The amount of competition for your business when it comes to insurance is amazing. A simple Google search for insurance will yield 452 million results! Because there’s so much competition, prices are falling through the floor. If you purchased life insurance even a few years ago, chances are you’ll be able cancel your policy and get a better deal now even though you’re a few years older. Here’s how you can shop for a new life insurance policy and get the best deal.
First you should understand what type of life insurance you want. In almost every case, term life insurance makes sense. There are very few if any situation where whole life insurance, universal life insurance, or variable life insurance make sense. These products are very high in commission, and your family does not get to keep the cash value inside the policy when you die. In addition, the interest you earn on your cash value is a pittance compared to what you could make by investing in solid mutual funds. Term life always makes sense.
You should also figure out how much money you need in life insurance. Right now you might have enough, and a lot of families do not. You’ll want to get about eight-to-ten times your annual income in life insurance, so if you make $50,000 a year, you’ll want to have about $400,00 to $500,000 in life insurance. This way your family can invest the money that comes from your life insurance policy, and live off of the interest without eating up the principal.
Now that you know what type you need and how much you get, it’s time to shop for life insurance. There are two good ways of doing this. The first way is to visit an independent insurance agent in your city. They know how to compare dozens of companies at once, and which companies will be able to give you the best deal for someone in your age, occupation, and health. This takes a lot of the work out of the situation, and is a very great way to shop for life insurance if you have an independent agent near by. Don’t visit what’s called a captive agent, or an agent that sells for only one company, because they won’t be able to compare prices from a bunch of different companies for you.
If you don’t want to go visit an insurance agent, you can shop online. You can visit a number of different sites such as SelectQuote and IntelliQuote which will scour their databases of a number of different insurance companies and find you the best price that’s out there for somebody in your situation. You’ll just fill out a form, then you can buy the life insurance on the spot, it’s that simple.