Life Insurance FAQs

The most common purpose of life insurance is to provide money for your family if something happens to you. When you purchase a policy, you select a death benefit your beneficiary will get if you pass away. Depending on the type of policy you buy, your policy may also build cash value, which can be used for things like education costs, retirement income or as a source of emergency funds in the future.

This will depend a lot on your specific circumstances. In general though, you may want to buy enough insurance to cover your family’s financial needs, like the mortgage, any outstanding debts, education costs and final expenses if something happens to you. For an idea of how much you might need, our life insurance calculator can help.

The three most popular types of life insurance are term, whole and universal. Term life provides protection for a specified period of time (like 10, 20 or 30 years) and is typically very affordable when you’re younger. 

Whole life and indexed universal life insurance policies provide permanent coverage as long as premiums are paid. They typically have higher premiums than term life but also build cash value that can help with things like providing emergency funds or an estate for your family later in life.

A life insurance policy usually only covers one person. And in most cases, there would be a significant change in your family’s lifestyle if something happened to either you or your spouse.  A life policy for each of you can help ensure that your family will be able to maintain their lifestyle.

Group policies are a great benefit for employees but are typically only active while you’re employed with that company. So if you leave the company or retire, you may be without coverage. 

A personal life policy can provide coverage regardless of your employment status. If you wait until you retire to get coverage, premiums could be quite a bit higher as you get older.  

Quite possibly. While you may not have a spouse or family depending on your income to get through life, you may have debts and final expenses that someone will be responsible for. And if you’re a younger single person, there’s a good chance you’re pretty healthy, which typically means better rates than you’ll get in the future. You could also take advantage of a whole life or indexed universal life insurance policy that can build cash value over the years.

There are a lot of benefits to purchasing a policy for a young child. The younger you are, the more insurable you usually are – and the lower your rates will be. Whole life or indexed universal life insurance can also be a great way to give your child a way to help protect their own family down the road, or save for the future. The cash value buildup could eventaully be used to help with educations costs or retirement. And if the worst happened, a child’s policy could be used for final expenses, something that could be a financial strain otherwise.

It depends on your specific situation. Life insurance can help seniors prepare for the future. While you may not have dependent children, a mortgage or other major debt anymore, it can help your spouse or partner with your final expenses and everyday living expenses if something happens to you. The cash value of a whole or universal policy could also help add to your retirement income.

Term life insurance is life insurance you buy for a specific amount of time, like 10, 15, 20 or 30 years. If something happens to you during that period, it can provide money for your family to use for things like covering final expenses, paying off the mortgage and other debts, and saving for education costs and retirement.