Life Insurance, with the advent of things like Living Benefits and Long Term Care riders, has become one of the most exciting, stable and complete ways to protect your families financial future. Life insurance is no longer a "when you die someone gets paid" vehicle. Now it's designed to roll financial protections such as disability income, long term care, critical illness insurance and even retirement planning all into one policy with one payment! Life insurance, these days, can really be structured to provide you with a very complete set of financial protections for you and your family. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be very wary of advertised "teaser" rates for life insurance! The fact is no one can give you an accurate quote without talking to you a bit about your health and lifestyle. The advertised teaser rates are for fully underwritten (see more about underwriting below) policies for individuals that qualify for "super preferred" rates which, literally almost NO people qualify for! I've had MARATHON runners who do not qualify for "super-preferred" rates.

Living Benefits: what are they? Glad you asked. Living Benefits are there to provide a policy owner and their family substantial funds in the event a family member becomes disabled, contracts a critical or terminal illness, suffers an injurious accident or needs long term care. Living benefits are available to anyone as a stand alone plan or wrapped up into a life insurance policy which is fantastic. Stand alone Living Benefits plans are quite affordable and are a great way for a single person to protect their income from the economic ravages of a critical illness or serious accident. This is very important as the leading causes of bankruptcy in the U.S. continue to be

1). Treatment for cancer 

2). Treatment for heart attack or stroke

3). Treatment for injuries due to an accident
4). Disability income replacement

Here's how they work.

Disability: if the covered person becomes disabled for any time the life insurance policy pays out a monthly disability benefit to help ensure that person can maintain their standard of living and pay all their bills and put food on the table.

Critical Illness: if a covered person suffers a critical illness such as cancer, heart attack or stroke, paralysis, even Alzheimer's or Lou Gehrig's disease in some cases, the life insurance plan pays out a lump sum amount to help with the costs of care and any other bills and expenses that person needs to cover. In a stand alone plan the benefits usually pay out according to a schedule of benefits clearly stated in the policy  which pays out with each step of a treatment process. 

Accidents: if a covered person suffers an accident resulting in injury the life insurance or stand alone policy can pay out either a lump sum or according to a schedule of benefits clearly stated in the policy outline. Generally speaking- the greater the injury the greater the pay out.

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Long Term Care: if a covered person requires long term care the policy will pay out either a lump sum or according to a schedule of benefits outlined in the policy to help with the costs of long term care.

Retirement funds: with certain life insurance polices cash value accumulates which a person can then withdraw, tax free, in retirement to help maintain the standard of living they are used to. The cash value in an indexed universal life (IUL) insurance can be SUBSTANTIAL. In fact from 2009 to present if you had significant funds in an IUL you would have pretty much doubled you money today! And the indexed fund is FREE from market risk so if the stock market tumbles your cash does not!

There are also many forms of life insurance available these days with different types of qualifying factors (underwriting). A couple key things to note with regard to underwriting:

Guaranteed Issue: no medical questions or medical tests! You qualify no matter what. But, it does cost a little more than:

Simplified Issue: no medical tests, just answer some questions about your medical background and lifestyle and you will qualify depending upon your answers. But it does cost a little more than:

Medically Underwritten: a para-med will come to your house (or you can go to them), take blood and urine samples, check your blood pressure and weight you you will answer extensive questions regarding your medical background and lifestyle.

This is a very BRIEF overview of Life Insurance and living benefits. There is so much more to know. To set up a no obligation, no pressure consultation contact us today.