Life insurance can be purchased on both a group basis and by individuals.
Group life insurance is available for companies with three or more employees. Group life insurance is written through Term Life Insurance contracts and may or may not be portable upon leaving the group.
Individual term insurance is designed to provide life insurance protection for a limited period of time. The face amount of the policy is payable only if the insured dies during the time specified in the policy and there are no cash values associated with the policy. There are different types of term life insurance. These include:
Level Term Life Insurance: The amount of insurance protection remains constant for the period of years stipulated in the policy. The premiums for a level term policy may also be scheduled to remain constant.
Decreasing Term Life Insurance: the amount of insurance protection is reduced each year, from the date of issue.
Convertible Term Life Insurance: this type of term policy can be converted from term to permanent insurance without having to provide proof of insurability.
There are also many types of individual insurance that have cash values associated with them. These are often referred to as permanent insurance. Types of permanent insurance include:
Whole life insurance: A policy that requires the policyholder to pay the premiums on the policy for his or her entire life. At the death of the insured, the beneficiaries receive the face amount.
Limited Pay Life Insurance: A limited pay life insurance policy is similar to a whole life policy except the policy owner is only required to pay premiums for a specified number of years.
Single Premium Whole Life Insurance: Similar to a limited pay life policy, a single premium policy is paid up in the beginning by one premium payment from the policy owner.
Universal Life Insurance: The key aspects of a universal life policy are flexibility in premium payments and adjustable death benefits. Premiums paid into a universal life policy accumulate and, together with interest, make up the policy’s cash value. Once sufficient cash value is accumulated, the policy owner has considerable flexibility with regard to subsequent premium payments. Policy owners may raise (usually subject to evidence of insurability) or lower their policies’ death benefits as they deem appropriate, with minimum difficulty.
Variable Life Insurance: A variable life policy provides whole life insurance under which the death benefits and cash values vary to reflect the experience of a distinct pool of investments held in a so-called separate account. The separate account of securities acts as a mutual fund. The values of these securities are subject to change, and the death benefit of the variable life policy also changes to reflect these changes in value.
Variable Universal Life Insurance: Variable universal life incorporates the flexibility of universal life and the investment features of variable life. Like universal life, it offers flexible premium payments and an adjustable death benefit. Like variable life, cash values are held in a separate account and the investment performance of that account can affect the amount of the death benefit.
Deciding how much life insurance you need can be a daunting task. The professionals at Executive Planning Group, P.A. will work with you to understand your financial goals so we can recommend the proper amount of life insurance.
Call us today at (601) 982-3000 or email us to request a quote on any of our life insurance products!
