Top 10 Tips For Picking On-Target Life Insurance
Life insurance is like waterborne sewage and going to school: nasty but necessary. Here are our top 10 tips to help you get over the pain of picking the right life insurance package.
1. You DON’T need life insurance if you
- are single and have no dependents or pets
- live in a rental property and you don’t own any other property
- have a paid-up car and you never want to buy another
- own investments that can tide you over for the rest of your life if you lost your job today
- have medical insurance that will cover every eventuality forever and
- do not intend to leave a legacy to any individual or any institution.
If you do not fit this profile then you DO need life insurance.
Follow the Rest of Our Top 10 Tips for Choosing Life Insurance
2. Term life insurance covers you for a certain period of time e.g. until the year the children leave home, while whole life insurance covers you until the moment you draw your last breath. Term life policies are more expensive that whole life policies so it might make sense to opt for the latter, which you can end at any time. Please note that if you later want to reinstate a whole life policy you stopped, the premium will be a lot higher. However, there is nothing stopping you having a number of whole life policies.
3. Your core life policy should cover all your debt, including funeral costs and should ensure that your dependents are able to carry on for a decent time without incurring financial hardship while mourning the loss of you.
4. It is probably worth your while to add a couple of bells and whistles to your life policy in the form of disability cover, loss of earnings cover, dread disease cover and education cover. The latter will ensure that your children’s education is paid for no matter what befalls you.
5. Beware of investment options attached to life policies. Do not muddy the waters. Life insurance is life insurance and investment is investment. Keep them separate.
More Top 10 Tips for Life Insurance
6. Go with the biggest and the best insurance firms. You know the names: Metropolitan Life, Old Mutual, Sanlam, Liberty Life and Discovery Life. These institutions have massive investments and assets. This helps to ensure that your insurance company is around to pay out your life insurance when you die. Get quotes from them all and make sure you compare apples with apples. Keep asking questions until you know exactly what your quote covers.
7. Review your life insurance policy on its anniversary. Start at the beginning as if you were buying the policy for the first time. Refresh your memory as to the details and why you bought the policy in the first place. If your circumstances have changed you might find that your life insurance needs have changed too.
8. Call your life insurance company every anniversary and ask if there are any enhancements that have been introduced that you might opt for regarding your policy.
9. Contact an independent life insurance broker if you are at all unsure of any detail in your policy.
10. Keep your policy documents in a safe place and tell your friends and relatives where they are so that they are not burdened with having to hunt for them in the event of your death.
Now you have the top 10 tips read another article about selecting life insurance
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All info was correct at time of publishing