There are many benefits of life insurance. Whether the death benefit is to replace income or to pay off a mortgage, most agree it’s an important piece to have in your financial portfolio.
You don’t buy life insurance hoping to use it, you buy it just in case tragedy strikes, so that your loved ones are protected.
There are many benefits and few drawbacks to owning life insurance, and in this article we will go over them in-depth.
Benefits of Life Insurance
Protection for your Loved Ones
The biggest and most obvious benefit to owning life insurance is being able to provide to your family, even after you are gone. Life insurance benefits are tax-free to your beneficiaries.
You will want to make sure that the death benefit you select is large enough to cover your family’s living expenses after your gone, such as:
Mortgage
Income Replacement for at least 10 years
College Tuition for Children
Medical or Credit Card Debt
Depending on your age and health you should be able to cover all of this for about what it costs to buy 6 lattes a month.
Life insurance is the cheapest way to make sure your loved ones don’t suffer financially if you die, especially if you are the sole income provider.
Peace of Mind
We understand that with term life insurance, nobody likes idea of paying all of those years and when you don’t die, you lose everything that you ever paid in. But remember, you were protecting your loved ones in the event of a tragedy, so those premiums were had an important purpose.
Life insurance gives you peace of mind knowing that your loved ones will be taken care of for a long time after you are gone. Can you really put a price on knowing that they will continue to enjoy the same lifestyle if a death occurs? We don’t believe so!!
Life Insurance Fits Any Budget
Depending how old your are, your health, and how much coverage you need, life insurance fits into most consumer’s budgets. Whether you need to protect your income, pay for burial expenses, or to leave a legacy, there is life insurance that will protect those needs without breaking the bank.
Term life insurance is a great inexpensive life insurance product. It’s designed to protect you for a certain period of time and provides no cash value, which is the reason for its fairly low premium costs.
The key to finding cheap life insurance is to buy when you are young and healthy. The younger and healthier you are, the cheaper the premium you will pay. This could save you hundreds, if not thousands, over the life of a term insurance policy.
It’s Easier to Apply than Ever Before
Life insurance has never been easier to apply for than it is today. At EasyQuotes4You you can compare quotes in seconds. You can get free online quotes from the best life insurance companies. The days of having to make time to meet with an agent and to be bombarded with products you have no interest in are OVER!
You can apply online fast and easy. You can do the application in about 15 minutes and sign electronically. A lot of the best life insurance companies now offer no exam life insurance which really simplifies the process.
Small Piece to your Financial Portfolio
Many consumers save for their retirement by:
Investing in 401K, IRA, or other retirement account
Buying Real Estate
Putting Money into some type of savings account
We do this so we can protect ourselves financially when we get to retirement age, and the best way to do this is to start saving now.
With that said, the piece that gets left out of many financial portfolios is life insurance. Life insurance is a crucial asset to own, because all of that retirement planning could be worthless if you die prematurely.
And more than likely if you do die prematurely, there will not be enough in those retirement accounts for your loved ones to rely on. This could lead to financial hardships in the future for your heirs.
We like to think of life insurance as a financial bridge connecting your life now with retirement life. You can use a term life policy as the bridge, and if you outlive it, that’s great! You have protected your family while saving for your retirement at the same time. Cash out the money you saved and enjoy your golden years.
Permanent Life Insurance’s Cash Value Can Help Save Also
We have talked about term life insurance some earlier, but there are some life insurance policies that accrue cash value also. These policies are referred to as whole life insurance or universal life insurance. These are both permanent life insurance policies.
These types of permanent life insurance policies can be used as a supplementary savings account for retirement or can be used if any need arises before then. These accounts grow tax-deferred and can be withdrawn tax-free.
Permanent life insurance policies tend to to have a higher premium than term life insurance. You can also never outlive a permanent life insurance policy.
Drawbacks of Buying Life Insurance
As we mentioned earlier, life insurance has many benefits and very few drawbacks. But we like to be transparent and give our readers all the information. The drawbacks to owning life insurance are:
If old or unhealthy, life insurance can be expensive
Whole life insurance is expensive at all ages
The investments in the cash value of permanent life insurance can be weak
Easy to mislead, or worse lied to, if you don’t work with a reputable life insurance agent
How to maximize your Benefits of Life Insurance
Buy when your young and healthy
We understand when you are young and healthy that you think you are invincible and you may be right now. But at some point that will change and if you wait, it could be disastrous.
If you buy your life insurance when you are young and healthy, then you will save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for not procrastinating. Not only will you save money, but you will secure valuable coverage that even if not needed now, more than likely, it will be needed in the future.
Be Honest on the Life Insurance Application
All life insurance polices come with a contestability period of two years from when the policy goes into effect. During this time the life insurance company can contest a claim, which means not pay, if they believe you misrepresented any answers on the application and can prove these misrepresentations. Misrepresentations can include the following:
Not being truthful about health problems
Failing to mention a high risk hobby or job
Not being truthful about extra curricular activities such as drug and alcohol consumption or tobacco use
Buy the Amount of Term Life Insurance Needed and Invest the Rest
While permanent life insurance fits some people, most consumers will see the benefits of life insurance more from buying term and investing the rest. The biggest reason term life is so popular is the cost of premiums. You can get a lot of death benefit with term life insurance for very little premium.
With a term life insurance policy and proper planning, you can protect your loved ones throughout your income producing years, while making contributions to your retirement accounts at the same time. This makes you financially secure whether you live or die.
Find an Experienced & Reputable Life Insurance Agent
The key to making sure your life insurance policy benefits you the most is to first and foremost, find an experienced life insurance agent with a good reputation. A good agent will be able to explain all of your options and should have access to the top life insurance companies in the United States.
A simple online search should tell you all you need to know about someone or company. When conducting business over the internet it’s important to find someone you can trust and is going to be around down the road when they will be needed the most. If you are interested in more information, would like some free quotes, or have any questions please give us a call. Don’t put buy life insurance off another day. Protect your loved ones now.
