Life Insurance - which company/policy, please?

[cellg8]

Hi All, I'm thinking about purchasing a life insurance. What do I need to need to look for? I really like my car insurance agent from Allstate but do you think they offer competitive rates/coverages compared to other life-insurance specializing companies out there? What company do you think offers the best value/coverage for the money? Thank you in advance for any feedbacks you might have... John

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[$manager]

You need to shop for the best rate. You also need to educate yourself on the difference between term and permanent insurance eg whole/universal.

Term is about 1/10th the cost of UL but it is not permanent and does not build cash....BUT you get a lot more insurance for the buck.

Also never, ever forget that on average 100% of the first year premium is.....COMMISSION. So....there is a HUGE monetary incentive to sell you a LOT of insurance.

Be careful. Do your due diligence....How do I know this? I SELL INSURANCE as part of financial planning.....I am just one of the few who does not need to in order to feed my family and look at it as a dirty necessity....so I lay all the cards on the table.

[RUFLUV]

If you are thinking of a perm policy (like whole life or a variant) in order to build csah value or for other planning purposes you need to be sure you have a reputable company tha has been around and will be around...I have policies with Northwestern Mutual Life and recently shopped for a rather large perm policy..The won out again - on balance the price was just a little higher however the company structure & stability made it a no brainer. This stuff can be very complicated I strongly recommend you get a planner or agent you trust.

[RDH]

I n s u r e . C o m plug in your own terms (length, amount, etc) and it'll give you numerous vendor choices and costs associated with....and the carriers rating...

[BGolden]

Depends on what you are looking to accomplish. I personally believe life insurance should be purchased when you are younger, starting a family and so forth. When I sold insurance and I had all my licenses plus 6 and 63. I liked to sell term policies which are cheaper but in the end, but if you do not use them (die) your money is wasted. With that being said they are generally 25% or less of the price of a whole life product, which will pay the death benefit when you die or reach 100.

There are other benefits to a whole policy but really if a person is wise with his or her money they can make way more investing it themselves than you can make in any UL or VUL. IMO most life policies are a joke and are huge money makers for the insurers. Many times the insurance company will take out a very large policy covering their own life policies issued. So they lower their cost and invest the rest. You can do the math from there.

I would recommend stacking term policies. For example if you wanted 3 million in coverage i would get a 2million 20 yr policy and a 10 year 1 million policy. As you get older you should be investing and accumulating more wealth. So in theory you would not need as much in the event of death later in life. Then use the savings invest and live long.

Hope that helps. I will answer any question you have. I will tell you I left insurance because there are many people selling junk to make money and I couldn't stand it.

Good luck.

[dgoldenz]

Originally Posted by cellg8

Hi All,

I'm thinking about purchasing a life insurance. What do I need to need to look for? I really like my car insurance agent from Allstate but do you think they offer competitive rates/coverages compared to other life-insurance specializing companies out there?

What company do you think offers the best value/coverage for the money?

Thank you in advance for any feedbacks you might have...

John

You need to answer a few questions for yourself first:

1. How much coverage do you need? How did you arrive at that number?
2. How long will you need the coverage? If you purchase only term insurance and outlive the term, what do you plan to do at that point?
3. How is your health? Any prescriptions? Any medical conditions? Any family history of cancer/heart disease before age 60? Any history of drug or alcohol abuse or DUI's? Are you a smoker or non-smoker?

You will find that Allstate has VERY high rates compared to other insurance companies and their underwriting will be much more strict. If you are looking for term insurance, the most competitive companies are usually Prudential, John Han****, Western Reserve, Savings Bank Life, ING/Reliastar, West Coast Life, Banner, Transamerica, etc. If you are looking for permanent coverage guaranteed forever, a universal life policy with a no-lapse guarantee will get you the most death benefit for your dollar. Whole life policies from Mass Mutual, Northwest Mutual, etc. will be much more expensive for the same level of death benefit.

Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions.

[$manager]

He pretty much nailed it. Great response on how to try to help you arrive at a need. You might add to #2, depending on income and NET worth, if you will be "self insurable" at some time in the future.

As a general statement, most "captive" agents/agenices are going to have higher rates. The ones he mentioned below are the cheapest of late, especially Banner, West Coast and ING for healthy non smokers.

And he is exactly correct on permanent i.e universal, universal, universal.

Good stuff bro.

Originally Posted by dgoldenz

You need to answer a few questions for yourself first:

1. How much coverage do you need? How did you arrive at that number?
2. How long will you need the coverage? If you purchase only term insurance and outlive the term, what do you plan to do at that point?
3. How is your health? Any prescriptions? Any medical conditions? Any family history of cancer/heart disease before age 60? Any history of drug or alcohol abuse or DUI's? Are you a smoker or non-smoker?

You will find that Allstate has VERY high rates compared to other insurance companies and their underwriting will be much more strict. If you are looking for term insurance, the most competitive companies are usually Prudential, John Han****, Western Reserve, Savings Bank Life, ING/Reliastar, West Coast Life, Banner, Transamerica, etc. If you are looking for permanent coverage guaranteed forever, a universal life policy with a no-lapse guarantee will get you the most death benefit for your dollar. Whole life policies from Mass Mutual, Northwest Mutual, etc. will be much more expensive for the same level of death benefit.

Feel free to send me a PM if you have any questions.