James Lewis

Learn what are your options when your term life insurance or whole life insurance policy lapses and how to reinstate it.

There’s no question that life insurance is a critical part of your personal and family financial planning. But in today’s busy world, with as many things as you’ve got going on, it’s possible that you could forget about making your monthly premium payment.

When you pay your premiums regularly, your policy remains “in force,” but when you miss a payment, your life insurance company is required to give you a 31-day “grace period” in which to catch up. At the end of the grace period, if you haven’t submitted your back premiums to the life insurance company, your policy will lapse.

When you have a term life insurance policy that lapses, the coverage ends immediately and back to the last month for which you actually paid the premiums. With a whole life insurance policy, if there’s money in your cash value account, those funds will be used to pay your premiums until the funds have been exhausted. Either way, once the grace period is over, your coverage is over and your loved ones are left without life insurance protection in the event of your death.

If you’re in a financial or life position where you don’t truly need the insurance coverage any longer, there’s no real problem with letting the policy lapse. But, if your policy is lapsing because you can’t afford the premiums, but you still need the insurance coverage, letting the policy lapse could have serious consequences for your future.

Many insurance companies, when offering life insurance coverage to an individual, don’t check to see if the individual has had coverage before, or if that coverage has lapsed. But some life insurance companies do check to see if you’ve had coverage lapses in the past. If you have, they may choose not to offer coverage to you in the future, which means you’ll have a very hard time finding the protection you and your family need, even if you’re able to better afford it than you were in the past.

When your policy lapses, it isn’t necessarily the end of the world for your life insurance protection. You can request that your coverage be reinstated by your life insurance company. Each company handles the reinstate process differently, but in general, you’ll be asked to pay all of your back premiums, and you’ll only have about five years within which to request a reinstatement. As long as your health status hasn’t changed, reinstatement can be very simple. If your health has changed, however, it may not be possible to have your old policy reinstated – another reason to be sure that you keep the policies you have in force.

Forgetting to pay your premiums is one thing, while being unable to pay your premiums is a very different thing. Before you let your life insurance coverage get away from you, speak to a trusted BeamaLife advisor about your options at (866) 972-3262. It may be possible to reduce your coverage amount to lower your premiums, or there may be another type of coverage or a different insurance carrier with better premiums. At BeamaLife, we’ve created our own technology, and partnered with 100 of the top insurance companies. We’ll find the type of policy that makes the most sense for your financial goals and needs, and we’ll get you the coverage you want at the price you want to pay! Please complete life insurance quote from now for term life quote or whole life quote.

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Life Insurance Quotes | Whole life Quote : BeamaLife

When we are talking about affordable term life insurance, there is always the minor hiccup to figure out how much is affordable for you exactly. While you have a plethora of term life insurance options online, some claiming to be most affordable and most giving you a list of direct quotes you can decide from yourself, there is still the question of ‘will what is affordable today still remain affordable tomorrow?’ The idea of term life insurance itself is to save a lot of money on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth life insurance when compared to a whole life insurance, while compromising on the fact that you will not be left with any insurance after your term finishes. So, if you are not going to get any insurance benefit after the term or a refund of all the money (except in return-of-premium policy) you invested in the policy, it basically comes down to giving away money for so many years so as to make sure your family is safe ‘if’ something untoward has to happen to you during the term. This is a big ‘if’ is facts and figures are to be considered. Experts say less than 1% claims are benefitted in the case of term life policies.

The affordability of term insurance rates thus is very debatable. More so because, lay offs or depreciation of income is a daily occurrence in today’s economy. Ideally speaking, 5% of your income could be allotted the insurance slot so that even if there is a financial hiccup, you wouldn’t be forced to terminate the expenditure on premiums. The term insurance rates, like the whole life insurance, depend on a lot of factors and in fact work on the same mortality tables. You can cut down on the term life insurance rates by cutting down on the types of coverage. A complete term life policy covers death by any means. You do not need certain types of coverage based on your lifestyle, so by careful deliberation you can choose not to include that coverage in your policy. This is effective till some extent but people tend to get greedy over them and cut out most types thinking ‘that can’t happen to me’. The other ways to get best term insurance rates are to give up on adventure sports, not take up a job that involves certain risks, quitting smoking and managing weight. You would be surprised to learn that some of these innately personal options can affect the rate of your insurance, but they just happen to be your best bet to get the best rates from a decent company.

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Life Insurance | Term Life Insurance : BeamaLife.com

Term life insurance does not have all the benefits of a whole life insurance policy. But on the positive side, term life insurance requires you to pay a lot less in premiums. A term life policy runs for a certain length of time during which benefits will be paid out in the case of your death and after the completion of the term, you will have no insurance coverage for life. Many financial experts back up the concept of term life insurance as a very good option when the difference in the premiums between term life and whole life are measured. If the difference is invested elsewhere, you could have a much better return by the end of the term, they say.

But investment opportunities are not why most people choose term life policies. Cheap term life insurance is sought by those families that are just starting out or people who might have outstanding debts in the event of their death. Cheap term life insurance is available for almost any budget. The first factor that determines the cost of term life premiums is the type of policy taken out. Term life policies generally come in five types. The cheaper term life policies are the decreasing term insurance and level premium term insurance. Decreasing term insurance policy has low fixed premiums while the benefit amount your survivors receive in the event of your death decreases every year. Every year, there is less mortgage to pay and every year, the kids grow towards self-caring. Though, this is not a pleasing option for everyone, people choose it because it offers the lowest premiums. There is always the chance that you grow richer by the year, so there is no reason why your kids or spouse should depend on your insurance when there are savings and other funds that would be available to them. Another type of cheap term insurance is the annual renewable term insurance policy through where you renew your term policy every year depending on your need, till you reach the age of 65.

While they do not fall into the category of ‘cheap’ per se, the renewable term insurance and convertible term insurance are also affordable with the best interest of your survivors in mind. Renewable term insurance gives you the option to extend your term when the original term finishes. This is most important in the untoward case that you develop a health condition during the term that would render you ineligible for insurance.  Convertible term insurance gives you the option of converting into whole life or any other kind of policy you wish to choose.

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Life Insurance Quotes | Whole life Quote : BeamaLife.com

You know you have a hard choice to make in front of you when you are deciding whether to save for your child’s college education or your own retirement. Only the best for my children—isn’t it the motto of every parent, after all? Especially, the parents who had a hard time funding their own education would never imagine putting their kids through such turmoil. But, let’s face it, there are loans, scholarships and financial aids that can get your child through college, but name one bank that would give out a loan for retirement! In a more generic sense, parents are supposed to have seen their kids through college before they start saving up for retirement. But, very few people start families early enough to meet that goal. In addition to this, college education costs are only rocketing every year. It is estimated by the College Board that an average private education would cost like $287,000 for four years and the same in a public entity would cost up to $133,000 by the year 2020. If you are one of those who are saving up for your kid’s college, didn’t that jolt you out of your senses? Increasing educational costs are rendering several couples without any retirement money or with mortgage payments to be made, forcing them to work throughout their life! There is an urgent need to solve the dilemma and working out both retirement and college into your balance sheet.

There are options, of course. Postponing retirement is first and obvious one. The next one would be to accept some lifestyle changes reducing the general cost of living. If it is a hard for you to do that now, you can always choose to do so after retirement. You wouldn’t need such a big house after your kids move out, would you? And what is the point of living in the hustle-bustle of the city when you are no longer working? You can work part-time during retirement—you can keep yourself from getting bored while earning a little to keep the general expenses flowing. You will have to increase your earnings. While killing someone to get that promotion is not necessary, you can always ask your spouse to return to work. We all invest in one bond or the other and while we’re at it, why not make our investments a bit more aggressive to get a higher return? Just a little bit, mind you.

You must accept the fact that even after doing all this, you might not be able to retire comfortably. It is not bad to put a little of the responsibility on your children’s shoulders. They are young and vulnerable now, but they’ll grow up. Besides funding all or a part of his education is bound to improve your child’s performance. Instead of mortgaging your own house, you can always help out in education loan payments! Be generous to your kids. But remember the fact that one day they will have to take care of themselves no matter how much you try to help them out.

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Life Insurance | Long Term Care Insurance : BeamaLife.com

Vegetarians are rare, vegetarians have fewer options in food, vegetarians are healthy, vegetarians get cheaper insurance. You heard that right. Insurance companies are now coming to terms with the fact that vegetarians have more life expectancy and are less prone to chronic diseases, heart problems and are also more resistant to cancer.

Life insurance premiums are calculated based on several factors. Basically, they use mortality tables to deduce the premium as well as tax free death benefit. The factors are mainly your family medical history and some lifestyle habits. Most companies consider your driving records, addiction levels to smoking and alcohol, the place of living, etc. Even the traffic levels and crime rate of the place you live and work are considered sometimes. But it is quite recently that eating habits are added to the long list and rightly so. Overeating and obesity shows in your medical records, but the fact that you could be a vegetarian doesn’t.

You might be wondering, what’s the big deal about being a vegetarian anyway? It is a huge deal because the life expectancy of vegetarians is much higher than meat eaters. And the reason is quite simple. Vegetarian food doesn’t have some of the harmful ingredients and fatty acids that meat does. The digestion of vegetarian food is also quite simple and doesn’t need our body to produce harmful acids to break the compounds. Scientists claim that the risk of a vegetarian contracting cancer is 40% lesser than the non-vegetarians. Also, the risk of heart disease is reduced by 30% on an average for any vegetarian. Healthy diet choices play an important role in the body’s overall health and should not be ignored by insurance companies.

All companies do not consider this variable in calculating premiums, however. The reason is that, the medical tests a person needs to undergo while procuring insurance doesn’t show whether he/she is a vegetarian or not. Smokers can be identified through the GP levels in the body and a comprehensive result can be obtained about alcohol consumption. Also, since insurance covers a long time in a person’s life, there is no way to determine his food choices throughout the period. But, some argue that unlike other addictions, a person once a vegetarian will remain a vegetarian. There are some animal loving corporations that introduced policies with up to 6% discounts for vegetarians! So…eat your veggies and save not just on food, but on insurance too!

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Life Insurance Quotes | Universal life insurance : BeamaLife.com