5 Ways to
Save
on Life Insurance
Life Insurance is a necessity these
days to ensure that your family is taken care of when you are gone, to ensure
that any outstanding debts will be covered, and so that your burial expenses
will not be a burden to others. However, finding affordable life insurance can
be overwhelming. Here are a few tips on getting the most coverage for your
money:
Shop Around Make sure that
you check with several insurance companies. Dont simply assume that the
insurance companies that you carry your car and/or home insurance with will
automatically give you the best rate. You should check not only with your
current insurance provider, often times they do give discounts if you have
multiple policies with them, but also with several other competitive
companies. Also, make sure that you are getting quoted for identical coverage
so that you can compare apples to apples.
Use Term Insurance Whole
Life Insurance Policies come with a built-in savings program, allowing you to
save up money towards future retirement. However, these policies typically
cost much more than Term Life Insurance and are much less beneficial then a
traditional retirement investment, such as an IRA. Term Life Insurance is used
to just pay your beneficiary in the event of your death for the amount
specified.
Select the right amount of
Insurance Many people make the mistake of purchasing inadequate amounts
of insurance based on their needs. Either they purchase too much insurance,
which might make your widow happy when you pass away, and waste money paying
the monthly premiums to keep it up, or too little insurance resulting on
hardships for your family after you are gone.
Carefully determine what the right
amount of insurance you need. A good rule of thumb is to calculate your
current annual income needs, multiply this by 10, and then add in any
additional outstanding debts such as home, cars, or credit cards.
If your needs change, increase
your current policy As you get older, chances are your families
financial needs are going to increase. In order to maintain their current
lifestyle, you are therefore going to require more insurance. Instead of
obtaining a new policy, it is typically much cheaper to add a rider onto your
existing policy instead of getting a new one. However, be sure to shop around
to make sure this is the case, it may be cheaper to get a second policy to
supplement your original one.
Live Healthy Leading a
healthy life-style makes you less of a risk to insurers. By not smoking,
excessive drinking, drug use, being overweight, or have a pre-existing medical
condition you will likely get a much better rate.
Health problems can make it hard
for you to find affordable insurance. Heart problems, diabetes, high blood
pressure, and other diseases make you a high risk. Although sometimes these
problems are unavoidable, there are occasionally ways that you can reduce the
risks involved, such as maintaining a proper diet and nutrition, exercise, and
living a low-stress lifestyle.
