What Is Life Insurance?

In the most basic sense, Life Insurance is a tax-free, lump sum payment to your loved ones in the event of your death. Considering that passing away is an inevitable part of human life, Life Insurance can assist our grieving loved ones by providing them with much needed finances after our passing.

Very often, the loss of a loved one takes a deep emotional and physical toll on those left behind. This in turn can lead to an incapability to focus on their finances and income. When the circumstances of death compound together with financial struggles, the pain and frustration is immeasurable, however, Life Insurance can provide a silver-lining to such situations. Knowing that there are finances available to help your loved ones carry on is a crucial plan for their well-being.

Factors That Impact Your Life Insurance Policy Costs

In return for the premiums paid into life insurance, insurance companies payout a lump sum to family members in order to cover certain expenses and needs that are part of your passing. However, your premiums will be affected by a number of factors related to certain personal risks. These include:

• Age: the most important factor that will affect your premiums. Clearly, older people will pay higher premiums because their chance of death at any time is higher than younger people. Even in the event of being healthy, an older person's premiums will be higher than those that are younger.

• Health: those in poor health will directly pay higher premiums for their life insurance policy.  Whereas younger people are usually required to fill out a health questionnaire to secure a life insurance policy, older people may need to provide medical information related to their health status in order to assess their risk. Factors such as smoking status, body weight, past medical conditions, and family history greatly influence the premiums of your policy.

• Gender: considering the higher life expectancy of women than men, the event of an untimely death for women is at a lower level of risk to life insurance companies. This in turn means that on average, women's premiums are 10-25% lower than those for men. 

• Occupation and hobbies: high-risk occupations such as drivers, roofers, miners etc. are more likely to die on the job as compared to office workers, for example. This will raise the life insurance premiums of those engaged in high-risk professions, but also those partaking in extreme sports (skydiving, mountain climbing etc.).

How To Find The Best Life Insurance Policy — Contact a Broker

The best possible way of finding the right Life Insurance policy for your needs is to work with an insurance broker. Being regulated and independent, insurance brokers act as intermediaries between yourself and the insurance companies. Their goal is to save you money and time by finding the best suited Life Insurance policy for you. Also, considering the abundance of information required to secure a Life Insurance policy, brokers can ease the burden in finding the right option for you.

If you are looking for the right Life Insurance option, please contact us and we will be glad to help you with your life insurance requirements.