A popular misconception about life insurance, is that it’s something to do with ensuring others (your policy beneficiaries) enjoy the fruits of your insurance once you’ve passed. While that is just one aspect of planning for the inevitable, if executed properly, life insurance can offer multiple benefits – even as you live to enjoy them!

Why Life Insurance Is Important for Individuals & Families

Death benefits pay-out for survivors is only one aspect of life insurance. If the policy holder passes, the cash value of the policy can help young families meet their financial needs, or can even help pay off a mortgage. However, there are other facets of life insurance that are equally important.

Most life insurance products allow policy holders to tap into funds as the value of their policy grows over time. In case you are looking for tax-deferred gains, a life insurance policy offers that too, because you are only taxed once you withdraw the money from your policy. With the right life insurance strategy in place, your policy can act as a great source of tax-free wealth transfer to your beneficiaries.

In retirement, a well-planned life insurance strategy can serve to generate additional retirement income, or it might even provide additional living health care benefits in your old-age.

What We Can Do for You

Not every life insurance policy provides you all of these benefits. Our experienced financial professionals will discuss your needs in detail, and then customize a life insurance plan that meets those specific goals.

Some of the life insurance tools and products available to our agents include:

• Term Life Insurance: If you have a specific time-horizon over which you need protection, then Term Life Insurance policies are definitely worth considering. These policies are designed to provide short to intermediate term coverage at an affordable cost. For instance, if you have young children whom you wish to provide for until they are older – say 15 to 20 years – or if you have an unpaid mortgage that you want your family to pay off in the event of your untimely passing, then a Term Life policy is worth considering.
• Permanent Life Insurance: Permanent life policies not only provide insurance protection for life, but also have the ability to grow cash value. The cash value might then be tapped subsequently, to meet future needs, such as funding college/university education of a child, or creating an additional retirement income stream.**
• Participating (or Whole) Life Insurance: Depending on what your goals are, our financial professionals might recommend a Participating Life Insurance product for you. With these products, the cash value and death benefit payout of your policy can experience tax-advantaged growth within the policy. You might also be eligible to borrow tax-free funds (for any purpose you might deem fit) against the cash value of your policy.**
• Universal Life Insurance: If you are in search of a guaranteed death benefit, and the ability to adapt to changing financial needs, a Universal Life Insurance might be what you need. These policies also offer greater flexibility than whole life insurance, as premiums can be adjusted (increased, deferred, decreased)
• Variable Life Insurance: If you are someone looking for a higher growth potential and higher risk than whole life or universal life insurance, then a Variable Life Insurance policy might be for you. They offer policy-holders the option to invest their cash value in subaccounts (stocks, bonds, mutual funds). Variable insurance products are sold by Registered Representatives and Investment Adviser Representatives only.
   

Contact us today to learn more about life insurance.

*The cost and availability of life insurance depend on factors such as age, health, and the type and amount of insurance purchased. Before implementing a strategy involving life insurance, it would be prudent to make sure that you are insurable by having the policy approved. As with most financial decisions, there are expenses associated with the purchase of life insurance. Policies commonly have mortality and expense charges. In addition, if a policy is surrendered prematurely, there may be surrender charges and income tax implications.

**The use of cash value life insurance to provide a resource for retirement assumes that there is first a need for the death benefit protection. The ability of a life insurance contract to accumulate sufficient cash value to help meet accumulation goals will be dependent upon the amount of extra premium paid into the policy, and the performance of the policy, and is not guaranteed. Policy loans and withdrawals reduce the policy’s cash value and death benefit and may result in a taxable event. Surrender charges may reduce the policy's cash value in early years.