The sale of life assurance policies may have increased manifold, but the fact is: very few people buy it for the purpose of insurance. Most people go for it with the intension of building their assets under easy terms. Of course, there is no harm in it; but before you do that, you should know about its pluses and minuses. Let us now know them.
What is a life insurance policy? Let us first understand this. Technically a life insurance policy is a life assurance policy. It can be defined from two different perspectives:
According to legal perspective, a life insurance policy is a contact between the policyholder and the insurer; whereby, the policyholder is required to pay certain sum as premium at regular interval and in return, the insurer is required to pay certain sum as benefit on the occurrence of the insured event.
From the financial perspective, life assurance is an intimidation, which brings together individuals exposed to some specific contingency to form a common pool of fund; if that contingency does occur, claims are paid from that fund for its mitigation.
It is a fact that very few people actually benefit from the claim event because it rarely takes place. That is the reason why people prefer the cash value policies, which along with providing the usual life insurance benefit also build up assets for you. They pay benefit if the insured event takes place and if you outgrow the need of insurance, you can cash out the policy and get the accumulated cash value plus interest in return
Since only the money above the cost of insurance can be utilized for growing the cash value, these policies are always overpriced. If you want to know more, get instant life insurance quotes from online brokers and compare them side by side. A glance through them will corroborate all the facts. If you want the coverage at an affordable rate, you should always opt for a pure life insurance policy such as a term life. You can also build up your asset by investing separately in suitable investment funds.
Indeed, the term life policies are most reasonably priced. If you are wondering why, there are two important reasons to consider. Firstly, they need to take into account only the cost of insurance; funds need not be diverted to grow any investment opportunity. Secondly, because the policy is sold for specified term, in more than 99% cases, it expires without having to make any pay out. It is a fact that, the main benefit of buying the policy lies in the peace of mind one enjoys, not in the actual claim event; such events rarely take place.
However, because a term life policy is affordably priced, the cost of insurance needs to be established more accurately than in many other life policies. Consequently, these policies have to undergo long underwriting process. Of course, the underwriting process is not short in whole or universal life either and so if you want instant life insurance coverage, may be the life insurance no exam policy is your only option. These too are mostly term life policies, but they have been designed for speedy and simplified purchase.
Let us go back to our original discussion, i.e. the pros and cons of buying a cash value policy. The pros have already been discussed. Whether you live or die, the policy will compulsorily provide some return. In case you die while the policy is in force, your beneficiary will receive the death benefit and if you outlive the need for insurance, you can cash out the policy and use the proceeds as is necessary. One of its main disadvantages is that the policy is sometimes much too expensive. Comparing different categories of life insurance quote substantiates the facts
However, that is only the visible side of the story. If you go deeper, you will see that the amount above the cost of insurance is deposited in a separate fund to grow the cash value of the policy. Yet, if the insured dies while the policy is still valid, the carriers retain this amount and release only the death benefit. Alternately, when you cash out the policy, the carriers are going to retain the amount deposited in the insurance account. Therefore, why should you waste your money on insurance that you do not need? If you are buying the policy only for capital building, go straight for investment funds; for insurance buy term life. That is much smarter.
Article by David Livingston of EQuote, who is a specialist in everything life insurance. For more information on life insurance rates and instant life insurance, visit his site today.