Long term care insurance. Life Insurance, MD in the Black

Question 1: Should I buy life insurance in residency? How to buy life insurance.

Question 2: What kind of life insurance should I buy?

Question 3: How much life insurance should I buy?

Question 4: Where can I buy life insurance?

Question 5: How much will my life insurance policy cost?

Should I buy life insurance?

If you have people that depend on your income, yes. If you plan to have people that depend on your income and you want to lock in rates while healthy, yes. Otherwise, no (at least not yet).

What kind of life insurance should I buy?

Level term insurance, probably a term of 20 or 30 years.

Low price life insurance

How much life insurance should I buy?

This should be calculated (see below), but most residents will likely be buying policies in the $1-3 million range.

Where can I buy life insurance?

A local agent recommended by a colleague, review service (e.g., Yelp), or online database (e.g., Term4Sale).

How much will my life insurance policy cost?

At the time of writing (February 2018), there are several reasonable options for a 30-year-old non-smoking female to buy a $1M 30-year policy for $520-575/year. A similar policy for a male resident ranges $670-700/year.

Types of Life Insurance Policies

There are two main categories of life insurance: term and permanent.

Vision insurance

The defining characteristic of term policies is that they offer a predetermined death benefit for a specific period of time (i.e., the policy term), after which they expire. There is no cash value in term policies.

Permanent policies, on the other hand, do not automatically expire and can be maintained throughout the entire life of the insured, provided that premiums are paid. Permanent policies also have a cash value component. Permanent life insurance are generally not recommended as they are a mixture of investment and insurance products, the price of which is typically higher than dealing with each of these financial areas separately.

An outline and brief description of different kinds of life insurance policies is provided below in Table 2.

Calculating Life Insurance Needs

The crudest commonly-used estimate for life insurance coverage needs is ~10 times your annual salary. This type of estimate fails to account for a number of personal factors and could over- or underestimate your insurance needs.

A more specific estimate can be made by adding up existing debts, monthly expenses, and anticipated expenses such as college tuition or funeral costs, then subtracting out your assets that can be applied to these costs and any income that will remain after your death (e.g., spousal income). There are many life insurance need calculators available for free online that can help you with these estimates (e.g., Life Happens Insurance Need Calculator ).

Finally, as with all insurance decisions, each of these estimates may need to be adjusted for personal risk tolerance.

Decide whether to buy life insurance during residency based on current and/or anticipated financial dependents

Insurance life online quote term

Estimate the amount of level term life insurance you need to buy

Price out policies from different companies online

Contact a local agent to sell you a policy at the price point you find online