Recession or Not - It Makes Sense to Review Your Life Insurance

With lots of recent headlines about the mortgage meltdown, stock market woes, job losses and the impending recession, any number of financial sites have been recommending a life insurance review and update as a source of possible budgetary savings.

With term life insurance costs having steadily declined over the last decade, reviewing your current life insurance needs and costs is an excellent idea. However, when you think about it, a life insurance review should be undertaken every year no matter what the economic climate.

Life Insurance - First, Make Sure You Have Enough!

As you might imagine, we get a wide variety of questions about types of life insurance and when to buy life insurance. Recently some of the hot topics have been:

• Should I buy return of premium life insurance?
• Should I consider whole life?
• Should I buy universal life to 100 for a lifetime premium guarantee?
• Is variable universal life a good investment?
• Should I buy a 20 or 30 year term life insurance policy?
• I’ve just quit smoking. Should I wait until a year has passed and I can get non-smoker rates before applying for life insurance?

American Attitudes - Life Insurance & Life Risks

A study released in December of 2007 by AXA Equitable (AXA Equitable Protection Report) deals with American Attitudes About Life Insurance.

The study found that many Americans have been “lulled into a false sense of security,” and are relying on employer sponsored group life insurance to meet their personal life insurance needs.

“Human Life Value” - What’s Your Economic Worth?

“Human Life Value” is a phrase used to represent an individuals economic value. More specifically, it represents how much money you’d need today (with interest earnings) to replace your projected income and employer sponsored employee benefits until retirement.

While it is occasionally used as a life insurance needs device, “Human Life Value” analysis is more commonly used is in computing damages (loss) that arise from an individuals premature death.