Initially all types of
Life Insurance Policies were term Life Insurance. However as term life insurance only pays a claim upon death within the stated term, most term insurance policy holders became upset over the idea that they could be paying premiums for 20 or 30 years and then terminate the premium and have nothing to show for it. This gave birth to the concept of Whole Life Insurance, which proved to be beneficial to both the insured and the Life Insurance Company. By guaranteeing the death benefit and the cash value, the policy owner was assured that insurance coverage would be in force when the insured died. The
Life Insurance Company benefited because with every premium payment made, the net amount at risk, and thus the cost of insurance, was reduced In case of a Whole Life Insurance policy the premium rates are constant through out. It is advisable to invest in these kinds of policies though primarily for two reasons. Firstly the financial strain will be minimal for a person of that age. Secondly when a person invests early he won't find it difficult to pay the same amount even after he gets old because of two factors namely the rise in his income and the uniform rate of premium.
The two main categories of traditional
whole Life Insurance are a) Ordinary whole life insurance policies & b) Limited pay whole life policies. Ordinary whole life insurance policies require the policy holder to pay a fixed sum of money up to an old age. This is done to ensure that when the policy matures that the insured gets money whose value equals death benefit. But in practical cases the insured fails to keep the premium carrying on as they either die during the payment tenure or surrender the policy to get the maximum value. For Limited pay whole life policies the insured is required to pay premiums at a uniform rate. Here the period for which the policy is taken is less compared to ordinary whole life insurance policies; hence the insured is required to pay a higher amount of premium. Limited pay whole policies are further categorized into A) Interest Sensitive Whole Life Policies - This policy does not pay returns to the insured. However the amount earned by investing the insured's investment is accounted and paid to the insured, B) Universal Whole Life Insurance Policies – A very flexible type of insurance policy, which allows for a change in death benefits every year & C) Variable Life Insurance Policies – Here the insured will be able to earn a higher amount when compared with the other policies. At the same time the insured will not be able to claim other insurance benefits like loan.
Major benefit of this kind of policy is the availability of loans. The amount of such loans will be decided on the basis of his policy amount and premiums. But in such cases the amount or refund that they will receive after the expiry of policy will be less. Whole Life Policies are for people guarantees returns on investments; hence it is best suited for people who are looking for something more then protection. If the investment (premium), that you make is invested in stocks then expected returns aren’t assured, but if they are invested in other financial instruments like banks or trading sectors then the returns are ensured.
