When deciding how to plan your future finances, most financial counselors will advise that you buy at least some amount of life insurance-a sufficient amount to cover your family, particularly if your kids are younger and rely on your income for the immediate future.
The most confusing aspect of choosing the right life insurance plan is whether or not you should buy whole life insurance or term life insurance. Although you will find many insurance agents argue to the contrary, in most cases I would recommend that you not buy whole life insurance.
Here are two main reasons why I advise that most people stay away from whole life insurance:
1. It’s far more expensive than buying term life insurance
If you’ve ever compared life insurance rates, you are probably aware that there is a big difference in cost in monthly premium between whole life insurance and term life insurance.
In a typical scenario, if you are paying say $20 per month for $250,000 in coverage in a term policy, a whole life policy with the same amount of coverage may cost you $300 per month or more.
As you already know, this is only part of the story. The reason term insurance is far cheaper is that it only pays you a benefit when the policy holder dies, as opposed to the whole life policy that gains value and becomes an asset which the policy holder can borrow against or even cash out. This brings me to the second reason why I advise against buying whole life insurance:
2. A whole life insurance policy is normally a bad place to invest your money
If the $300 you were putting in monthly to a whole life policy were yielding a good return compared to other similar investments, it may almost be worth considering. But the truth is that these policies typically yield lower returns because of all the policy maintenance fees. In addition to that, most of these policies have a lack of transparency in trying to figure out what kind of return on investment you may get.
Furthermore, if you do want to cash out the policy later, then you will no longer have the coverage you need to protect your loved ones in case you die-which is the primary purpose of having life insurance in the first place. This makes it even more of a bad deal.
Most financial experts who are not insurance agents believe that the best financial plan is to buy term life insurance and invest the difference in premium. To put it another way, use life insurance the way it was designed-to protect your family financially, then take the money you would have spent on a whole life insurance policy and invest it in some other vehicle like an IRA.
This way, you will be giving your loved ones the financial protection they deserve at the lowest cost possible in case of your death and you will have the freedom and flexibility to choose the best investment vehicle with the money you will save.
Compare low cost term life insurance quotes today, and take the first step toward securing your loved one’s financial future at www.lifeinsurancequotetoday
categories: term life insurance,life insurance,insurance,financial planning,financial,home