Life Insurance is Important!
Don’t worry! Getting Life Insurance is easy! The most important thing to do when thinking about Life Insurance is to find a trustworthy and knowledgeable agent.
You have come to the right place! Tennessee Health Insurance is an advocate for Life Insurance awareness. For those who need it, Life Insurance is VERY important. However, there are many life insurance products that we do NOT recommended!
Do you need Life Insurance?
If you have someone that depends on your earnings in order to live their life; you need life insurance (and Disability insurance). This is the cheapest way to ensure your dependents are taken care of if something happens to you.
Even if you don’t “need” life insurance it can be very useful for paying off debt, estate taxes, funeral costs, business planning etc…
Common Uses For Life Insurance
Income Replacement – Does someone depend on your income? If so it makes sense to protect your income with life insurance. It is your responsibility to ensure your dependents are taken care of. Losing someone you love is hard enough without having to worry about how you are going to pay the bills and provide for your kid’s future.
Stay-at-Home Parent – Child care is expensive. If a stay-at-home parent passes away it is going to place an immediate financial burden on the surviving spouse and children. A small to moderate sized life insurance policy will allow you to provide good childcare for your family.
Home School Family – If a family is committed to homeschooling, they need to have even more life insurance. If the main provider passes away and the family still wants to home school, they will need enough insurance to cover all the cost of living and future expenses.
Mortgage Coverage – Having enough life insurance to pay off your mortgage is a great idea. This will significantly lessen the burden of those surviving you.
Co-Signed Debt – If someone co-signed debt with you, they are also responsible for it. Using life insurance to ensure you can pay off any debt is a easy way to protect your co-signer and take care of your responsibilities.
Parents with Special Needs Child – Parents with special needs children need to consider the future. Life insurgence can be used to ensure that the child is taken care of once the parent or guardian passes. This may need to be placed in a trust.
Inheritance – Many people want to leave someone money when they pass. Life insurance is the most cost effective way to do this. Life insurance benefits are tax free!
Estate Tax – If you have a large estate, life insurance can be used by your heirs to pay the estate tax. This is helpful as otherwise they may need to liquidate assets in order to pay.
Funeral Cost – Funerals can be an expensive, unexpected cost. Life insurance can easily ensure this is covered.
Business Owners – Key Man Insurance, Buy-Sell Agreement, Business Valuations…Read more about advanced business planning HERE.
But I have Health Issues!
No matter what health issues you have going on, we can help. We have a dedicated team of underwriters that have great relationships with many insurance carriers. We can get you the best offer from multiple carriers.
We specialize in life insurance for: Diabetes, Cardiac Issues, Cancer, Weight, High BP and Cholesterol, Sleep Apnea, Liver and Gallbladder diseases plus much more!
Give us a call today! We may be able to help where others could not.
What Kind of Life Insurance? How Much do Need?
Free Insurance Calculator
So you need Life Insurance. But how much? What kind? We will help you figure out the answer to both of these questions.
How much Life Insurance you need depends on what you want the Life Insurance to do. For income replacement, you can use our calculator to the left. For other uses, give us a call! We can help you figure out the best amount for your need.
Our main concern is that you have the correct amount and type of life insurance to cover your loved ones. We take our job seriously and it shows in our reviews.
Term Life Insurance
For the majority of people, this is the best type of Life Insurance!
Term Life insurance is a low cost way to protect your family financially in the event of your untimely death. With term life insurance, you purchase a set dollar amount of insurance for a specified number of years. If you pass away during the life of that policy, it pays out a onetime lump sum payment to your beneficiary.
With term insurance you usually purchase a large amount of insurance to take care of financial responsibilities you might leave behind like raising children and a mortgage. You are usually trying to cover the years where your income would be needed the most by your family. It is suggested that you purchase 10-15 times your current income, although using a calculator is more accurate. That might look like a lot of money right now but if you are talking about getting your kids through school and then college, paying off a mortgage etc. it will take a lot of money.
In a level term plan the premium rate is set (locked in) at the time you purchase the plan. This means that you pay the same amount every year for the life of the policy. Therefore the earlier in life you buy your plan the lower your cost will be, before age and illness set in. After all, you will never be younger or healthier than you are right now!
Whole Life Insurance
Expensive Insurance with limited usefulness.
Whole Life insurance is most often bought as a permanent, smaller life insurance policy that builds a cash value over the years. It is like a forced savings plan for people who will not save money otherwise.
As you pay your premiums, they buy life insurance and help to fund equity in an account that grows in value as interest and dividends build up. This type of life insurance plan is also cheaper the younger and healthier you are at the time you purchase your plan and lock in your premium rate.
Whole Life insurance plans are expensive and not a good idea for most people. They are often times sold as “stable investments” or “good investments for kids.” But the truth of the matter is that the high policy costs and low interest rates equals low growth. They will almost always be out performed by other forms of investing.
If you already have a Whole Life policy it may be in your best interest to keep it. Give us a call and we will help you evaluate your current policy.
Universal Life Insurance
The best insurance for a death benefit that never expires.
Universal Life Insurance is sometimes called Guaranteed Universal Life Insurance (GUL). This type of insurance offers a level premium and death benefit that lasts until you die. This type of life insurance operates the same as term life insurance except for the fact that term life runs out after a period of time (10-30 years) while a GUL never runs out. Term is much cheaper as you must pay more for the permanent nature of the GUL.
When is this useful? A GUL works best when you need a death benefit that will never expire. If someone wants to guarantee an inheritance, a GUL will work well. If the parents of a special needs child need to ensure that there will be money left to take care of their child, a GUL will work well! What if you need to make sure some money is available to pay for a funeral? A GUL may be a good idea!
IUL and VUL Insurance
Danger! High cost and low transparency.
Generally speaking, we do not recommend indexed universal life (IUL) and Variable Universal Life (VUL) policies. These policies usually have a “guaranteed” rate and then a chance to do better, depending on the market. However the high cost inside these policies will usually destroy any growth. These cost are almost always hidden so you do not know what they are.
Insurance agents often use ridiculous examples to show possible growth. These examples are pure fiction and do not represent how your policy will actually perform. The majority of IUL’s sold in the past 20-30 years have preformed poorly.
