Whole Life Insurance
Let’s face it, we all know that no one will live forever; however, what we don’t know is when that day will come. Regardless of your current stage in life, Life Insurance can help protect your family from such uncertainty around when one might pass.
There are two main types of life insurance available depending on your need: Term Insurance and Permanent Insurance (Universal Life and Whole Life).
There is a type of life insurance available for each phase of your life.
Types of Life Insurance
Term Life Insurance
This type of insurance provides protection for a specific period of time and can help in your earlier stages of life, phases 1 and 2:
Phase 1 - Estate Creation: As you are in the beginning stages of building your estate, you are looking to insure your estate if you die too soon.
Phase 2 - Estate Perseveration: As the wealth holder, you are looking to make sure your dependents do not have to sell assets in a fire sale to continue to make ends meet in the event of your premature death.
Permanent Life Insurance
This type of insurance provides you protection for life and is best suited for phase 3, retirement and estate planning:
Phase 3 – Estate Transfer: You have assets that will persist beyond your lifetime, and you would like to transfer those assets to family members or a charity.
If this is you, you may want to consider using Whole Life Insurance, a type of permanent life insurance. Whole Life Insurance allows you to save up some of your premiums to build cash value that you can access in the future. This type of insurance can be participating or non-participating.
Participating whole life insurance allows policyholders to participate in the financial performance of the insurance company’s underlying participating pool. If mortality experience, investment returns, and costs are better than anticipated, larger dividends will be paid. If those factors are worse than expected, smaller dividends may be paid.
Dividends can also be used to purchase additional mini-units of insurance called “Paid-Up Additions” or PUA’s. These can be used to reduce or offset your premiums or even rent additional term coverage.
Find the Right Fit
Too often, good people with good objectives have ended up with the wrong type of insurance. The right type of insurance depends on your vision for your family, business, and community. Talk with an advisor who understands your objectives and advocates for what you are trying to accomplish.