What Are The Different Types Of Life Insurance?
When you are trying to secure your families financial future, figuring out the kind of life insurance you need is essential. While there are several different versions of life insurance, they can all be divided into either term or permanent.
With the only difference being how they actually function.
In this post today I will go over all of the different types of life insurance, how they work and the pros and cons of each one.
What Are The Different Types Of Life Insurance Policies?The different versions of life insurance plans include:
Term Life InsuranceTerm Life Vs Whole LifePermanent life insuranceReturn Of Premium Life InsuranceUniversal life insuranceGuaranteed Universal Life InsuranceVariable life insuranceNo Exam Life InsuranceSimplified issue life insuranceMortgage Protection Life InsuranceAccidental Death insuranceFinal expense & Burial InsuranceGuaranteed issue life insuranceKey Person Life InsuranceFeatures
Term Life
Whole Life
Universal Life
No Exam Life
Duration
1 – 30 Years
Life
Life
2 – 30 Years
Guaranteed Death Benefit
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Guaranteed Cash Value
Doesn’t Build
Yes
Yes
Doesn’t Build
How Cash Value Grows
Doesn’t Build
Earns Interest at a fixed rate
Changing rate chosen by insurer
Doesn’t Build
Premiums
Level
Level
Customer can choose
Level
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Term Life InsuranceTerm life insurance is one of the primary forms of life insurance and is going to be what people think of as the most straightforward type of life policy. The way term life insurance works is that you pay a set monthly premium (like $30.00 per month), for a specific amount of coverage (Like $100,000), for a set period or term length (Like 20 Years). If you live past the term length, the policy will end, or you can renew it on an annually renewable basis at which time your premiums can increase. If you pass away before the term ends, 100% of the coverage (or death benefit) will pay out to your beneficiaries. Term life insurance quotes tend to be more affordable than permanent life insurance policies.
Whole Life InsuranceThe other primary version of life insurance is what is known as whole life insurance. Whole life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance, and it will last for your entire life. Unlike a term life insurance policy, you can also build what is known as cash value inside of a whole life policy. When you make monthly premium payments into your policy, a percentage of those payments go towards building up cash inside of your policy. With this cash, you can use it to help pay monthly premiums or to borrow against in an emergency. The way whole life insurance works is that you pay a set monthly premium (like $90.00 per month), for a specific amount of coverage (Like $50,000), for your entire life. When you pass away, the death benefit will pay out 100%, and if you have allowed your cash value to build, that will pay out in addition to your death benefit.
Term Life Vs Whole Life InsuranceThis is an age-old battle that you will definitely run into when trying to decide the best kind of life insurance for you. It really comes down to which option you can afford and also what role life insurance will play for you.Will you try to treat it as an investment or will you use it simply as it was intended to be used for, which is to insure your life.We have a detailed guide where over 40 personal finance experts pick a clear winner between term life vs whole life.
Whole Life
Builds Cash ValueLast Your Entire LifeUp to 30 times more expensive more complicated productTerm Life
Much More AffordableLast For A Specific Term LengthDoesn’t Build Cash Valueeasy to understand No Exam Life InsuranceNo medical exam life insurance can be either a term life or permanent life insurance policy. These policies will not require you to take a medical exam to be approved. However, you will mostly find these types of policies to be offered as term life products. While these policies won’t require an exam, they still go through the remainder of the underwriting process. Such as requesting medical records, telephone interviews, and can take a few weeks to get approval. No exam life insurance can also have other benefits like instant approvals and immediate decisions. Those policies are known as Simplified Issue No Exam life insurance policies which we discuss below.
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With a Life Insurance policy you can take care of your family the right way.
Should anything happen to you, you’ll want to leave your loved ones a financial nest egg for their wellbeing.
Simplified Issue Life InsuranceSimplified issue life insurance is most commonly a type of term life insurance that allows you to get approved for life insurance extremely fast. These policies are often called No Exam life insurance policies; however, they go a bit further with eliminating things from the underwriting process. With a Simplified Life insurance policy, along with no medical exam, you also get to avoid a telephone interview, medical records, and a lengthy application process. Insurance companies access your personal data from several companies to make an instant decision on your insurability. The leading companies are the Medical Information Bureau (MIB), Intelliscirpt for your prescription drug history, and your Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) to check your driving history.A simplified issue life insurance policy can offer you term life insurance coverage in as little as 5 minutes.
Check out the comparison of the two products below:
Traditional Term
Up To 3 Weeks For ApprovalMedical Records RequestedMedical Exam RequiredCan Have Lower RatesSimplified Issue
Instant or Next Day ApprovalNo Medical Records RequestedNo Medical Exam RequiredA Bit More expensive Mortgage Protection Life InsuranceMortgage life insurance is a type of insurance that will pay out directly to your mortgage company if you were to pass away. It’s also known as Mortgage protection insurance and is a type of decreasing term insurance policy. As you pay your mortgage the coverage amount or death benefit decreases to match your remaining mortgage.
These policies usually don’t leave anything behind to your family, only the mortgage company.
Accidental Death InsuranceAccidental death insurance is a kind of life plan that will only pay out if you pass away from an accident. These policies will not require you to go through underwriting so are basically guaranteed approval types of policies. The way an accidental death insurance plan works is that you pay a set monthly premium (like $6.00 per month), for a specific amount of coverage (like $100,000), until you reach a certain age (Usually 65). If a person passes away from anything other than an accident, the policy will not pay out. You can purchase these policies separately or as a rider in addition to a traditional term life insurance. If you purchase accidental death insurance as a rider on a term policy, it will pay out on top of your life insurance if you pass away from an accident.
So, if you have a $100,000 term policy with a $50,000 accidental death insurance rider and you pass away from an accident, the policy will pay out $150,000. If you pass away from a heart attack; however, the policy would only pay out $100,000.
Final Expense & Burial InsuranceDepending on who you are speaking with or what keywords you typed in Google, you might see final expense insurance or burial insurance.
These two types of policies are precisely the same, they just go by two different names. Final Expense and Burial Insurance are both types of whole life insurance policies that focus on people between the ages of 50 to 85.
These policies won’t offer more than $25,000 in death benefit and are much easier to get approved for if you can’t get a traditional life insurance policy. The idea is to use these policies for your final expenses or burial and usually nothing more.
Guaranteed Issue Life InsuranceA guaranteed issue life insurance policy is any form of life insurance product that doesn’t require you to answer health questions for approval. While these can be both term and permanent policies, you will see a guaranteed issue policy more geared towards seniors as whole life policies or for people who need high risk life insurance. It is usually the final option if you can’t get approved for a traditional life insurance policy or a final expense policy. These policies have a 2 to 3 year waiting period on them before they will pay out the entire death benefit. Always ask how long the waiting period is if you decide to get this type of policy. If you pass away before the waiting period, the policy will only pay out the premiums you paid into it plus a few percentage points.
Key Person Life InsuranceKey person insurance is just life insurance on the “key” or primary person in a business. In a small business, this is usually the owner, the founders or even a key employee or two. If the death of someone in your business would mean the business falls apart, then you probably should have key person life insurance on them. These policies function just like traditional life insurance policies and you just need to let the insurance company know that you are interested in that type of policy.
What Life Insurance Policy Type Is Best For Me?In my honest and professional opinion, Term life insurance is usually the best option for most people who need life insurance. Term life insurance is going to be the most affordable and easy to understand with straightforward protection. We have a great guide on how term life insurance works that you can check out if you don’t know where to start.
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Taking ActionFiguring out what will be the best type of life insurance for you and your family is essential and knowing the pros and cons of each option will make buying the right policy easy. Remember, life insurance is NOT for ourselves, but for those that we leave behind, so don’t waste any time. You can click on any of the above buttons to get instant quotes and coverage.
Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat are the types of life insurance plans?
There are two primary forms of life insurance and those are Term Life and Permanent Life Insurance. The different combinations and layouts of these policies can create over 15 different variations of life insurance.
What is the best type of life insurance policy?
The best kind of life insurance policy for about 90% of Americans is going to be term life insurance. This is because of the costs and how simple the product is.
Which is better term or whole life insurance?
We had a panel of experts answer this question and it turns out, according to them, term life insurance is better than whole life because it is super affordable and easy to obtain.
What life insurance does Suze Orman recommend?
Suze Orman recommends that you purchase a term life insurance policy, she also recommends dental discount plans.
What is the main reason for buying life insurance?
The primary reason for buying life insurance is to protect the financial future of your family, loved ones, or business partners.
What is the most popular type of life insurance?
The most popular type of life insurance is term life insurance, when people think of life insurance this is usually what they are thinking about.
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