The Benefits of Life Insurance

Depending on who you talk to, you might get a variety of opinions on the value of life insurance. Because of the variation in opinions, you might be confused if life insurance is a beneficial investment or not. There are actually ways you can use your life insurance while living. We will cover the ins and outs of both term and whole life insurance to help you understand life insurance benefits. 

General Benefits of Life Insurance

There’s plenty of debate topics surrounding life insurance, such as which type of life insurance is best, how to set up a policy, how to use your policy, and much more. However, most agree that having life insurance is important for (1) funding a funeral and miscellaneous death expenses and (2) covering any monetary needs the policyholder provides for their family. Yearly income and college tuition are two of the most common expenses policyholders plan to cover with life insurance. 

Within the broad umbrella term of life insurance, there are two main kinds of life insurance policies: term insurance and permanent insurance. There are benefits to each of these types of life insurance policies, and we’ll look at each in more depth. 

The Benefits of Term Life Insurance

Term life insurance involves paying a premium to the insurance company for a limited amount of time. Then when you die, your family will receive a death benefit to help cover expenses. Here are some of the term life insurance benefits: 

• Usually only covers a 10- to 30-year term. This limited term period helps people pay less in premiums. 
• Often the cheapest way to get life insurance. Because of the limited time and lack of cash value. 
• No surrender fees if you can’t afford the policy in the future.

While these benefits can be useful, there are also some disadvantages to term life insurance to know about as well: 

• No benefits while you’re still alive. Term insurance only provides a death benefit. 
• No cash value component. Term insurance does not create cash equity. 
• Premiums are unaffordable in later years.
• Term insurance is temporary, and will expire.

To learn more about term life insurance, read our article on How Term Life Insurance Works

Permanent Insurance

There are two main types of permanent insurance sold today. Indexed universal life insurance, and whole life insurance.

The Benefits of Indexed Universal Life Insurance

Indexed universal life insurance (IUL) is a type of universal life insurance that combines a one year renewable term life insurance policy with a cash account that is tied to an index like the S&P 500. Here are some of the indexed universal life insurance benefits:

• Flexible premiums because the term insurance premiums may be covered by money in the cash account.
• Initial cost can be low.
• Indexed growth in the cash account if the market does well.

These benefits sound very nice, but unfortunately there are disadvantages about IUL that can be quite sizeable:

• Policy is based on term insurance which increases in cost over time.
• Large surrender fees.
• Earnings are capped in the cash account

If you want to dive deep into how IUL works, check out our recent article on What is Indexed Universal Life Insurance?

The Benefits of Whole Life Insurance

Whole life insurance is the other type of permanent life insurance policy. Whole life is similar to term in that you pay a premium in order to get a death benefit, but there are some other major benefits of whole life insurance: 

• Includes a cash value component. You’re able to accumulate equity in  your whole life policy, as your death benefit becomes paid up. 
• Death benefit and cash value are guaranteed.
• The cash value accumulated can be used while you’re still alive. This is why whole life is often called life insurance with living benefits. 
• You can earn dividends that are tax free

The cash value of your policy can then be used to finance expenses, help with your income or fund your retirement. Whole life insurance is the best way to provide for your family when you’re gone, and build financial wealth while you’re alive. 

Here at Life Benefits, we can help you learn how to use a whole life insurance policy to accumulate a high cash value, and we can teach you how to use that cash to help with retirement. 

The Bottom Line on the Benefits of Life Insurance

There are many benefits of having life insurance. There are the usual benefits of helping your family after you die, but there are benefits that can help you while you’re alive. Life insurance is a great way to build a financial legacy that will benefit your family for years to come.