non profit endowment life policies are rarely used nowadays as the insurer would expect a return on investment. After all, why would someone invest in a no profit endowment when there are probably alternative investment opportunities that pay interesting dividends and interest?

The with-profit life policy is therefore intended to give a return on the monthly investment. It is therefore similar to a savings account except in this case the policy will pay the full sum insured if you die before the term of the policy, even if you have not put in the actual amount of the sum assured.

It is clear why some people would prefer an endowment policy. Everybody wants to save and put some money aside but with the cost of living increasing all the time, it is sometimes difficult to find chunks of money to put aside. Paying a monthly affordable premium, getting a life insurance cover and being able to get a profit at the end of the policy sounds like a no brainer, win-win situation.

Adding TPD onto life insurance ?

Friday, October 24th, 2008

Life insurance is available with a number of additonal options.  One of the options is TPD this stands for Total and Permanent Disability. For an additional charge on the majority of contracts this will enable the policy holder to have their policy paid is the life assured is unable to do their own occupation.

This can be quite an expensive option to add onto your policy and can be difficult to underwrite due to some occupations being classified as more dangerous than others .

TPD is often put into different definitions own occupation where the company will pay if you cant carry out your own occupation this is seen as the best. Work tasks this is where the claim is categorised if you can carry out a number of tasks these could be things like lifting, walking, hearing, using a pen or pencil or vision. The final version is classified as life tasks and this would pay if you struggled washing, dressing feeding or with continence or mobility.

What you need to know about life insurance ?

Friday, October 24th, 2008

It is very important for possible customers to consider the following information prior to making an application for Life insurance or indeed most other types of insurance policies. Most contracts have no cash in value at any time especially term insurance, there are some policies that do but they tend to be the whole of life contracts. Most whole of life contracts have periodic reviews and it is important for potential customers to understand the basis on which the review will be conducted.

Most term insurance policies have reviews every five years but it is important to check first as not all companies will be exactly the same. If in the event if making a claim the Insurance company may request you provide information and could invalidate your policy if you refuse to do so. Their may be exclusions to your policy therefore it is important you read the key features that should be provided prior to your acceptance as not all insurance companies have the same contracts. Potential customers should check to see if the premiums are guaranteed or reviewable prior to making any decision and if they consider a reviewable premium be fully aware of the review procedure. If you decide to cancel your policy after a review or indeed at any time most policies will have no surrender value.

If you take a reviewable policy you should consider if you receive any negative review and decide to change to another provider because you are older it is unlikely to be cheaper as the age at policy inception can make a substantial difference to your premiums.