If you listen to the radio in the car, it's likely that you've heard commercials for life insurance.
The ads throw around words like term life, whole life and talk about monthly payments for a certain number of years .It can be pretty confusing if you don't know the lingo. Worse, you may be losing out on financial security (and opportunities) if you don't have a life insurance policy — even if you're young and healthy!
Here are a few things you should know about life insurance and why you should consider investing in yourself this year.
The first thing to know is that there are several types of life insurance available. The most common types are term, whole, universal, variable, and final expense.
- Term Life Insurance: This is life insurance that expires after a set number of years, which you can time to coincide with a major event such as the end of your mortgage payments or your child's graduation from college. It is typically the most affordable type of insurance and has set monthly payments.
- Whole Life Insurance: Whole life insurance is there for your entire life and pays a guaranteed benefit amount when you die as well as the interest that you earned from your payments. It's considered an investment vehicle and is often more expensive than a term life policy.
- Universal Life Insurance: A Universal life insurance policy gives you a bit more financial flexibility with how much you are paying for life insurance. If you need to reduce your life insurance payments, you can do that -- but the balance comes out of the final cash value that your survivors would receive.
- Variable Insurance: This is another type of whole life policy, but it gives you a little bit more choice when it comes to how your payments are invested. You may earn more in interest than with a normal whole life policy, but you also assume the risk if your investments perform poorly.
- Final Expense Insurance: This is insurance that is literally designed to cover your final expenses, including burial costs. The benefit is usually small and this is typically a more expensive type of life insurance. Because of that, it's not very popular.
Do you really even need life insurance? You may be surprised to learn that even if you're single, young, healthy or not the breadwinner in your family, you should have life insurance. Here's why:
Even if you're single, you should get life insurance.
You may have heard a major national life insurance company remind you that life insurance "isn't for the people who die, it's for the people who live." It's true! Even if you are single and have no family, a life insurance policy can help your parents or siblings pay for funeral expenses and the costs associated with breaking your apartment lease or selling your home, distributing your possessions and any medical costs you incurred before your death.
If you're a stay-at-home-parent, you should get life insurance.
Most people think that life insurance is just there to help make things financially easier should the breadwinner in the family pass away. But even the parent who may be staying at home with young children should have life insurance to pay for things like childcare, cleaning and all the other tasks that person was doing for the family.
If you're young and healthy, you should get life insurance now — don't wait!
Whether you're getting a term life policy or a whole life policy, you'd be smart to get life insurance coverage while you're young and healthy. Why? It's much less expensive to get life insurance at a young age than it will be to get insurance when you're near retirement age. Plus, if you choose a whole life policy, you have more time for your invested money to grow, giving your survivors a much nicer payout when you pass away. (You can designate some of this money to your favorite charity, too, leaving behind a great legacy.)
There's a lot to learn about life insurance and which type is right for you. If you'd like to learn more, check out our online financial education partner Banzai.org. They have free, short and interactive articles to help you learn more!
