At some point in our life, you may consider purchasing life insurance. There are many different insurance products available in the market. If you are looking to buy the right kind of life insurance coverage, and are confused by the many choices, worry no more. In this blog, we will cover everything you need to know about the different types of permanent life insurance.
What are the Different Types of Life Insurance?
Generally speaking, there are only two main categories of life insurance: term and whole life insurance. The remaining types fall under these two fundamental categories. Each type of life insurance has its own pros and cons based on your needs.
What Is Term Life Insurance?
As the name suggests, term life is a type of insurance that is valid for a fixed time period of time. Your insurance coverage ends when the term expires. Upon expiry, you have the ability to renew your coverage at a new rate from providers such as Waffle Insurance. This type of life insurance is the most common and affordable option for most people that still want coverage. Term life insurance also tends to be one of the easier plans to understand as it’s fairly straightforward, and it provides financial protection to any dependents in the event of death.
However, based on your health and your overall requirements, there may be better life insurance options available for you.
Whole Life Insurance
Whole life insurance is the second fundamental category of life insurance. It is a type of insurance that lasts your whole life, and it is comparatively more expensive than term life insurance. With whole life, you pay premiums over your entire life, which makes this category of insurance a little bit more complicated than term life insurance.
Those people with lifelong dependents, like disabled children or spouses, can benefit from whole life insurance more than others. Still, it’s wise to compare term life and whole life insurance, as well as other types you might be looking at, so that you can make the most informed decision possible and get the coverage that’s right for you.
Universal life Insurance
Universal life insurance (ULI) is a type of insurance where you can change your insurance plan throughout your lifetime. It falls under the whole life insurance category; therefore, universal life insurance falls on the expensive side of the spectrum. It also builds up a cash value amount overtime, which allows you to borrow against your policy or use the funds to pay off your premiums.
Indexed Universal Life Insurance
Indexed universal life insurance (IUL) is a subtype of ULI. However, the cash value behaves differently.
Indexed life insurance behaves similar to a stock index fund. The insurer sets an interest rate for your insurance policy’s investment performance based on the performance of an index of stocks. Most of the offerings of IUL are just the same as ULI. However, your cash value account will behave differently in terms of growth and market volatility.
Variable Life Insurance
If you are looking for both an insurance policy and an investment opportunity, then variable life insurance may be right for you. The money you pay into variable life insurance goes into multiple sub-accounts that work just like mutual funds.
It is a pretty simple and easy way to grow your assets. However, just like any other investment, you can face investment losses depending on stock market performance.
Variable Universal Life Insurance
With variable universal insurance, you can adjust the premium and death benefit amounts anytime. However, the additional flexibility can also make this type of life insurance complicated to understand. It also contains additional commissions and fees that allow for its flexibility.
The Bottom Line
There are many different life insurance options available on the market today. For most people, a simple term or whole life insurance policy will cover their needs.
However, it is recommended that you explore several options to help find the life insurance that’s right for you.
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