Financial Advisor, Estate Planning, Insurance, Mortgage Broker and Loan Referral Services.
A whole life insurance policy remains in place for the rest of your life, unless you can no longer afford your payments. It was originally invented when people began to complain that they were paying too much for their coverage and getting nothing back for it. So an investment angle was added which allowed a portion of the premiums paid to be funneled into a savings account that would build up over time. There are several different types available which we will now look at.
* Nonparticipating - this type of whole life insurance policy determines values such as your premiums, death benefits, and cash surrender when your contract is first written up and they will remain the same for its entire duration. This can be beneficial to either you or the company, so make sure you have done your research ahead of time.
* Participating - also known as ‘with-profits’ in the Commonwealth, will share any excess profits received with the policy holder. These payments are typically referred to as refunds and they are not tax deductable.
* Indeterminate premium - is similar in many ways to the non-participating whole life insurance policies, but the difference is that the term may change from year to year. They do feature a maximum premium however that will never be exceeded.
* Economic - can sometimes lead to higher death benefits but long term cash value is surrendered in order to make this a possibility. Because dividends are used to purchase these benefits, if they come in under expectations your death benefits could actually be lower.
* Limited pay - is like the participating option in many ways but you are not required to pay premiums for the rest of your life, but instead only for a fixed number of years. However, this means they will cost you more upfront.
* Single Premium - is like limited pay but instead of paying for a fixed number of years, you make only one large lump sum payment.
* Interest sensitive - uses interest on your policy instead of dividends in order to determine its value.
As you can see, there are many different whole life insurance policies out there, so it can take a bit of research to determine which one is the best for you. At ProfessionalReferrals.ca we have a wide range of information regarding these and other investments written by professional financial advisors that can help to increase your knowledge of these investments.