Travelers life insurance. How Much Is Term Life Insurance?, Quotacy

If you’ve ever asked the question: Life insurance cost.

How much is term life insurance?

You’ve come to the right place.

The truth is there isn’t one answer as life insurance costs vary depending on your (and your loved ones’) financial needs, your lifestyle, your job, your hobbies, and several other factors.

There are also several different types of life insurance available: term life, whole life, and universal life insurance.

Everyone’s situation is unique so a policy that works for another person may not be the best choice for you.

Figuring out the cost of a life insurance policy that fits your needs and getting reliable life insurance quotes is much easier (and much less time consuming) than you may think.

Our handy quotes comparison tool can easily determine the cost of your term life insurance policy.

5 Factors That Determine Your Life Insurance Costs

Two people with the same type of policy may pay different rates depending upon their age, health, gender, and lifestyle.

Age: The younger you are, the less expensive life insurance is as you are less likely to die. If you are age 70 or older, you have a higher risk of dying, so you will pay more for your life insurance policy. Premiums jump quite a bit at age 50. Lock in your rate before age 50, if you can.

Health: Your height, weight, and smoking status, as well as medical conditions, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, or asthma, all affect the cost of life insurance as they may increase your risk of death.

Gender: Women statistically live longer than men and therefore pay less. In Montana women and men pay the same cost for life insurance.

Family History: Your health could be as clean as a whistle, but if someone in your immediate family was diagnosed with heart disease at age 50, then you may pay more for your life insurance policy. Quotacy knows which insurance companies will offer the best rates to someone whose mother died of cardiac arrest at age 50, for example. Our team knows which carrier to recommend to each of our clients.

Hobbies: Scuba diving, skydiving, private aviation, world travel, and any recreational activities that could be considered risky affect your life insurance costs.

Why life insurance

How Much Is Whole Life Insurance?

Whole life is a permanent insurance product that provides coverage for your entire life. A cash value accrues over time within the policy.

Because of this cash value and the lifetime coverage, whole life insurance has higher premiums (up to five to ten times higher) than level term life insurance.

A portion of your premium payment goes to pay for the actual whole life insurance coverage that is an amount equal to the face value of the policy. The cash value builds from investments made by the insurance company with the remainder of your premium.

With whole life policies, you have the option to borrow or withdraw your cash value at any time.

Borrowing: If you borrow from it, the insurance carrier treats it as a policy loan and you pay interest until it is repaid. If you die before it is repaid, the carrier will reduce the death benefit your beneficiaries would receive by that unpaid amount.

Withdrawing: You will owe income taxes if the amount you withdraw is more than what you have paid in premium—otherwise it’s tax-free.

When you die your beneficiaries only receive the face amount of your policy. The cash value balance it is not added to the death benefit.

If you want to purchase a whole life policy, you have three different payment options:

Premiums payable to 100 years

Premiums payable for a limited number of years

Single Premium Payment

Premiums Payable to 100 Years

Pay a fixed monthly or annual payment to age 100.

Limited Pay

Pay premiums for 10, 15, or 20 years to pay off your policy.

How Much Is Universal Life Insurance?

Universal life (UL) insurance is one of the most versatile types of permanent life insurance. It has a high degree of flexibility and separates expense, protection, and cash value elements.

Family life insurance quotes

Premiums: Instead of being locked into a fixed premium schedule for life, you can potentially pay any amount between the required plan minimum to the IRS-imposed maximum, depending on your cash flow needs and accumulation goals. Premiums may be increased, decreased, or even skipped depending on policy conditions.

Death Benefit: You can adjust the amount your beneficiaries receive upon your death within plan limits without having to buy a another policy. This can reduce your costs, if necessary.

With universal life insurance, the premiums you pay each month go into a metaphorical bucket. Each month the insurance carrier takes out the administrative fees and the cost of insurance. The funds that are left earn interest.

The amount of interest earned depends on the rate declared by the insurance carrier and how much money is currently in the bucket. The rate will never fall below a contractually-guaranteed minimum and the accumulated cash value can be accessed at any time through policy loans or surrenders.

Policy loan: This enables you to borrow money from your policy using the value as a form of collateral. These loans do accrue interest and, if not paid off while you’re alive, the unpaid amount is deducted from the death claim benefits.

Full surrender: If you decide to fully surrender your policy, you are terminating all coverage and typically you will receive the accumulated policy value, less a surrender charge and any accrued loan interest, if applicable.

Partial surrender: This occurs if you decide to permanently withdraw a portion of your policy’s cash value, but keep some or all coverage active. There is no interest charged for a partial surrender, but there is a flat fee.

With universal life policies, you typically have two coverage options.

Option A: Your amount of life insurance coverage (the death benefit your beneficiaries receive) stays level and, as the cash value accumulates, the amount of life insurance you pay for decreases.

Option B: The cash value is added to the initial amount of life insurance, extending your coverage as the cash balance grows.

You choose the amount of protection best for your situation.

As a policyowner, you have more flexibility with a UL permanent product than a whole life insurance policy, but you also assume some additional risk. UL policies typically have fewer guarantees than whole life coverage, so you must be careful to manage your premium payments and any distributions taken to ensure that your policy remains active.

While a UL insurance policy is less expensive than whole life, it is still not the most inexpensive form of life insurance.

Cheap life insurance online quote

How Much Is Term Life Insurance?

Term insurance is typically the most affordable option due to its temporary nature, and by far the most commonly owned life insurance product in the USA.

You may be wondering: how much is term life insurance?

There is no cash value with a term insurance policy but when you get term life insurance quotes, the insurance company guarantees they will not increase the price you pay during this level term period (10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 years) to protect your loved ones.

If you should die within the term, the entire coverage amount goes to your loved ones or other beneficiaries.

When your term ends, coverage at the previous price is no longer guaranteed. You must either forgo coverage, convert to a permanent policy, if available, or buy a new policy by going through the application and underwriting process again.

A clause is written into most term insurance contracts that allows you to convert your policy to a permanent one. Term life insurance is ideal for those who need coverage for a specific period of time, but if your situation changes and you prefer coverage for your lifetime converting to a whole or universal life product is an option.

Return of Premium Term Life Insurance Cost

Return of premium term life insurance (ROP) is a term insurance policy where the insurance carrier will return to you all the premiums you have paid, if you outlive your policy’s term length. Your beneficiaries would receive the death benefit (policy face amount), if you would die during the term.

Your monthly (or annual) premiums are fixed and do not change as you get older or if your health changes. Return of premium term life insurance costs about two-thirds more than level term life insurance. ROP premiums are higher than traditional term life premiums because the insurance carrier is paying out whether you live or die. You must, of course, keep your policy active by paying your premiums.

We’ve covered the main types of life insurance and their costs. There are many factors to consider when shopping for life insurance, so if you need additional help do reach out to our expert team of advisors.

The amount and type of life insurance you need depends on how much risk you are willing to take and the needs of the people whom you wish to protect. No one ever anticipates needing to use their life insurance, but the unexpected does happen.

With Quotacy’s term life insurance comparison tool, you can easily find out how much term life insurance would cost you without entering any of your personal contact information. It’s really that easy to start shopping for affordable term life insurance at Quotacy today.