I’m sure that you can agree with me when I say that term life insurance seems to be extremely hard to learn about and even more frustrating to purchase. But is it? It turns out that term life insurance has a framework that doesn’t change and once you learn it, life insurance, in general, will be easier to understand and buy.
I’m sure that you can agree with me when I say that term life insurance seems to be extremely hard to learn about and even more frustrating to purchase.
But is it?
It turns out that term life insurance has a framework that doesn’t change and once you learn it, life insurance, in general, will be easier to understand and buy.
In this guide, I am going to go over exactly what term life insurance is, how it works, and how to use this information to get the best rates.
What is Term Life Insurance?
Wikipedia defines Term Life Insurance as – Life insurance that provides coverage at a fixed rate of payments for a limited period of time, the relevant term. After that period expires, coverage at the previous rate is no longer guaranteed. The client must either forgo coverage or potentially obtain further coverage with different payments or conditions.
Let’s put this “in Plain English” Term life insurance is life insurance that covers you for a specified term length.
At the end of that term, you can either renew the coverage with a rate increase, let the coverage lapse, or get coverage elsewhere.
The confusing part to the majority of people looking into term life insurance comes when a life insurance agent starts trying to explain to you how term life insurance works.
Instead of using complicated words and “insurance-ese,” I will break it down even further.
Below are the different term lengths that you usually find for a term life insurance policy and what they mean:
Annually Renewable Term (ART): This term length option will cover you on an annual basis and will renew at the end of each year, this also means that your rates to go up every year as well.
We never recommend this option unless someone only needs coverage for a year to satisfy some legal issues.
10 Year Term: This term length will cover you for ten years, and at the end of the term it will renew at a higher rate.
15 Year Term: This term length will cover you for fifteen years, and at the end of the term it will renew at a higher rate.
20 Year Term: This term length will cover you for twenty years and at the end of the term it will renew at a higher rate.
30 Year Term: This term length will cover you for thirty years and at the end of the term it will renew at a higher rate.
Other Term Lengths: Some carriers offer 5-year and 25-year terms; however, the majority of carriers don’t offer those two options as a choice.
What Happens if You Die Before the Term Ends
This might seem like an odd question; however, I get asked this question often and think it’s important to explain in more detail.
Term Life Insurance coverage will start from day one. There is NO waiting period.
You don’t have to live for the full term length for the coverage to pay out, the term length basically shows how long will your coverage be in force before the rates have to renew or the policy ends.
For Example: If you are approved for a 30 Year Term policy, your coverage starts from day one. If you pass away any time during that 30-year term, the policy will pay out. If you die after the 30-year term and did not renew the policy, then the policy has ended and nothing will pay out.
Term Live vs. Whole Life Insurance
When it comes to this matchup, until recently, there have always been drastically different opinions on which option is best for you to choose. Are term life insurance rates best or whole life insurance rates, and why you should choose which option?
However, I bring you great news.
I recently reached out to over 100 Personal finance experts and asked them this simple question: “Term Life vs Whole Life, which would you choose and why?”
I was able to get 41 experts to respond with the difference between whole life and term life insurance.
This post is the best way to give you an unbiased and honest opinion as well as give you an actual answer based on their votes.
So, now that you know a bit more about what term life insurance is, and also what term length options are available, we need to figure out how much term life insurance you need.
To make that determination, and for much more helpful information, please see the full article at Term Life Insurance: Everything You Need to Know in One Place.
Join the conversation!