|
THE MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED INSURANCE QUESTIONS
Get a fast
answer, right here.
Over
the years our customers have asked us particular insurance
questions. We have put these altogether to help you make
intelligent buying decisions.
How
long have you been in business?
We
have been in the insurance industry for over 25 years.
Can I pay the insurance premiums monthly if I want to?
Yes, we can set up a monthly bank draft from your checking account.
If my spouse and I apply together, is there a discount?
It depends, certain insurance companies will waive the insurance policy fee of one policy when husband and wife apply together.
Do your policies have a children's rider?
Yes, certain companies do offer a children's rider that will cover all children listed on the policy. The average cost is $6.50 (annually) per $1000.00 of coverage.
Do
I have to be a U.S. resident to buy term life insurance
coverage? Yes to buy term life insurance you must be a U.S.
citizen
living in the United States or a holder of a valid
Alien Resident Green Card living in the United States.
Non- U.S. residents must apply to the country of
residency for term life insurance.
Do I need to have a medical exam to apply for life insurance? In almost all case you do. The exam is paid for by the
insurance company, takes only 20-30 minutes and is usually
carried out at your home or any other convenient location.
What medical tests does an Insurance company do to qualify me
for life insurance? A licensed paramedic or medical doctor will take a
blood test, urine specimen, blood pressure reading, height and
weight measurement, occasionally an EKG, and will ask a series
of questions about your health history i.e. "Is there any
history of diabetes in your family". Ask us for
information about preparing for your medical.
Is it possible to qualify for life insurance if I have poor
health? One of the great benefits of insurance "shopping"
with InsuranceClick.com is that we really care about finding
the best insurance coverage for you whether you are super fit
or someone with impaired health. If you have been refused life
insurance before or charged a higher insurance premium because
of poor health, don't assume that it's impossible to get a
better deal. If it's out there InsuranceClick.com will find it
for you. It may take extra time to find an insurance company
for you but we won't charge you anything for it.
Unlike many agents and other quote services we have
experience in quoting for clients with various health
problems. We therefore have a database of insurance companies
that includes those that don't penalize so heavily for most
health problems. So we won't be requesting a quote from a
company that only favors perfectly healthy insurance
applicants - that would simply produce a high premium.
We will search until we find the best offer. If we can't find
one we will tell you rather than just quoting a very high
premium with an unfavorable insurance company.
If you know or think that your health condition puts you at
higher risk please indicate it on your free quote form and we
will contact you for more details.
When
I apply for an Insurance Quote how do I know if I am
"standard", "preferred", or
"preferred-plus"? The difference between each of these health categories can
vary from one company to the next. However, there are some key
basic similarities between each insurance category.
Preferred - about 60% of all insurance applicants
‘achieve’ this insurance class
Preferred-Plus - about 5%-40% of
all insurance applicants ‘achieve’ this insurance class
-
Excellent overall health
-
No participation in any hazardous activities
-
No history of drug or alcohol abuse
-
No use of tobacco in any form
Standard and Substandard - the
remainder of all insurance applicants ‘fall’ into one of
these insurance classes
-
You have a minor health problem i.e. a high cholesterol count
(Standard)
-
You have a major health problem (Substandard)
-
Your health is in some way compromised by a history of drug or alcohol abuse
-
You are a tobacco user
-
You participate in a hazardous activity
Preferred-Plus insurance applicants
receive the lowest insurance premiums as they are considered
by actuary tables to be those people likely to live the
longest and therefore represent the lowest ‘hazard’ to the
insurance company.
To avoid any confusion or
disappointment we ensure that you are placed in the correct
insurance ‘class’ right at the beginning of the insurance
application. We may find that you are classified as
“Standard” by one insurance company and “Preferred” by
another. Whichever it is we will find the right company for
you and we do this by keeping a constant watch over the
changing insurance picture. At InsuranceClick.com we take
pride in looking after you as a person not just an insurance
applicant. We know you are worth it.
When I apply for an insurance quote what is the best way to
answer the 'Tobacco User' question? If you have used tobacco in any
form in the last 12 months you are considered by insurance
companies as a 'tobacco user'. Tobacco use includes smoking
cigars, pipes or cigarettes; and chewing tobacco. It doesn't
matter if you only use tobacco occasionally, you must still
answer the insurance question honestly that "yes"
you are a tobacco user.
If I smoke cigarettes will it affect my insurance premium?
Smokers are always penalized in by insurance companies. Your
insurance premium will probably be classed as either
"Standard" or "Sub-standard". To qualify
for a "Preferred" insurance class, most insurance
companies stipulate that you must have stopped smoking at
least 12 months before your insurance application. However,
because we have been in the insurance market for over 25 years
we have found certain insurance companies that will provide
lower insurance premiums for smokers.
How does other tobacco use affect my insurance premium?
To most insurance companies it doesn't make any
difference if you are a cigarette, pipe or cigar smoker or if
you chew tobacco. All tobacco users are classed together.
However there are a very few insurance companies who will
allow pipe, cigar smokers and tobacco chewers to qualify as
non-smokers. This instantly moves you 'up' a class in
insurance terms and can save you up to 50% on your insurance
premium. These companies don't advertise this benefit; it's
our experience in the insurance world that brings the
insurance benefit to you.
I
would
like to obtain term life insurance as fast as possible. How
long does it take the insurance carrier to underwrite my
coverage? Top rated life insurance carriers each vary in their
underwriting policy. (See policy as in insurance policy ). For
most A-, A or A+ rated term life insurance companies, it takes
about 3 to 8 weeks to underwrite your term life insurance
application.
The normal insurance application process is: Obtain your term
life insurance quote from our online page. Complete a
term life insurance application Complete an independent
paramedical health exam (no cost to you) Provide information
on your driving, credit, lifestyle and health records in order
to help the insurance carriers determine that your are
eligible for the lowest premium rate available. Remember, we
guarantee the least expensive insurance quotes on the net. See
our "Lowest insurance rate on the net" web page. By
completing your online insurance application, we can start the
process to obtaining the right insurance coverage for you and
your family. Once our insurance brokers help you select the
most cost effective term life coverage for you, our agency
will send you the insurance application. After you complete
your insurance application, simply return it to us along with
your check made payable to the insurance company you selected
online. Our insurance application reviewers check your
application and then send it and your check (we never cash
customer insurance checks) to the insurance company you
selected for underwriting.
-
Your insurance deposit check is always 100% refundable
within 10-30 days of receiving your life insurance policy
depending on the state regulations of the state in which
you live.
-
When your insurance application is received by the carrier,
you receive "conditional receipt" coverage during
the application process.
-
The terms and conditions of your insurance coverage, are
discussed in the carriers CONDITIONAL RECEIPT section of your
term life application.
Please note, this does not mean that your insurance policy
has been approved for coverage.
Lastly, please remember: Never cancel any existing life
insurance policy until you have received your new term life
insurance binder and policy and found it to be satisfactory.
Can anyone qualify for preferred rate insurance?
Unfortunately not. Preferred insurance rates are not given to
people with health problems of any kind. In fact only 60% of
preferred insurance applicants are eligible. If you have
exceptionally good health with no history of drug or alcohol
use, insurance companies will reward you with the lowest
insurance premiums. At InsuranceClick.com we have insurance
companies who can provide insurance for the entire health
spectrum from A1 tip-top condition to average health to heavy
smoker.
I
am a private pilot and need life insurance. How do I answer
the private pilot question? Private pilots often find that
their life insurance policy excludes coverage for death caused
while piloting a private aircraft. To get life insurance to
cover you while you are piloting a private aircraft you must
meet special criteria such as flying a manufactured aircraft,
meeting certain flying hours and licensing milestones and
other company-specific insurance underwriting guidelines. (Pay
special attention to our Underwriting Requirements section
which will show each company's guidelines with respect to
acceptance of private pilots). The overwhelming majority of
term life companies will not give their lowest rates to
private pilots, however many will give their next-highest life
insurance rate.
What term life insurance will do for you:
-
Pays death benefit to your beneficiary that: 1) covers your final
expenses, and 2) provides a lump sum that they can invest
to meet your dependents needs.
-
Covers you for the full amount of life insurance you
choose for a specified period of time.
-
Is convertible and renewable depending on the policy.
-
Gradually increases annual premiums as you get older.
-
Is a good choice to meet temporary insurance needs.
What term life insurance doesn't do:
-
It doesn't provide a cash value account.
-
It doesn't provide you permanent life insurance protection.
-
It doesn't fund expected federal and/or state estate tax
obligations.
-
It doesn't fund an irrevocable life insurance trust.
-
It doesn't fund trusts for the purpose of providing an
estate.
Who buys term life insurance?
-
Families
buy term life insurance for security. If the insured dies,
their term life insurance policy provides money to pay for
home expenses, college, outstanding loans and other major
expenses
-
Small Business Owners use term life insurance as a low
cost debt protection to cover notes, lease obligations,
business real estate mortgages and other expenses.
-
Business Partnerships use term life insurance to buy
out partners in the event of their death. The deceased
partner’s beneficiary gets the insurance proceeds and
the ownership of the company is then transferred to the
remaining partner(s).
-
Corporations use term life insurance as stock purchase
redemptions. For example, the corporation gets the
insurance proceeds and buys back the stock from the
deceased's beneficiary, normally the surviving spouse or
estate.
Term life insurance can
provide real benefits for the beneficiaries with no negative
cash flow impact on the company.
What
is level term life insurance? Term Life Insurance is insurance
"without the frills"; there are no tax deferred
savings, cash build up plans or forced savings plans, as with
universal or whole life insurance. Term life insurance is a
fixed term insurance policy which guarantees to pay a specific
benefit if the events you have chosen to include occur within
that term. The "term" is the period of time over
which you are covered and you choose what that
"term" is going to be; it could be 5,10 or even 25
years. Level term
means that your premiums will remain the same or
"level" during the time or term that you have
selected. So if you chose a 15 year level term life insurance
policy, your premiums would remain the same for the 15 year
period - guaranteed. If cost is the major concern for you,
level term life insurance is the bet option for you.
Term
life is the least expensive and most immediate way to provide
a cash pay out to your beneficiaries (usually your family).
After the level term insurance period does my insurance
premium change? At the end of the level term insurance period your
policy would change to annual renewable term. In other words
at the end of each year your premium would be adjusted
according to your age at that time. During the level term
period you are usually given the option to convert to a
permanent insurance policy before the level term period
expires, without the need for further medical evidence. The
insurance premium you pay will depend on your age at the time.
At the outset you can choose from 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 year
level term insurance providers from InsuranceClick.com's index
of the most competitive 'A' rated insurance carriers.
I’ve
heard that I should reapply for my term insurance because
insurance rates have fallen so much over the last few years?
Am I correct and why have term insurance rates fallen?
Yes you’re absolutely correct. Rates have gone down by 40%
over the last few years, even from one year to the next the
drop in the rates is substantial which answers your question
about reapplying.
The fall in rates today is not because rates were previously
too high, instead it’s because life insurance companies have
become more efficient in several ways:
-
They obtain more precise information from you, the insurance customer. In the
past only older customers or those requiring
high value insurance cover had to submit to an in depth
medical. Now almost everyone has to.
-
Computers and the Internet have made it possible for new
rates and information to be passed on to the worldwide
insurance community within minutes. It used to take a very
long time, even years for every insurance agent to find out
about every insurance plan. Now they know in the click of a
mouse. The result of this is that the marketplace is much more
competitive.
-
Our life expectations are now much longer than ever before
which means that death benefits paid out by insurance
companies are being deferred for longer. The savings insurance
companies are making are happily being passed on to the
insurance customer as lower rates.
-
The exceptionally low insurance rates you may have seen are
those requiring very strict health criteria. It’s not
uncommon for only 5% of insurance applicants to meet the
health and lifestyle requirements.
All of this means that term life insurance rates are so low
at the moment that you should definitely compare your current
insurance premium to one available today. If you are still
healthy or perhaps healthier (for example you’ve come off
medication, or your cholesterol count has gone down) you may
find an insurance policy that provides:
-
the same death benefit, but has a lower insurance premium, or
-
the same death benefit, that costs the same but gives you a
longer guaranteed rate, or
-
more death benefit, and costs less, or
-
more death benefit, costs less, and provides a longer
guarantee
InsuranceClick.com’s quote request form is completely free
so you have nothing to lose by finding out if you can gain
more!
What
is decreasing term insurance? Decreasing
term insurance is a product that provides level premiums with
a decreasing death benefit. It is also sometimes referred to
as ‘Mortgage Insurance’, as banks market this product for
mortgage protection. It is a great money earner for the banks
but not for the insured. For every year that you are paying
the insurance premium to the bank, your death benefit goes
down. So the bank is on to a win-win situation, they get money
from you each month and at the end of the contract they pay
you less than the sum you calculated you needed as death
benefit!
What
is the difference between Universal Life Insurance and Whole
Life Insurance?
Both whole life and universal life products are types of
cash-value life insurance. However, there are important
differences between them.
- Whole
life policies require the payment of fixed, level premiums
and provide level death benefits, while universal life
insurance policies offer adjustable death benefits and
flexible premiums that can be varied according to changing
circumstances.
However,
whole life insurance policies do show some flexibility in that
policy owner dividends can be used to offset a portion of the
premium payment and can be used to increase the policy's death
benefit.
- With
universal life insurance policies it’s easy for policy
owners to look at the internal operations of the policy
and to examine the relationships among various policy
elements (premiums, cash values, interest credits,
mortality charges, and expenses) and how they interact
with each other. With
whole life insurance this is not the case.
Is
universal life insurance
or whole life insurance
a better financial deal?
This is a complex question with no simple answer. The best
performing product, financially speaking, whether it’s
universal life insurance or whole life, will be the one that
has the best future in relation to interest earnings, actual
expenses and mortality costs.
The
insurance company that is earning the highest investment
income, and also incurring the lowest expenses and the lowest
mortality costs, are more than likely to offer life insurance
at the lowest cost irrespective of whether it’s whole life
or universal life insurance.
This
is why it is so important to get the best advice possible and
where our experience over 28 years really counts. We will
carefully examine all the financial aspects of each insurance
product under consideration before we recommend one to you.
If
I am sure I can cover final expenses for my child, why would I
want to buy Insurance for my children (or grandchildren?)
There are a number of very good reasons to buy insurance for
your children:
-
If you start buying Whole Life Insurance (also called
Universal or Permanent Insurance) for your child now, you are
giving your child the best start in insurance terms that you
possibly can. By starting early you are almost guaranteeing
that your child will be able to buy coverage throughout their
life, without providing evidence of insurability. In other
words if your child develops an illness later in life they
will not have to be subjected to the rigors of a medical exam
or health questionnaire. This could be the only way they can
get standard rate insurance cover - and they will really thank
you for it.
-
Child health insurance is very cheap - because most
children are healthy. So although you will be paying premiums
over a long period of time the total insurance payment will be
lower than if you start out in their teens or college years.
-
If you start paying insurance on your child at an early
age, it will give you more time to build up a cash value which
can be used for college fees, or for much later in life at
their retirement.
If you want to set a time limit on the period of child
insurance you could go for Term Life Insurance. For example,
you could pay the insurance premium for the first 20 years of
your child’s life. At the end of the
20 years your child could exchange the term life insurance
for permanent cover. This is, however an unusual option and
there are only a few insurance companies that offer term life
insurance for children.
So there are very good reasons for buying insurance for you
and for your child. We can give you more detailed information
to suit your situation and reasons for insuring. Call us on (800) 489-1731
or email us.
I
have heard that Life Insurance Premiums are falling all the
time. I would like to buy my insurance from a different Life
Insurance company. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t
change my insurance policy?
First of all do not cancel your old
insurance policy before you have the new one signed, sealed
and delivered.
If you want to change your current
insurance policy because you have found a cheaper one, make
sure that you compare some very important features of each one
so that you are not swayed just by the price and later find
you have bought into the wrong plan. These include:
-
The length of the guarantee periods
-
Convertibility i.e. from Term Life Insurance to Permanent
Life Insurance
-
What is the
A.M. Best rating of each company. This will give
a good indication of the insurance company’s financial
strength and dependability.
-
Riders, if there are any.
-
The amount of deductible.
When you start with a new insurance company, there are two
further aspects to take into consideration firstly when the
contestability period restarts (generally speaking for the
first two years that you are with the new insurance company)
and secondly, suicide is not covered under a new contract
(again for the first two years).
|
Thank you
for visiting InsuranceClick's term insurance shopping
service. In the next few minutes, you will
discover how you can save as much as 50% on your life
insurance rates.
Our
on-line quoting service will instantly research the top
insurance companies and provide you the most competitive
rates in the country.
If I get sick or I'm injured, will the insurance company
cancel my insurance policy? Absolutely not, the insurance company can not cancel
an insurance policy due to ill health. And what's more
you do not have to prove to the insurance company that
you are still in good health to renew your insurance
policy each year.
Is there any way I can protect the payment of my insurance
premium in the event that I become totally disabled? You
can take out an extra optional feature called
"Waiver of Premium" when you first apply for
your insurance policy. If you opt for the "Waiver
of Premium", and you become totally disabled, your
insurance company will pay your insurance premium for a
period of 6 months or more. The insurance company will
stop paying the insurance premium when you are no longer
disabled
|
|
To
find out what your life insurance should really cost,
please
for a free, instant quote.
|
|
