There are various aspects to consider before getting a life insurance policy. One of them is a sustained doubt about the significance and need for life insurance. A life insurance policy is relevant for all individuals who are concerned about the financial future of their family in case of death.
Apart from the purely protectional needs, life insurance policies, like whole and variable life insurance, offer the opportunity for tax-free investment and reaping dividends, and they have a built-in cash value. Purchased with due discretion, it can be utilized as liquid cash to cater to the various needs of policyholders.
Whole life insurance and term life insurance are the two basic forms of insurance policies. With time, there have been different variations to suit the changing demands of people. A term life insurance policy is also called temporary or short-term life insurance. These are purely protection-oriented and provide death benefits only if the insured dies within the period specified in the policy. In case the insured lives past the specified duration, no money is given.
People with short-term insurance needs, like a young individual with dependents, a house loan or a car loan, favor this kind of insurance policy because they are cheap and affordable in comparison to whole life policies. In the initial years the premiums are very low; however, as the mortality risk of the insured increases with age the premium cost increases and at time becomes more than that of whole life insurance.
There are now two kinds of term life insurance, namely level term (decreasing premium) and annual renewable term (increasing premium) policies. The premiums of level term are initially higher than renewable term, but become lower in the later years. Whole life insurance has an ingrained cash value and guaranteed life protection features. The initial steep premiums of whole life insurance may exceed the actual cost of the insurance. This surplus, which is the cash value, is added to a separate account and can be used as a tax-free investment to reap dividends, and is also used to enable the insured to give a level premium latter on. There is a guarantee of getting the death benefit on the maturity of the policy or death of the insured, apart from cash value surrendered in case of cancellation.