Ideas, tips and news about life insurance and the uses of life insurance

There has been an ongoing life insurance controversy. Which is better, term life insurance or whole life insurance? Like most controversies there are extremes of opinion and the best answer lies somewhere in the middle. Neither one is right all the time and neither one is wrong all the time.

Term life is inexpensive to start and is probably the best choice to maximize the amount of life insurance one can have, especially on a limited budget. A young family with young kids and a lot of bills is the prototype of who should have term life. But this same family with high disposable income may want to start early on a whole life or universal life plan.

A successful individual with good income but with obligations to a family or business may want to consider the advantages of a whole life insurance policy especially from a quality mutual life insurance company (one owned by the policyholders). Companies that fit that category are Guardian Life, Northwestern Mutual, Mass Mutual and New York Life. A whole life policy guarantees the insurance benefit for life, as long as you make your payment (premium). It develops cash value and grows tax deferred. Interest rates are competitive with bonds. The choice and investigation can be made easier with the help of a qualified professional.

The life insurance advisors at lifeinsure.com can give you a hand.

I just thought I’d put up a quick post because of all the testimonials/success stories our staff at lifeinsure.com have been getting lately from clients. If you want to talk to professionals who care about you first regarding your life insurance or disability insurance needs – start at that site. Check out the testimonials page by following this link.

“Financial expert” Suze Orman was quoted in the Detroit Free Press today stating: “Protecting your loved ones with a term life insurance policy costs one-third less than it did 10 years ago. That makes life insurance a great deal for anyone who needs to purchase a policy. But what’s really interesting is how much folks who already have a policy can save if they ditch their old expensive policy and take out a new one.” Ms Orman goes on and later in the article speaks on return of premium life insurance policies. “If you absolutely need to get something back from an insurance policy, take a look at a term policy that offers a Return of Premium.”

One of the most common questions we get is: “How much life insurance should I have?” or “How much life insurance do I need?” This ranks up there with: “What kind of life insurance should I get?”

OK, how much life insurance? Go to the How much life insurance? page and you’ll go to a great page that explains how to figure that out in simple terms. The general explanation is that you should insure for your human life value which is the amount of earnings that you’ll earn during your lifetime. This is typically 15 to 20 times your annual income. So, the easy explanation is simply to multipy your annual gross income times 15 to 20 and there’s your amount of insurance. There are more complicated formulas but this will get you started. To learn more you can go the education center on the lifeinsure.com site.

First of all, let’s define some terms. A mutual life insurance company is becoming a rare breed. It’s a life insurance company owned by the policyholders. This is different than a stock life insurance company which is owned by the stockholders.

In a mutual insurance company the profits are owned by the policyowners. A “participating” policy is one that participates in profits. These are issued by mutual insurance companies. A stock company typically issues “non-participating” policies. The advantage to having a policy with a mutual company with a participating policy is the possibility of greater returns, especially on a whole life insurance policy. These returns, of course are subject to the insurance company’s investment return, expenses and claims.

As mentioned, there are fewer and fewer mutual companies. Many have “de-mutualized” to become stock companies. At lifeinsure.com we represent some of the leading mutual life insurance companies that are still mutual, some of which have publicly stated that they intend to remain mutual. One can potentially do very well with a whole life insurance policy from a well run mutual life insurance company.

You can learn more about whole life insurance and other life insurance policies at the lifeinsure.com site.