Why should I compare?
In the back of their minds some people quietly wonder, “Is my life insurance policy healthy? Am I paying too much? Is the company still as solid as it used to be?”
However, very few people ever find the time time to check up on their policies. And if they did, fewer still would know how to do it. Many life insurance companies have cleverly trained us to buy a policy and then forget about it. Why should we think about it any more? It’s not a pleasant subject, so why dwell on it at all? Most of us go on living normal lives. We simply pay our premium and happily put it out of our minds.
Because of this, it’s not even immediately clear why anyone would even want to review their life insurance in the first place. If this sounds a little like you, you’re not alone. So here are some things to consider:
LIFE Study Reason #1
Your spouse could end up receiving much less than you think.
An undervalued life insurance policy might be the worst legacy you could leave your family in the event of your premature death. You might ask, “How could leaving behind ’something’ be worse than providing ‘nothing’?” The answer is this. If your spouse expects nothing and gets nothing, there’s pain but little surprise. If, however, your spouse expects to be cared for until retirement, and instead finds out she needs to go back to work in a few years, this adds resentment and bewilderment to the pain. We’ve seen it. As financial planners, the developers of The LIFE Study have seen first-hand the effects of ‘too little too late’.
LIFE Study Reason #2
The elephant in your house that no one notices.
Life Insurance can often be one of the most valuable assets within a family’s financial portfolio, yet it often goes neglected. Very few people ever give it the same kind of attention as they might give their other investments. Think of reviewing your life insurance in the same way you might consider refinancing your mortgage. Just as there can be better interest rates for you to save money on your mortgage, there can be improved conditions to strengthen your life insurance. The difference is that these insurance benefits are not as widely published or known as are the mortgage interest rates!
LIFE Study Reason #3
The life insurance industry has changed.
Believe it or not, the life insurance industry has a tendency to get better with age. Free market conditions have had the effect of forcing life insurance companies to become more ‘efficient’. Market economists understand that this efficiency usually translates into better products and lower costs. Life insurance ‘products’ are no different. Your personalized, easy-to-read LIFE Study report will include up-to-the-day current information about new policies and other lesser-known options to strengthen your life insurance.
LIFE Study Reason #4
Life insurance regulatory laws change.
In recent years, the way in which life insurance policies are designed and priced has changed. Some of these improvements have happened because of market pressures and changes to medical underwriting, while other changes can be the result of new (or revised) regulatory laws. The McCarran-Ferguson Act provides for states to control their own insurance laws allowing for significant disparity between policies originating in different regions of the country. What this means is that a change in the law ‘there’ yesterday could create a competitive advantage ‘here’ today. The LIFE Study can reveal these opportunities for improved coverage at lower premium costs.
LIFE Study Reason #5
Life changes.
Since the time you purchased your original life insurance policy, some things have probably changed in your life. Has your health changed? Have you moved? Do you have any more children? Have you changed jobs? Has your net worth changed? Have any children moved out of the household? There’s a good chance the reason that you originally purchased your life insurance has changed since then as well. In addition, The LIFE Study can also help you avoid the classic life insurance ‘bait and switch’ tactic where a salesman quotes you a cost estimate before you’ve answered important health questions that may disqualify you from that preferred rate.
LIFE Study Reason #6
People are living longer.
Can this really affect the cost of insurance? You bet your life. As recently as 2002, many experts in the insurance industry still agreed that the top life expectancy was only 100 years old. But by 2003, the newly-adopted mortality tables developed by the Society of Actuaries had put the top age of Americans at 120. That’s a big shift. Most insurance companies now accept these new statistics thereby enabling the emergence of new policies that can have better coverage at a lower premium cost. This means that if you had a slightly lower insurance ‘rating’ before, (perhaps because of a medical history) now you might have a better ‘rating’ simply because the actuarial tables have shifted enough to include you in a lower cost group.
LIFE Study Reason #7
Check the financial strength of your life insurance company
With all of the current economic uncertainties, it is important to keep an eye on the financial strength and ratings of your life insurance company. With your free life insurance evaluation you will receive the current financial strength of your life insurance company.
