Types of Life Insurance Products and Policies Available
Life insurance products are generally split into four major categories: Term, Accidental Death cover, Whole Life policies, Universal Life policies, Limited pay and endowment. They are outlined in more detail below:
Term Insurance
Term Insurance give the holder life insurance coverage for a term of months or years so long as the customer pays the premiums required. This policy will not accumulate a cash value. The term insurance policy will give the holder protection due to death and nothing else. Most insurance companies will sell term insurance policies with lots of different options in order to provide customers with what they want. The term policy can be for one or more years. Although the term insurance contract is set in stone customers can choose to pay their premiums at a set rate or on an increasing scale and they can change as they see fit in the future. There are Level term, Guaranteed renewal policies and annual renewable terms available for the customer to purchase each are designed for specific sectors and are mainly provided by employers to employees.
Accidental Death Cover
Accidental death cover is an insurance product that covers the policy holder when they die due to an accident. It will cover accidents from most kinds of injuries including work related ones. These policies will also usually cover accidental loss of limbs or loss of hearing etc. So if you where to accidentally lose a finger at work there is a set payout that would be covered by the insurance. Because it only covers accidental insurance these policies can be very cheap and affordable and are good for people for work in dangerous jobs. However you will need to read the fine print of the policy because usually it will not cover people that put themselves in harms way for pleasure or work or example if you where to work in the military or fly jets for recreational use. Most of the permanent life insurance policies will include accidental coverage in the full plans as well.
Whole Life Policies
Whole life insurance policies provide the customer with a value of life insurance based on a cash amount i.e. $500,000 or $1,000,000, the customer will then pay a premium based of the amount of cover they wish to receive. In the unfortunate event of death the customers beneficiaries will receive the lump sum payout usually tax free and it is guaranteed by law. The main disadvantage with is that the cash values they accumulate are generally kept by the company at the time of death, with the benefit going to the beneficiaries of the the policy holder.
Universal Life Policies
Universal life insurance policies are similar to whole life policies in that they provide permanent life insurance but they give you more options in relation to how you pay your premium and the benefit can grow in value over time. Within the universal life policies there are the following varieties: fixed universal life insurance, equity indexed universal life insurance, variable universal life and guaranteed death benefit. The varieties basically centre around offering you different options for premium repayments, changing the level of increase on the cash value and the ability to lower the death benefit as the client see fit.
Limited Pay
One of the rarer types of life insurance is the Limited Pay insurance, there are quite simple in design and are largely used when clients are expected to make large sums of money within a set time frame. Basically the premiums are paid over a set period of years and after the set period of time no more premiums need to be paid. These policies usually last around 10-20 years.
Endowments
Endowments are permanent life insurance policies where the cash that is build up over the life of the policy is the amount the beneficiaries receive when the policy holder reaches a certain age or passes away. This type of insurance generally costs more because the time is shortened in which to pay the premiums and there is set age where it has to pay out.