Life Insurance

How do I know if I should get life insurance?

If someone depends on you financially, chances are you need life insurance. Life insurance provides cash to your family after your death. This cash (known as the death benefit) replaces your income and can help your family meet many important financial needs like daily living expenses, mortgage payments and college savings. What's more, there is no federal income tax on life insurance benefits.

How would your loved ones fare financially without your income?

Would they have the money to pay for your final expenses (funeral costs, medical bills, taxes, debts, lawyers fees, etc.)? Would they be able to meet ongoing living expenses like housing, groceries, clothing, healthcare, etc? What about long-range financial goals? Without your contribution to the household, would your surviving spouse be able to save enough money for retirement or for your kids' college education?

Life insurance helps ensure that the people you care about will be provided for financially, when you're not there to care for them yourself. It provides you with the peace of mind that your loved ones will not have to add financial burdens to an already difficult situation.

Types of Life Insurance

  • Term
  • A form of life insurance that covers the insured person for a certain period of time, the "term" that is specified in the policy. It pays a benefit to a designated beneficiary only when the insured dies within that specified period, which can be one, five, ten, or twenty years. Term life policies are renewable, but premiums increase with age.

  • Whole Life
  • The oldest kind of cash-value life insurance that combines protection against premature death with a savings account. Premiums are fixed and guaranteed and remain level throughout the policy's lifetime.

  • Universal
  • A flexible-premium policy that combines protection against premature death with a type of savings vehicle, known as a cash value account, that typically earns a money market rate of interest. Death benefits are adjustable within limits, at the insured's request, generally subject to a medical examination. Once funds accumulate in the cash value account, the premium can be paid at any time but the policy will lapse if there is not enough money to cover annual mortality charges and administrative costs.