LIFE INSURANCE BOWLING GREEN, KY
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Why Ingram for Life Insurance?
- We specialize in life insurance products and service for both individuals and for businesses
- All of our life insurance products can come with a return of premium feature which means if you don’t use your insurance, then you get your money back = FREE INSURANCE!!!
- We offer free individualized consultations for whole/term/universal life insurance products
- Don’t Wait until it is TOO LATE to make the decision to protect your loved ones
What is Life Insurance?
New to buying life insurance? Learn how it works and what you need to understand to choose your coverage.
A life insurance policy is a contract with an insurance company. In exchange for premium payments, the insurance company provides a lump-sum payment, known as a death benefit, to beneficiaries upon the insured’s death.
Typically, life insurance is chosen based on the needs and goals of the owner. Term life insurance generally provides protection for a set period of time, while permanent insurance, such as whole and universal life, provides lifetime coverage. It’s important to note that death benefits from all types of life insurance are generally income tax-free.1
There are many varieties of life insurance. Some of the more common types are discussed below.
Term life insurance
Term life insurance is designed to provide financial protection for a specific period of time, such as 10 or 20 years. With traditional term insurance, the premium payment amount stays the same for the coverage period you select. After that period, policies may offer continued coverage, usually at a substantially higher premium payment rate. Term life insurance is generally less expensive than permanent life insurance.
Needs it helps meet: Term life insurance proceeds can be used to replace lost potential income during working years. This can provide a safety net for your beneficiaries and can also help ensure the family’s financial goals will still be met—goals like paying off a mortgage, keeping a business running, and paying for college.
It’s important to note that, although term life can be used to replace lost potential income, life insurance benefits are paid at one time in a lump sum, not in regular payments like paychecks.
Universal life insurance
Universal life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance designed to provide lifetime coverage. Unlike whole life insurance, universal life insurance policies are flexible and may allow you to raise or lower your premium payment or coverage amounts throughout your lifetime. Additionally, due to its lifetime coverage, universal life typically has higher premium payments than term.
Needs it helps meet: Universal life insurance is most often used as part of a flexible estate planning strategy to help preserve wealth to be transferred to beneficiaries. Another common use is long term income replacement, where the need extends beyond working years. Some universal life insurance product designs focus on providing both death benefit coverage and building cash value while others focus on providing guaranteed death benefit coverage.
Whole life insurance
Whole life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance designed to provide lifetime coverage. Because of the lifetime coverage period, whole life usually has higher premium payments than term life. Policy premium payments are typically fixed, and, unlike term, whole life has a cash value, which functions as a savings component and may accumulate tax-deferred over time.
Needs it helps meet: Whole life can be used as an estate planning tool to help preserve the wealth you plan to transfer to your beneficiaries.
How cost is determined
Insurers use rate classes, or risk-related categories, to determine your premium payments; these categories don’t, however, affect the length or amount of coverage.
Your rate class is determined by a number of factors, including overall health, family medical history and your lifestyle. Tobacco use, for example, would increase risk and, therefore cause your premium payment to be higher than that of someone who doesn’t use tobacco.
Determining Your Coverage Need
If you understand the general types of life insurance, the next step is to think about your own life insurance needs.
Choosing between term and permanent coverage
Identifying the appropriate type of insurance—term or permanent—is the first consideration in choosing coverage. If your insurance need is for your lifetime, then permanent insurance, such as universal life insurance may be an appropriate solution. If your insurance need is primarily for a specific period of time, such as your working years, then term life insurance may be an appropriate solution. It is important to choose a coverage period that will meet your life insurance needs to ensure that the people important to you are protected.
Choosing coverage amount
In addition to your coverage period, the coverage amount is another important consideration. The coverage amount is how much will be paid to your beneficiaries. Your coverage amount will depend on the need you are trying to meet, but these are some general factors to consider:
- Your potential income
- Your assets
- Your liabilities (such as debts)
- Any existing insurance (individually owned or through work)
- Other costs your family is expected to face
Determining coverage amount and duration by life event
Major events in your life can be good opportunities to make your initial life insurance purchase or review your current coverage.
Use the table below to help determine your coverage amount and coverage period according to the milestones you have reached or that you will in the near future.
| Consider life insurance when you | Consider an amount that covers | Consider a coverage period equal to |
|---|---|---|
| Get married | Student loans or other debts, income, and home expenses | Any duration |
| Buy or improve a home | Mortgage and/or home equity loan (Typically, insurance is purchased to pay off the principal amount of the loans but not future interest.) | The term of your loan |
| Have a family to support | Family income needs and new debts | The time when you expect you will no longer have dependents |
| Change jobs | Potential income based on your new salary and any gaps in insurance provided by your new employer | The length of time you expect to need to earn income |
| Start a business | Expected revenue, debts and future expenses, and maintenance of the general business structure | Lifetime or the length of time you anticipate owning the business |
| Plan a child’s college education | Future college expenses (e.g., private college, public university, graduate programs) | The anticipated graduation date of the child |
| Plan your estate | Funeral and estate expenses, including estate tax, wealth transfer | Your lifetime |
It is also recommended that you review your life insurance coverage during the routine update of your overall financial plan.
When buying life insurance, there’s no substitute for a thorough analysis of your personal situation. Fidelity can help you determine an adequate level of life insurance protection.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Life Insurance
Life insurance blah blah blah. Is that what you hear when someone mentions it as part of your new job’s employee benefits round-up or when you see something about it on TV or social media? Not to worry: we’ve got the low-down on what you need to know. And it’s really not as overwhelming (or underwhelming) as you might think.
1. It’s part of a sound financial plan. You know about savings, you know about retirement. You might know a bit about investments and long-term financial planning for your health and happiness. And life insurance helps with planning for your loved ones’ long-term health and happiness, especially those who depend on your income, in case something were to happen to you.
2. There are different kinds of life insurance. In addition to employment-based life insurance (which typically only lasts as long as your employment at your job), there’s term and permanent life insurance.
Term life insurance: You typically pay lower premiums for term life insurance, but your coverage is just for a specified amount of time, say 20 years, for example. At the end of the term, your insurance coverage ends.
Permanent life insurance: With permanent life insurance (whole, universal, variable) you typically pay higher premiums in the short term, but then these policies generally allow you to accumulate cash value over time. Your coverage is designed to last as long as you continue to pay premiums.
3. Life insurance is surprisingly affordable for most people. Sure, there are forms of life insurance that get pricier the more features you add on to it, and the price goes up if you’re a smoker or dealing with health problems. But most people think life insurance costs about three times as much as it really does, according to the Insurance Barometer Study by Life Happens and LIMRA. Just as a general guide, a healthy nonsmoking 30-year-old man can get a $250,000 20-year level term policy for about $16 a month.
4. Key life events are often the best time to get on board. Getting married? Having kids? Changing jobs? Bought a house? Significant life events are often the time you become most aware of the need for life insurance—and on that note…
5. You can change your life insurance. Perhaps you have a life insurance policy that your parents got for you when you were a baby. Perhaps you have a term policy from when you bought your house but now you have a bigger family and you’re concerned about getting them all through college. Or perhaps you want to bump up your coverage because your overall cost of living has changed. And on *that* note …
6. You may well need more coverage than you think. Sometimes people think life insurance is to pay off their own debts and funeral expenses. But a key advantage of having life insurance is to ensure that the people who depend on you will be OK with their ongoing and future financial needs if something happens to you. Need help figuring this out how much? Go to this online calculator: www.lifehappens.org/howmuch.
7. Life insurance pays out quickly. Because life insurance doesn’t get tangled up in estate claims, it generally pays out quickly, sometimes in days or weeks, usually inside of a month.
8. Life insurance proceeds are generally tax-free. Compare this to, say, crowdfunding options like “GoFundMe” that have become so popular yet create tax consequences for the people they’re meant to help (to say nothing of fees and the lack of guaranteed benefit). It’s also helpful when you’re trying to create an inheritance for a beneficiary.
9. Life insurance protects your family, but only if you let it. Keep your premiums paid up and your beneficiaries up to date, and the door with your agent open so that your loved ones know who to call if they need to. Keep your paperwork with your other vital documents.
10. Life insurance can be more than just life insurance. Using “riders,” or an addendum to a life insurance contract, or even a specific kind of policy, life insurance benefits can become “living benefits,” money you can access before you die, or use to pay for long-term care, as two examples.
If you still need help getting a handle on all this, talk to an agent. They can help you understand the ins and outs and the best policy for your budget and needs. Because of course—the most important thing to know about life insurance is that it’s there to help the people you love the most.
Ingram Insurance
3251 Spring Hollow Ave
Bowling Green, KY 42104
Monday 9:00 am-5:00 pm
Tuesday 9:00 am-5:00 pm
Wednesday 9:00 am-5:00 pm
Thursday 9:00 am-5:00 pm
Friday 9:00 am-5:00 pm
