The Life Insurance Company For all your insurance needs

I recently retired from my job and lost all my benefit’s . I was wondering I am 62 years old and if I buy term life insurance at 62 and if something should happen to me in a year or so would my family collect the 15,000 policy or would they get a different rate. I have no idea how Life insurance works. Can anyone tell me the best Insurance to get at my age. I am in good health but don’t want to leave a lot of expenses if I pass away. I would appreciate all answers

Most policy’s have a 2 year look back window. As long as you didn’t outright lie on your insurance application the full death benefit of the policy would pay out. An outright lie would be like saying you didn’t have cancer, but you really did.

Your first question should be what do I want the policy to do? Do you want a large face amount but only for a set period of time (term) or do you want a smaller face amount that is guaranteed to last forever (permanent)?

Buying online and through an independent life insurance broker is how you will get your best deal too. Good Luck!

Will it happen right away or gradually throughout the year if so? I was ready to buy our policies a couple of weeks ago until I saw a large article published about the probability of this happening…

It depends.

As new actuarial tables are developed, new mortality and expense calculations are developed. If an insurance company creates a new insurance policy that incorporates these new (lower) mortality expenses, then the premiums of the new product will be lower.

But let’s say an insurance company wants to create such a policy on January 1, 2008 and that company is going to do business in all fifty states. The insurance company will have to get the product approved by fifty different state department of insurance. This process may take more than a year.

Here is the bottom line: if you need [term] insurance to protect your family, buy it today. Then keep your eye out for a policy to replace it at a later date. Don’t use the possibility of a lower rate, at some possible day in the future as an excuse to delay getting protection for your family.

so my dad just had a brain tumor removed and they are performing a biopsy on it, but it’s most likely a grade 3 or 4 malignant tumor. i’ve read a lot of different stuff, but i was wondering what the life expectancy is after operation. some facts about the condition:

-he’s under 60 years old, non-smoker, non-drinker, in general good health (aside from the cancer)
-the tumor was on the surface, so as much of it was removed as safely as possible.
-he will be going through a combination of chemo and radiation therapy for the next six months.
-the mass was 5cm long by 3cm wide

From what I’ve read, some people are saying there’s about a 1-3 year life expectancy after operation, and others have said, with the removal of the tumor and treatment, patents will live 10+ years.

It’s quite a difference, just wondering if anyone has any more insight.

There are a number of different sorts of malignant brain tumors, with very different prognoses. Some are really quite good. The only person who can tell you this is your father’s doctor.

We are in the process of getting life insurance quotes. Married, wife is 23 and husband is 27 (he is a pilot so has horrible rates). At first we thought we would want a 30 year term policy for $300k. When we met with an agent he gave us quotes for term and universal life. The premiums were about $30 more a month (increased from $170 to $200 for the two of us) for the universal life policy. I would have never considered a permanent policy until receiving these numbers as from my research I thought we would get very low term rates and unaffordable permanent policy rates. $200/month is unaffordable so we are likely going to drop our amount of coverage to the minimum we’d need anyways. I don’t foresee us to need insurance after the 30 years is up, we would rather invest on our own, etc. Just looking at the cost per month and that after 30 years we’d be out the $170/month with nothing to show except peace of mind vs. after 30 years paying $200/month having a bunch of money guaranteed to us (another form of retirement savings although with high fees), would it be dumb to choose a term policy because of our weird rates? Which should we pick (I am still shopping around to make sure I can’t get a better deal on term but this is going through our family’s agent)? Thanks!
From the guaranteed projections for this 50% fixed 50% variable (based on S&P500) policy we would come out ahead vs. investing the $30/month difference on our own. Otherwise, I would never even consider this. I had always heard it was better to get term insurance. Thing is, our rates are so high as my husband is a pilot (otherwise it would be under $80/month and term would be a better deal). The goal is to protect the surviving spouse against our debts for the next 30 years while we expect to have debts (or our parents if both of us die). Are there any other types of permanent insurance that we should look at instead that may still make more financial sense than universal? I am also getting more quotes to see if this Term Quote was high. Also, this rate is subject to decrease after they evaluate the questionnaire my husband answered about his flying (the agent assumed he would get the same rating as his other clients who are pilots). We have separate retirement savings.

It’s impossible to say which you should pick, because from what I see, you’re "trying to get a deal". You haven’t done the MOST important thing, when buying life insurance – SET THE GOAL.

What’s the GOAL you want the life insurance to acheive?

Keep in mind, life insurance is primarily a DEATH planning tool, and a for most people, a crappy investment tool.

Always RUN THE NUMBERS. Then, check the guarantees. Many agents sell Universal Life based on the BEST possible scenario – which leaves many, many MANY unhappy insureds when the market is down – like now.

Set your goal. Compare UL products based on minimum GUARANTEED returns. I think when you read the small print, the amount that’s GUARANTEED, is NOTHING.

And compare to average stock market returns here:http://www.msfinancialsavvy.com/calculators/monthly_deposit_savings_calculator.php

$30 a month for 30 years at 10% – stock market average – adds up to $$69,000. Compare that to the GUARANTEED amount on the UL, and verify that the PREMIUMS are guaranteed level, also.

I am thinking about going into the nfl next year, does it matter when I buy life insurance. Also term versus whole and what about disability. To rates increase since I am a professional athlete. Does it matter if I buy it before I am technically a pro athlete? Supposed to be a 5th rounder, making about 700k my first year
I have friends that work with northwestern mutual and was curious if they would be able to help me out?

It doesn’t matter when you buy it before or after you become a professional football player. The earlier you buy it, the cheaper it is. It gets more expensive as you get older. Not only that, if you buy it right away like today or tomorrow, you won’t have to worry about your family finances in case something does happen to you.

Since you are a football player, your rates will not increase because of your occupation. However, rates are also determine by medical factors such as past family health history, your height and weight, your age, smoker or non-smoker, and results from blood and urine tests. If you take prescription drugs, you should let the medical physician know when he or she takes a blood sample from you.

As for the different life insurance out there, my blog goes into detail for each type. But here’s the general info about them:

Whole life:
Level premiums for life of the policy.
Policy expires around age 100.
It builds cash value after the first 2 years (so no cash value in the first 2 years)
Cash value gets a low rate of return of 1 to 3%
If you want to take money out, you borrow and pay loan interest of 8%
If you die, beneficiary gets death benefit, but insurance company keeps the cash value.
An average 30 year old who is healthy pays $1000/year for $100,000 coverage

Term life insurance:
Level premiums for a specified time (ie 1 year, 5 year, 10 year, 20 year, 25 year, 30 year, or 35 year)
Does not build cash value.
At the end of term, you may:
1) Cancel the policy
2) Renew and pay premiums at your current age. You will be renewing every 1 or 5 years and premiums will go up each time you renew.
3) Convert to a whole life policy
4) Exchange it for another term policy
If you die during the term, your beneficiary gets the death benefit.
An average 30 year old who gets $100,000 coverage pays:
$200/year for 20 year term
$250/year for 30 year term

If you are worried about becoming disabled, you can add a "Waiver of Premium" rider to your policy for an extra cost. This rider will pay all future premiums for you in case you become disabled. If you do not become disabled by age 60, the waiver of premium will cancel. If you become disabled before that age, the waiver of premium will stay in force to the end of the policy date.

As a financial advisor, I recommended all my clients to buy term and invest their money in mutual funds. If you take a look at the cost between whole life and term insurance, term insurance is initially cheaper. If that 30 year old bought a 30 year term, he would be saving $750/year for the next 30 years. If he invest that $750/year in mutual funds and he gets a 10% rate of return, he will have about $149,000 saved. While most people won’t believe they can get 10% return because of today’s economy, in the long run, that is very possible. If you take a look at the S&P 500 index, which lists the top 500 largest companies in the US, it has an average annual rate of return of 11% in the past 30 years.

I personally own a 20 year term insurance and I contribute $400/month to my Roth IRA since 2006. All my money is invested in 4 different mutual funds. These mutual funds I pick has an average annual return of between 8 to 14% in the past 30 years. It doesn’t mean it gets 8 or 14% every year. Some years they are up 40%, some years they go down 20%. It will always fluctuate every year, but in the long run, the average is 8 to 14%.