Recent Reports on Carriers Being Sued Make Local Life Insurance Agents a Must, Says BenaVest
Why Local Life Insurance Agents are a must. Reaching out to a local life insurance office is very easy, all consumers have to do is visit the website and pick a location to set an appointment.
Miami, FL, August 9, 2016 (Newswire.com) - Consumers should know that there are many cases in which life insurance carriers have not paid benefits to beneficiaries. There is a new case as large as a state sewing multiple carriers that have not paid benefits to the beneficiaries in a timely manner. In one state alone the commerce department found more than $200 million owed to Minnesotans. So far, companies have paid $143 million to beneficiaries that was owed. Another $31 million ended up with the state as Unclaimed Property for relatives companies couldn’t reach. Working with an independent local life insurance office helps to combat these issues due to the fact that the agents do not work for the carriers directly and earn more business when they help family members recover the funds owed to them as a beneficiary. For instance. if John’s father passes and the agent reaches out to John and informs him of the funds, John is likely thankful for the help and will most likely reach out to the agent when he is ready to implement his own life insurance.
Reaching out to a local life insurance agent is very easy, all consumers have to do is visit the website and pick a location to set an appointment. If there is NOT a location in their area. one of the agents will gladly come to the consumers home or meet them at one of their shared office spaces. Having a Life insurance policy is a great way for consumers to protect their legacy and put a concrete plan in place, so their family may continue with the same lifestyle if something were to happen to the head of the household. Even though these plans are designed to take care of the family (beneficiaries), there are thousands of cases when the insurance companies are not able to reach the beneficiaries of the policies. In many of these cases the funds just sit with the carrier indefinitely collecting interest and the rightful owner may never even know that the funds belong to them. This happens more often than not when there is no will in place or the will is not updated when the original beneficiary passes before the policy owner.
Some other Valuable information that consumers should take into account before buying life insurance are listed below:
There are NEW combo plans available. New Life Insurance Plans now offer Living Benefits that may help financially when the policy holder is diagnosed with an illness or disability. There are also Plans that offer a Guaranteed Return of Premium (ROP). In short the ROP benefit means clients can pull out all of the premium paid into the policy (monthly payment for the plan) out at the beginning of a specified year.
The two most commonly sold life insurance plans are Term (lower payments or premiums for a plan that expires) and Permanent (higher payments; in some cases are 4-5 times as much as term policy, but will never expire). Keep in mind that using a combination of different types of Life insurance Plans could be a great way to go. A young couple, for example, looking to protect their Legacy could benefit from the following example.
Example; A couple at the ages of both 35 just purchased a Home for $400,000 and have a combined income of $140,000 a year. This couple purchased a 30 year Term policy with $750,000 of coverage and permanent policy with $250,000 death benefit. The idea behind having so much term coverage is that if one of the policy holders were to fall ill or pass earlier on, the family would be taken care of. For example: if one of the head of the households were to pass, in year 20, they would be able to have enough in an affordable term policy to cover their mortgage, income, and other expenses for an extended period of time and the spouse would be left with the permanent policy that would be sufficient enough to cover the remaining spouse’s burial cost and possibly even replenish the savings left to the consumers heir’s that would be wiped away during the probate process. The idea behind the permanent life insurance is that if both of the heads of the household live past the 30th year when the term policy expires, they will not need as much coverage because the mortgage will most likely be paid off, the kids will have graduated and be on their own, and they will have a substantial savings to cover other expenses that they will no longer have to be pay a premium for and they would still have $250,000 in coverage.
If a consumer is in great health they should be sure to look at the options that offer a medical exam. In most cases consumers may save thousands annually or even double the amount of coverage due to the fact that good carriers will reward healthy individuals with more coverage for less. Just running the numbers on a few online life insurance quote calculators, a man in his forty’s, non-smoker, and currently in good health could increase his policy’s payout by $150,000 with the same premium each month for a policy that doesn’t require a medical exam. On the flip side if someone isn’t in good health, it might be better to skip the exam and go with the coverage that is easier to qualify for.
Do not count on employer offered coverage. In most cases when an employee leaves the job or retires, they lose the coverage. At this point the cost of the same amount of coverage could literally be ten times the amount they were paying with the employer due to two facts. Life insurance usually goes up in price when consumers get older and group rates are usually lower than individual rates. Always check with the employer to see how the plan is administered before making long term life insurance decisions.
For more information, please visit http://www.ezhealthmart.com/life-insurance/
Source: Benavest