Term Life Insurance Comparisons - What You Need Is Lots of Information

When you’re shopping for term life insurance you’ll need to do more than just compare rates to find the best policy for you. You need rates plus information.

The more useful information that is included in your term life insurance comparison, the easier it will be to select the insurance company and term life insurance policy that will best meet your needs.

Can I Reduce My Life Insurance Amount Without Buying A New Policy?

In most cases the answer is YES! Let’s say that 4 years ago you purchased a $1,500,000 term life insurance policy with a 20 year guaranteed level premium term period. In reviewing your assets and liabilities today, you realize that you no longer need the full $1,500,000 of coverage to meet your original income replacement, education and liability needs.

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.

Term Life Insurance With Up To 35 Years of Guaranteed Targeted Coverage

In the next several days you’ll be able to buy term life insurance with guaranteed level term periods ranging up to 35 years. Top Rated American General Life Insurance Company’s Select-A-Term products (minimum $250,000) are offering new coverage periods of 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35 years.

These additional term life insurance coverage periods will allow low cost life insurance shoppers to target guaranteed level term periods of 10 years, 12 years and year-by-year from 15 to 35 years (depending on your age at them time your policy is issued). This additional flexibility makes it even easier to select the exact term period for your protection needs and pay for a policy that is properly priced for your precise funding needs.

To learn more about saving money with targeted funding, type the word “target” in the search box above and you will find several posts with examples describing how targeted funding has worked for others. For targeted term life insurance quotes, please go to 1stQuote.com.

Life Insurance for People Over 50, 60, 70?

In a number of recent blogs and financial sites there have been an abundance of articles and comments regarding life insurance for people age 50 and over. Unfortunately, a lot of the information and opinions provided are just plain wrong! For example, a major financial portal, in an article entitled “Term or Whole Life” states:

“……… people who need coverage starting in their 60s and beyond may have no alternative but to buy whole life. Most companies simply won’t sell policies to people over about age 65.”

What a bunch of baloney! Right now, I’m looking at term life insurance quotes for a male born January 1, 1938, making him age 70. The quotes I’m seeing show the availability of both 10 year and 15 year guaranteed term insurance from numerous companies.

Life Insurance Medical Exam - Take a few simple steps before the examiner arrives.

No one likes taking a medical exam for life insurance. However, taking a few simple steps before the examiner arrives could make a real difference in your ultimate rate classification and what you’ll pay for your new coverage.

When you schedule your exam, arrange to have the examiner arrive as early as possible in the morning. You’ll get your very best lab results after fasting at least 8 hours, and if possible 12 hours before your exam.

How Long Does It Take to Get A New Life Insurance Policy?

Once you have gotten life insurance quotes, selected a new life insurance policy, completed your application, taken your medical exam and they have been submitted to your chosen life insurance company you need to allow from 4 to 8 weeks for your new life insurance policy to be approved and issued.

If you have an unexceptional medical history and are not currently under a doctor’s care, approval and issue is most often quite prompt. However, if there have been recent medical visits, treatments or ongoing health issues, the life insurance company underwriters will need additional information from your physician(s) and health care providers.

If additional medical information or test results are needed from your doctor(s), a request is sent and a fee is paid in advance by the life insurance company. Unfortunately, the longest delays most often occur in waiting for this information to be provided to the life insurance company.

In some cases, a personal call to the health provider helps. However, even with regular follow-ups, getting these “attending physicians statements” is often a slow process and the insurer must simply wait until the required records have been received.

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?

Life Insurance With No Medical Exam - Deal or No Deal?

You see the ad’s online — “Get Up To $300,000 of life insurance with no medical exam”, “…..Quick and Easy”, “…..Automatically Issued”, and so on. It’s an appealing idea. No one likes medical exams and long delays while waiting for an insurance company decision on their eligibility for life insurance.

The idea of answering a few questions, getting approved, paying your initial premium and printing your policy online in only minutes has lots of appeal. So what are the drawbacks?

Life Insurance and Cholesterol - LDL, HDL and Ratios Matter

It seems as though nearly everyone is being treated for elevated cholesterol these days, and it not just the age 50+ citizens anymore. We see numerous 30 and 40 year olds and a growing number of 20 something applicants who are attempting to deal with elevated cholesterol.

And now the good news! From a life insurance perspective, controlled cholesterol alone (whether you are being treated with medication(s) or not) will not exclude applicants from super preferred and preferred rate pricing classifications. That being said, what are the limits? That is to say, what are common cholesterol underwriting guidelines?