When you hear that word, what does it make you think of? Does it instill fear in you or does it instill peace?
It is a sad statistic that 30% of Americans still do not have life insurance (according to LIMRA). This doesn’t just mean that these people leave their families burdened with debts (including the cost of burying them), but it means they did not enjoy the benefits of life insurance while they were alive.
At this point, you might be thinking, “what is this guy talking about?” and thats because so many have been taught to believe that life insurance is something you buy to prepare for death.
Here is the Good News about Life Insurance… it’s something you can use while you are ALIVE!!!
Here are a few of the (non death) benefits of life insurance, assuming you have the right kind of plan:
- You can use it to build your long term savings
- You can borrow from it – and pay yourself the interest instead of a lending institution
- You can leverage it as a tax free retirement plan
If this sounds foreign to you it’s because the life insurance industry – and perhaps Dave Ramsey – has sold you on buying term life insurance, which does not have any of those benefits. Here is what you need to know about term life insurance…
- A very small percentage of people still have their term policy in effect when they die.
- Term policies are for a “term” (usually 10, 20, or 30 years), then the premiums become so high that people can’t often afford to renew them.
- Often term policies lapse due to non payment. This actually happened to me about 10 years ago on a term policy I had. It was a $250,000 policy for which I paid $16.19 per month. Here is the problem… it was due to expire next year, so it’s another case of the insurance company winning.
The best type of life insurance to have – in my experience – is whole life or universal life. These types of policies have provisions such as:
- They do not expire
- They build cash value over time
- You can often borrow money from them
I hope this has not been confusing, but rather enlightening. If you would like to have a personal consultation to discuss your situation and how we might be able to help you, contact Anthony at 480-338-6744 or anthony[at]finamark.com