First off, you need to decide what you want insurance for. Some of the reasons could be:
- Income replacement for surviving spouse
- Mortgage payoff
- Children (education, etc.)
- Retirement Level term is usually the least expensive method of obtaining insurance. Term periods are usually 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 years. Companies that specialize in this market include Metropolitan, Transamerica, USAA Life, and West Coast Life; there are many others. Use a company with a sound financial rating, of which there are certainly fewer than there used to be, LOL. Income replacement: up to you to decide how much would be adequate recompense for a spouse's death. Generally it's recommended to have 5-10x gross annual salary, but your needs may be different. Mortgage payoff: self explanatory. Get a level term policy for each employed person on the title, for the 15 or 30-yr term of the mortgage. Children (education, etc.): again, self-explanatory Retirement: In our case, I have insurance as a retirement backstop. My DH has the old-fashioned Defined Benefit Pension that is assignable to the spouse, along with a good-sized 401k/457 account. I, OTOH, have only some small annuities that kick in when I'm 65, and a very tiny IRA. I use life insurance to mitigate the risk to him that if I die before I start collecting (he would get nothing, in that case) this offsets the loss of that monthly income for a number of years. Be aware that you need to be careful if the reason for purchase is estate planning. As most estates fall under the Federal Tax Limits, the majority of folks do not need an insurance policy for estate tax planning. These limits, of course, are changeable but general consensus is Congress will settle for the current $3.5M limit after 2010. Although life insurance does not incur income tax, being a POD (Payable On Death) financial product, and thus bypasses probate, I believe that it IS counted in your overall estate total and therefore, can trigger the federal estate tax when added to your other assets. To avoid this, there are two alternatives:
- Have the policy owned by someone other than the insured; e.g., a spouse.
- Set up an ILIT: Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust. You will need an attorney to do this, and sufficient cash flow to pay a considerable annual premium. This is usually a VUL (Variable Universal Life) policy, and is designed to move assets out of a taxable estate over time by purchasing an insurance policy which will eventually benefit the heirs by providing the cash necessary to pay any federal/state estate taxes (and providing liquidity with any remainder). Life Insurance can help with estate liquidity, but it is not in itself an immediate solution. Whoever you name as Executor of your will or Trustee of your Trust, will not actually be able to access cash funds unless they are a co-trustee of a jointly owned trust account. Anyone else will have to wait until they have a certified copy of the death certificate to present. If there are no problems and the county is efficient you might have this in a week or two. If there are any suspicious circumstances necessitating police or coroner investigations, the Executor or Trustee might have to wait a while. In either case, each has a fiduciary duty to keep the estate intact as much as possible before dispersing the assets. IOW, you can get life insurance proceeds fairly quickly - usually 2-3 weeks after they receive a copy of the death certificate. But your estate Executor or Trustee needs to start paying bills of the estate IMMEDIATELY upon death. This is something most folks never think about - there are legal and financial costs to death, and whoever's responsible for the estate had better have sufficient cash/credit up-front for at least one month, maybe two or three. They will get reimbursed from the estate, but it may take a little while. Just something to keep in mind! |
