Personal Financial Tips

Archive for the ‘Final Expense Life Insurance’ Category

Final expense life insurance is specifically designed to meet the FINAL needs of you, the policy owner. In this way it’s unlike other life policies which provide a benefit, but to the heirs of the policy owner. Though all life insurance provides peace of mind to you while you are alive, this form of life insurance meets your needs as a deceased person.

Final expense life policies are so called because it is a policy is designed to cover the ‘final expenses’ of the policy owner. These usually cover, as a bare minimum, the cost of a casket and vault. But the size of the benefit paid out is often calculated to cover obituary notices, flowers, grave services and limousines as well and can include outstanding bills etc.

Ask advice on how much ‘final expense’ cover you will need

Many people who take out a final expenses life policy are keen to have all the arrangements for their funeral settled well prior to their death. So you can calculate how much insurance cover you will need, Funeral Directors provide advice on the cost of different types of funerals. And they may also provide a price guarantee for all or part of the funeral expense though this is not always available.

Difficulty in deciding exactly how much a funeral will eventually cost often results in a final expenses life policy owner taking out a policy which is large enough to cover all eventualities. Whatever the face value or death benefit of the policy, you entrust the beneficiary of the policy, usually a family member, with the task of making funeral arrangements in accordance with your wishes. However legally a beneficiary may make any arrangements they like, so it pays to choose a beneficiary who will be completely trustworthy in following your wishes.

Sometimes a Funeral Director may also be a licensed insurance agent. The policies they sell are normally called pre-need life policies rather than final expense life insurance. The funeral home is the beneficiary of the policy and the Funeral Director has the responsibility of carrying out your final wishes in relation to your funeral. It is harder to comparison shop for these policies as Funeral Homes usually have a business relationship with a specific underwriting company.

The conditions attaching to a final expense policy

The premium for final expense life policies can be paid for in full when a policy is taken out. When this happens it is more likely a price guarantee will be given by a Funeral Director on the costs associated with burial. Cost guarantees can however be given for some expenses and not for others. It is also possible for premiums to be paid over a period of time but there is less likelihood of price guarantees being available in this case.

As final expenses life policies are a very specific type of policy they can often be issued with few or no medical questions being asked. It is very unusual for the face value of such a policy to exceed $50,000 and one would normally give a final benefit of between $10,000 – $20,000 which reflects the average cost of funerals in the United States. Normally these polices are not issued to people over the age of 75-79, depending on the insurance company involved, so plan ahead in buying one.

If a policy owner of a final expense life policy has a serious medical condition a policy may specify a lower benefit will be paid during the first few years of the policy. These policies can be either a term policy, which is for a specific period of time. Or they may be a whole life policy covering the whole period of the policy owner’s life. Get a quote from a reputable company and find out how inexpensive this form of coverage can be.

Why Do People Over 70 Need Life Insurance?

A lot of people associate life policies with younger adults. They think about needing to protect a growing family and home mortgage in case one of the breadwinner passes away. And so, many popular policies, are marketed to people who thirty to forty years old. But just because somebody has reached middle age, or even retirement age, does not mean they have outlived their need for life insurance.

Before we discuss ways to find a policy for an older person, let us look at some types of life insurance that an older person may want to buy.

Final Expense Policies

This is one type of coverage that is common associated with seniors who are already retired. It is actually a whole life policy that has been designed for an easier application process so people from about 50 to about 70 (sometimes 80) years of age can be issued a policy.

Keep in mind that when we discuss final expense (burial policies) we are talking about smaller face values from about $2,500 – $25,000. This is an amount of money that is usually meant to settle debts, pay for a funeral, and other things that are considered final expenses.

Simplified Issue

Some of these have a simplified application process, and this means that the applicant does not have to answer many health questions. Most people should be accepted because they only have to answer a few heath questions. In general, only those who already have a terminal illness or are in a nursing home would be declined. Death benefits should be immediate too, so this means that as soon as the policy as issued, the insured person is covered for the full value of the death benefit.

Guaranteed Issue

Another final expense policy asks no health questions at all, and it is always issued. How can insurers do this? Well, these policies are usually a bit more expensive than simplified issue policies. But the main difference is they do not have an immediate death benefit. In other words, the insured person must survive for an elimination period, which may be 2 or 3 years, before the full death benefit will paid. This is how insurers can offer to cover everybody.

These policies differ, but most of the time they will pay refund premiums, or sometimes pay a partial benefit, if the insured person passes away before the time period is up. Having to wait for the full benefit is a drawback, but since premiums are refunded, this may be a good option for some applicants. In fact, it may be the only option for some.

Business Insurance

Here is another common reason why older people need life insurance. They need it for their business. They may need to transfer an estate or guarantee financing. See, these days, many people are redefining the traditional retirement age. In my experience, almost anybody can find an insurer who will write a policy they need, if that person is willing to pay the premiums.

Finding Life Insurance For 70 Year Olds

If you need to find coverage for an older person to fund some sort of business transaction, it may be helpful to find an expert in the field who is used to working in the field of high risk policies. There are insurance agents who specialize in finding policies for older or less healthy people. These professionals can help you find the most affordable premiums, solve some tough problems, and make sure you are working with a top quality insurer.

What type of life insurance coverage do you have? For many people the answer to this question is none. Millions of Americans fail to obtain even a basic life insurance policy each year and many of these people pass away leaving the financial burden of their final expenses on their loved ones. It may be that they did not mean to postpone getting any coverage. Often they would have purchased an insurance policy, but didn’t because they weren’t sure how to go about it.

There are two essential reasons to own an active life insurance policy. The first reason is provide enough money to pay for funeral expenses. With adequate coverage, you will not have to worry about not having the money to pay for every detail. The second reason is directly related to the first. As stated previously, it is the family of the deceased who will be held responsible for any costs associated with the funeral and other final expenses. An insurance policy will not only keep your family out of debt paying for your funeral but may also provide extra financial assistance to deal with other financial issues

Since it is so important to have the right life insurance coverage, you should take the time to examine the common types and decide which form of coverage will provide the most benefits for you personally, as well as to your family. No one expects to die prematurely, but it does happen. You cannot afford to hold off or postpone finding a reasonable insurance policy.

There are two basic forms of life insurance:

Term life insurance. Term life insurance has a reputation as the most common and preferred type of life insurance. With a term life policy, you do not accumulate equity or cash value as is common with whole life policies. Essentially, this means that you will have to pay the total cost of your life insurance policy. The costs for the policy will gradually increase each year as you grow older. The rate is directly related to the chances that you will pass away before the policy lapses.

Whole life insurance. This type of insurance, also called ordinary insurance, has a level premium that is provided by the insurance company. When you establish a policy, your annual premiums will be higher than those of term life premiums. Over time, the premium price will begin decrease. Whole life policies accumulate cash value which you can then use to as loan source or which can be withdrawn for other uses.

If you understand the difference between whole life and term, you can then go out and find out what sort of rates the various insurance companies will offer you. Don’t be afraid to look around and do a bit of browsing-a little research goes a long way. Use the internet to read upon different companies and see what sort of information is available about their standings with life insurance rating agencies.

Remember that there hundreds of potential life insurance providers operating it can be quite a competitive industry. You need have as much information as you can when making comparisons, getting premium quotes, and searching for the best prices. Most importantly, you need to know what you want. This means that you should have an idea about what amount of coverage you need and what other services you may also want as part of your policy.

There is one thing you can say about Selling Final Expense Insurance to Seniors and that is it’s recession proof. Whether it’s a good economy or a bad economy, selling Final Expense Insurance is the way to go.

Not only are burial insuranc sales recession proof it also is one form of Insurance the Government and regulator don’t mess with and most likely won’t in the near future. If you have ever sold health insurance with it’s yearly rate hikes or Med Advantage, you know exactly what we mean. And then there is Long Term Care… No thank you!

The real trick though with selling Final Expense Insurance is finding that right Insurance Selling System. Most agents don’t make $100k per year and that is sad since there is so much opportunity to make that and so much more if you find that right system.

Most agents don’t focus on one thing or they do and then can’t keep there book of business because rates keep going up and they have to start over every year or the Government changes regulations and all those agents run to the next hottest thing.

Ah, then there is Final Expense Insurance. Such a simple product with little or nothing to learn. You can master it in about a week. There are no moving parts and it is so easy for clients to understand. There is no complicated language about what is covered and what is not. No complicated illustrations or contracts to decipher. There is no question as far as need since we all die. And it won’t put any client in the poor house.

How simple is this – Client dies….. Beneficiary gets some money!

Selling Final Expense in and of itself isn’t necessarily profitable. It really boils down to how you do it and what platform you use in selling it. The old way is out and not very profitable anymore.

What’s the old way? Running appointments in the field, knocking on doors, spending $25-35 for the good leads….. you get the point.

The way to be successful today Selling Final Expense Insurance and the way to cut your personal expenses to practically ZERO and cut lead costs by more than 75% is with final expense telesales.

Final Expense TeleSales has all the advantages of making money without all the expenses and limitation running appointments in the field has. The real trick though is finding the right platform and group to work with. Not many people have all the pieces in place to make Final Expense Telesales Profitable. It’s a tricky business if every piece of the puzzle is not in place. This is where doing your due diligence and research is so crucial to your success in this business.

Selling final expense is the future of selling insurance for those agents that want a simple non complicated product that is recession proof. Not only is it easy to learn and sell but the Market is exploding with new customers every day as the population gets older.

There is an exciting future for this business.

Death is something we have to think about eventually and it makes sense to invest in something such as a final expense life insurance policy. This is one of the types of burial policy options that you have to ensure that you do not leave a mountain of work and debts behind for your loved ones.

A final expense life insurance policy is designed to help out with funeral costs in the event of your death. There are different types of burial policy, one of which only lets you use the funds for this very purpose. But a final expense policy will let you use the funds for paying off other things such as medical bills and legal fees. Anything you want to use it for, on top of the funeral costs, you can.

Unlike other policies you can take out, you are able to name the beneficiary, who will receive the money after you die. It is best to discuss how you would like the money to be used with the beneficiary once the policy has been started. One point to note is that the beneficiary will be allowed to keep any remaining balance after all the funeral costs and other debts specified by you have been paid off.

You can name your partner or spouse, a friend or any children as the beneficiary; there are no limitations. Many insurers recommend that any final expense policies where children are the named party should be held in a form of trust. This is because there can be tax issues surrounding this scenario.

Applying for final expense life insurance is quick and easy; most of the insurers allow you to apply online and you will get quick decision. Most of the time it is not necessary to answer any questions relating to your health or be requested to undergo a medical examination.

The insurer may stipulate that you take what is known as a guaranteed policy, which is one of the types of final expense polices you can have. This type of burial policy means that no benefit will be paid out if you pass away during a stipulated period. The premiums would be returned to the beneficiary however. If the period passes and you die, then the normal death benefit will be paid out.

You can take final expense life insurance policies out in joint names. It should be noted however, that most insurers will only pay out the death benefit for the first death. The subsequent death will receive no further payout. The premium you will pay will be a set amount that will not change during the period of that particular policy. The policy will also remain intact as long as the premiums are paid up to date.

It is worth looking into taking out death insurances such as that of final expense life insurance as soon as you can. This gives you the peace of mind to enjoy the rest of your days without having to worry about how your funeral and other debts will be paid after you have gone.

I wrote a post yesterday on final expense life insurance and as often happens, I woke up today with something from that post bothering me, a lot.

Toward the end of the post I made mention of a company, Equita Final Expense Services, that made the claim that, unlike traditional insurance companies which “which may take 3 to 6 months to pay out”, “most of final expense policies pay the beneficiary within 24 hours of your death”. First, while they may pay quickly, unless the beneficiary is waiting for your last breath in order to call the company, there is no way that the above statement is true. Even if they are waiting to dial the claim department and even if the company eft’s the money to the beneficiary, do you suppose they may want some proof of death?

Traditional life insurance companies require an original copy of the death certificate which, in my own experience and the experience of a lot of client’s families, takes at least two weeks. Now final expense companies may not require an original death certificate, but you won’t get any death certificate to copy for at least two weeks. They may accept an obituary, but at best that will be 2-3 days after the death. They may even just accept a note from the attending physician, but really, do you believe for even a minute that a grieving spouse’s first priority after your death is going to be to try to file a claim for a $10,000 life insurance policy within a day?

The truth about traditional life insurance? Unless the policy is still less than two years in force, claims processing will generally take about a week after the death certificate is sent to the company. If the policy is less than two years in force and therefore in the contestability period, it can take a few months to get paid. 3 to 6 months would be a very rare and very complicated situation surrounding the death. Can it happen? Sure. Is it the norm? Absolutely not. No life insurance company wants a reputation of paying slowly and it’s been my experience that they pay very fast considering the prudence you would expect any company to use that is about to pay out hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars.

Don’t get caught up in paying for overpriced final expense insurance because they claim quick payouts. The last few points made on the Equita website are all about conjuring up a misrepresented notion of traditional life insurance.

“Timing Matters

Another important aspect of this type of policy is how quickly the policy pays out. Unlike a traditional life insurance policy, which can take a few months to pay its death benefit, most of the final expense policies pay the beneficiary within 24 hours of your death. This may or may not matter to your loved ones. If your loved ones will need to have the funds from such a policy to pay for your funeral expenses, waiting months for the policy’s waiting period to expire may not be an option. If they have to wait, they may have to pay excessive fees. There is no waiting period with final expense policies.

Do You Need Both?

The goal of final expenses life insurance is to protect your family from having to pay for the costs associated with burial and those final expenses that they need to have the funds for right away. That is not to say that these funds cannot be in use for other things. For example, it may take three to six months for a traditional life insurance policy to pay out. During that time, there may be three to six months worth of mortgage payments your family needs to make.

Even if you already have life insurance, it may be important to your family’s financial future to have final expense life insurance. Consider how this type of policy could provide the protection your family needs from financial devastation. It’s fast payment may be just what they need in a difficult time like this.”

Bottom line. Even if “most final expense policies pay the beneficiary within 24 hours of your death”, which again I think is patently nonsense, traditional insurance companies will almost always get a check to you quicker than you get the claim and death certificate to them.