Summary
The benefits derived from life insurance, and in particular term assurance, are assessed. The impact of your health, cancelling and re-insuring, and increasing your cover are also reviewed.
Now Is The Time To Take Out Life Insurance
By Michael Challiner 21/01/2009
Over the last five years the cost of life insurance has halved. Last year saw a record number of rate cuts and in the first six months of this year there has been the same number of cuts as was recorded in the whole of last year.
Life cover is often cheaper than you think. If your policy has run for several years, it would be a good idea to review the best rates on offer today.
- Life Insurance. Top Tips for Buying Online
- Buying life insurance online is easy but this article provides 5 money saving tips that the man in the street would otherwise be unaware of. Essential reading.
- Low Cost Life Insurance
- An introduction on how to find and qualify for cheap life insurance
- Life Insurance Without Life Value Why Young People Are Snubbing Financial Advice
- An interesting article dealing with the lack of awareness in the young about their personal financial situation.
- Life Insurance Providing Little Protection from Terrorism
- We sincerely hope that you are never caught up in a terrorist attack. But if you were would your insurance stand up for you ?
- Life Insurance and Critical Illness Insurance. Cancer tests to increase womens premiums
- The life insurance industry seeks approval to ask women for test results that can predict breast and ovarian cancer. This article explains.
To cancel your term insurance is simple. Just stop paying your premiums. It is unwise to rush into signing a new, more attractive, policy. There are so many factors, which affect the cost of a policy, such as your health, lifestyle, age and occupation.
Before accepting life cover, insurers will assess your past medical history and determine how often you are likely to claim. You will have to complete a questionnaire on your health, which they will check against your medical notes. You will certainly have to pay more, if you have a poor medical record.
You will find that it is only worth switching if you are in good health. You are best advised to stay with your present insurer if you have had a serious illness. Rival insurers will consider you to be a bad risk and charge you a higher premium.
A bad back, high blood pressure and depression are among the common ailments, which will count against you. Do not cancel your old policy until your new one is signed and sealed as the underwriting process may spring a few surprises. You cannot start up an old policy again once you have cancelled it.
Be cautious if you are offered extremely low rates. It probably means that the insurer is cherry picking, or in other words they tend to pick the people and families, who are enjoying excellent health, for the lowest premiums.
Do not change your policy just for the sake of a lower premium, but, at the same time, make sure you have adequate cover. You may also want to purchase additional cover when your personal circumstances changes. For example you may have more children, perhaps your salary has gone up or your mortgage has risen.
In the past, the cover you were recommended to buy was four times your income. Although this benchmark may have been reasonable, the money will not last long if you have a big family and many overheads. It may be prudent to buy more cover in these circumstances.
When you calculate how much you will need, remember to include any other existing life cover, like a death-in-service benefit from your employment.
Readers please note : You should undertake your own background checks before taking any action on any aspect mentioned in this article. Where the author has mentioned specific product details or given examples of how companies have reacted to specific situations, these should be correct as far as the author is aware when this article was written. In some cases additional background information not mentioned in the article has been used in obtaining the examples. Some examples or quotes may have been taken from information available in the public domain where all the background details may not be available. Insurers do change policy conditions and underwriting approach. They will view each situation on its own merits.
You should be aware that details of the topics written about within the articles can change. Therefore, always check out the current position before taking any action. You should also check that any action you are considering, or any proposed purchase, is suitable for your personal circumstances.
This article represents the author's personal views and is not necessarily endorsed by this web site. These articles should not be construed as this web site recommending any product or service.