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Life Insurance
- Consider your own situation to see if life insurance makes sense for you, how much you need, and which type of life insurance would be best. If your family would be unable to make the mortgage payments without your income, you need life insurance.
- Life insurance is meant to replace your income. My rule of thumb is to buy an amount equal to 10 times your annual salary.
- If both spouses work, both should have life insurance to replace their own income. Don't buy insurance on your children.
- There are two primary types of life insurance. Term life coverage provides a payment only if you die. Other policies, such as whole life or universal life, include investment components.
- If you decide to get term life insurance, the best way to buy is by checking one of several websites for a financially strong company that offers low premiums. AMBest.com is a good site for research purposes. Look for insurers that have an A++ or an A+ rating. (Free registration is required to use this site.)
- Don't cancel a whole life policy. Once you've purchased it, it's best to keep it.
- Avoid buying more than one policy for any person. Every insurance policy you buy has fees hidden in it. So two $50,000 policies would cost more than one $100,000 policy.
- NOLHGA.com can help you determine your level of state guaranty coverage in the event your insurer fails.
- MissingMoney.com can help you find unclaimed insurance policy money that may be due to you.
Stay-at-home spouses need level term life insurance
It's distressing to me how few people with young kids have life insurance. The problem is the insurance that's best for people with dependents is not touted by the industry as a general rule. Stay-at-home spouses have a special need for life insurance. A new survey from Salary.com finds the ...
Unclaimed money could be waiting for you
There could be unclaimed money from bank accounts and insurance policies hanging out unloved in your name. Here's how to claim at no cost if it's rightfully yours.
Find and claim missing money for free
Unclaimed money from bank accounts, insurance policies, and safe deposit boxes hanging out unloved in your name. I want to tell you how to check and collect it without paying any fees. The deal is this: When money gets lost in space, it gets held by the state until someone ...
Three simple tips for a stronger financial future
Brett Arends of The Wall Street Journal has a brilliant article titled Six Money Moves You Should Make in 2013. Many of the things Brett talks about are topics I've beat you over the head about too. See my links below: Shop for level term life insurance. Comparison shop at ...
What kind of life insurance do you need, if any?
Do you need life insurance? Clark tells you how to determine the answer, and he offers advice about the best kind of policy to buy.
Looking at Annuities? Beware this sales scam
Are you a senior thinking about buying an annuity? Before you buy, know the dangers of the sale pitch that landed one big-time seller with $10 million in fines.
The trouble with death futures contracts
Buying somebody's life insurance policy and then hoping they die an early death is a ghoulish way to make money. But that's the just the start of what's wrong with death futures contracts....
Ensure you get your Life Insurance benefits
You may be due money from a life insurance policy on one of your dearly departed relatives. But some of those companies are conspiring to cheat you out of what you're rightfully owed.
Death future contracts still fraught with dangers
RIP-OFF ALERT: The attorney general of Texas has accused Life Partners Holdings (LPH,) a prominent seller of death future contracts, of stealing $300 million. Death future contracts (aka viaticals) are a sketchy area of the investing world where people buy the rights to someone else's life insurance policy and then ...
A policy more important than Life insurance?
People have gotten used to hearing Clark stress the importance of buying level term life insurance if you have dependents. But there's another kind of policy that you're even more likely to need...
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