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Whole life insurance policies provide permanent life insurance protection until you die, as long as premiums are paid when due. Premiums for whole life policies generally remain level throughout life. Shorter premium payment periods, such as 15 years or a single premium payment, are also offered. Whole life insurance covers you for your entire life, not just for a specific period such as term insurance. Your death benefit and premium in most cases will remain the same. Whole life insurance also builds cash value, which is a return on a portion of your premiums that the insurance company invests. Your cash value is tax-deferred until you withdraw it and you can borrow against it. We have assembled some of the finest and cheapest sources on Whole Life Insurance Quotes and Cheap Whole Life Insurance. The process is very simple - answer just a few questions and get instant Whole Life Insurance Quotes from several leading and reputed insurance companies!
Whole life insurance, or whole of life assurance is a life insurance policy that remains in force for the insured's whole life and requires (in most cases) premiums to be paid every year into the policy. Whole life insurance typically requires that the owner pay premiums for the life of the policy. There are some arrangements that let the policy be "paid up", which means that no further payments are ever required, in as few as 5 years, or with even a single large premium. Typically if the payor doesn't make a large premium payment at the outset of the life insurance contract, then he is not allowed to begin making them later in the contract life. However, some whole life contracts offer a rider to the policy which allows for a one time, or occasional, large additional premium payment to be made as long as a minimal extra payment is made on a regular schedule. In contrast, generally allows more flexibility in premium payment.
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Types of Whole Life Insurance
There are several types of whole life insurance policies. New York State defines six traditional forms: non-participating (aka "non par"), participating, indeterminate premium, economic, limited pay, and single premium. A newer type is known generally as interest sensitive whole life. Other jurisdictions may classify them differently, and not all companies offer all types. There are as many types of insurance policies as can be written in their contracts while staying within the law's guidelines.
Non-participating
All values related to the policy (death benefits, cash surrender values, premiums) are usually determined at policy issue, for the life of the contract, and usually cannot be altered after issue. This means that the insurance company assumes all risk of future performance versus the actuaries' estimates. If future claims are underestimated, the insurance company makes up the difference. On the other hand, if the actuaries' estimates on future death claims are high, the insurance company will retain the difference.
Participating
In a (also par in the USA, and known as a with-profits policy in the ), the insurance company shares the excess profits (variously called dividends or refunds in the USA, bonus in the Commonwealth) with the policyholder. Typically these refunds are not taxable because they are considered an overcharge of premium. The greater the overcharge by the company, the greater the refund/dividend. For a mutual life insurance company, participation also implies a degree of ownership of the mutuality.
Indeterminate premium
Similar to non-participating, except that the premium may vary year to year. However, the premium will never exceed the maximum premium guaranteed in the policy.
Economic
A blending of participating and , wherein a part of the dividends is used to purchase additional term insurance. This can generally yield a higher death benefit, at a cost to long term cash value. In some policy years the dividends may be below projections, causing the death benefit in those years to decrease.
Limited pay
Similar to a participating policy, but instead of paying annual premiums for life, they are only due for a certain number of years, such as 20. The policy may also be set up to be fully paid up at a certain age, such as 65 or 80. The policy itself continues for the life of the insured. These policies would typically cost more up front, since the insurance company needs to build up sufficient cash value within the policy during the payment years to fund the policy for the remainder of the insured's life.
Single premium
A form of limited pay, where the pay period is a single large payment up front. These policies typically have fees during early policy years should the policyholder cash it in.
Interest sensitive
This type is fairly new, and is also known as either excess interest or current assumption whole life. The policies are a mixture of traditional whole life and universal life. Instead of using dividends to augment guaranteed cash value accumulation, the interest on the policy's cash value varies with current market conditions. Like whole life, death benefit remains constant for life. Like universal life, the premium payment might vary, but not above the maximum premium guaranteed within the policy.