Learn and know how to get cheap life insurance

Finding a cheap life insurance policy that offers the right amount of coverage is at the forefront of any first-time buyer’s mind. The same goes for someone who’s simply looking for a better rate.

If you want to get the most affordable life insurance, there are several things you can do to minimize costs. I have six tips to help you find cheap life insurance, which I’ll be sharing with you in this article.

It’s true there are factors you have less control over when it comes to the cost of life insurance, but there’s a lot within your control too.

Here are the 2 basic starting points for getting cheap life insurance:

1.      Target a term life insurance policy.

2.      Get quotes from multiple providers.

6 Tips to Find Cheap Life Insurance

Life insurance can be tricky to understand. Many companies analyze your health differently and also calculate risk in slightly varying ways. Following these steps is key to finding the cheapest life insurance for you.

Tip #1: Get several quotes

As with most purchasing decisions, finding many options will give you an edge. Most people don’t bother obtaining multiple quotes because it’s time-consuming. However, using an online quote tool is the quickest way to get quotes from several reputable insurers at one time.

Tip #2: Avoid riders and additional insurance

If your bottom-line goal is to find the cheapest insurance possible, you’ll want to say no to any add-on insurance or policy riders. Examples of add-ons include the option to purchase child policies or more insurance at a future date without going through the medical exam process again.
You can think of riders as à-la-carte options to supe up your policy. Riders can be purchased to accelerate your death benefit and pay you out for medical expenses if you have a terminal illness but haven’t passed away yet. Term conversion is another rider that gives you the option to convert your term policy to a permanent (whole life) policy.
A caveat: Choose your coverage wisely. If you need coverage for your kids, then it is OK to pay for the extra coverage. Also, if you’re someone who is on the fence between term and whole life coverage, the term conversion rider will give you that option down the road for a few dollars per month.
There is no one-size-fits-all method to buying life insurance, but having as few riders as possible will keep your rates low.

Tip #3: Say no to one-company local agents

Experts are available to help you through the process of purchasing life insurance, and many of the largest insurance companies have their own networks of agents. If you need the human touch, I would avoid one-company local agents because they usually represent the interests of their own company, which essentially lowers your options. If they happen to represent the cheapest and the best life insurance company, that’s another story!
A good strategy is to seek out a financial advisor, like Edward Jones, that covers several different insurers. This way, your advisor will be more impartial even though he or she has personal preferences.

Tip #4: Don’t wait

Generally speaking, the younger and healthier you are, the cheaper your insurance costs will be. If you’re in your mid-20s and are thinking about lifestyle changes like marriage and kids, it can pay off to buy a policy now rather than waiting. The biggest reason is that you never really know how your health will change at any time.
As a summer intern, I sold my future father-in-law a life insurance policy on his 19-year-old daughter. After that, she was diagnosed with a condition that would prevent her from being insured today. Not waiting made all the difference.

Tip #5: Bundle coverages if you can

One way to receive discounts on your quoted life insurance rate is to bundle coverage with your car, home, or other insurance. Large insurers like State Farm can be fairly cheap life insurance providers because they give you the most options to bundle.
A good strategy to maximize your bundled discounts is to review all of your insurance at the same time and pick the company that can give you the best deal for switching. This is more work in the short term, but can pay huge dividends in the long run.

Tip #6: Check the financial stability of the insurer

Cheap life insurance can be a very bad deal if the insurer isn’t financially healthy enough to pay out when the time comes. After you go through online quotes, always check the financial reputation of the insurer so you don’t pay premiums for years only to find out the company can’t pay out any claims.
A.M. Best is an insurance rating agency and provides up-to-date information on the financial health of most life insurance companies. Use them to check on a company, especially if you haven’t heard of them or if they’ve started operations within the last 10 years.

Why is Term Life Insurance the Cheapest?

You generally have two options for life insurance. There are various hybrids and nuances, but a life insurance policy is usually either:

• Term life insurance
• Whole life insurance

What is term life insurance?

Term life insurance acts much like your auto insurance, so it’s much easier to understand. Like your car insurance, you pay a premium each month for the period of time you wish to be covered, and if you don’t use the insurance (i.e. pass away) in that time period, the insurance company keeps the money and does not have to pay a death benefit. This is just like your auto policy — if you don’t get into an accident, there is no payout from the insurance company.
Term insurance is generally cheaper because the coverage is only provided for a specific period of time. In most cases, the insurance company will never pay out because you will outlive the term and the policy will expire. However, term life premiums can and do rise with age, whereas whole life premiums stay steady. Late in life, they can become cost-prohibitive.

What is whole life insurance?

Whole life insurance is a life insurance policy that remains in force for the insured’s whole life. In this case, you or your survivors are guaranteed to receive a payout from the insurance company as long as your payments are current.
Whole life insurance has an investment growth component to it where dividends are accumulated tax-deferred. Part of your premium pays for the death benefit and part of your premium is invested to produce these dividends and increase your policy’s “cash value.” Your cash value typically can be accessed during your lifetime, which is a nice living benefit.
Your premium payment is generally higher than with term life, but does not increase over time. Your premium stays the same once your policy is in force no matter what your health or age is. Additionally, because of the cash-value buildup, at some point you can usually use the growth in your policy to pay your premium. This way, you can have a policy in force for the rest of your life without making another out-of-pocket premium payment.

What impacts your life insurance rates?

Once you choose the type of insurance you want, your actual insurance cost is based on many factors, with age and health being the biggest factors. For either term or whole life, the following factors can impact how much you pay:

• Overall health
• Smoker/non-smoker
• Family history
• Age
• Gender
• Lifestyle (high-risk activities)
• Career
• Location

How I Use Life Insurance

Experts argue about which is best, but there is a specific purpose for both term and whole life insurance. If you structure them properly you can create a very affordable life insurance program that is comprehensive enough to meet all of your goals.
Here is how I approach life insurance:

• I use term life to cover my fixed debts, or expenses that are likely to only exist for a fixed period of time.
• I supplement long-term coverage with a whole life policy that has more growth and tax-advantaged features.

I am 32-years-old, married, have two young children, and have a home with two vehicles.
I use cheap term life insurance to cover the debts that care for my kids and revolve around family expenses of our home.
If I died tomorrow, here is what I would want covered:

• My mortgage debt so the house will be paid off.
• Vehicle ownership expenses so my cars will be paid off.
• Approximate child expenses for 18 years.
• Cost of four-year college tuition for two kids.

These expenses roughly end 20 years into the future, so I try to match my coverage term to that time frame.
When I started looking into life insurance, I had recently graduated from college and didn’t have enough money to purchase a whole life policy, so I bought a term life policy.
I made sure my term could be converted to whole life insurance. I value this conversion flexibility because I like the idea of growing my money tax-deferred, and estate tax policy is in constant flux.
I plan to leave money to my children, and this gift may be taxable in the future. I can use whole life to cover any tax implications for my kids at the time of my death.
Granted, I do understand that what I’ve outlined here may not be the cheapest, but I wanted to provide some personal details that may help you.

How much should you buy and when should you start?

A very general rule of thumb is to purchase at least 10 times your annual salary in life insurance. So, if you make $50,000 per year, you would want to look at a $500,000 life insurance policy. As you can imagine, this calculation might not fit your unique situation.
For a more accurate approach, follow these steps:

1.      Add up any mortgage or student debts you want covered.

2.      Add up your monthly expenses for the period of time you want covered.

3.      Add in any educational or other extraordinary expenses you want covered.

4.      Finally, add in any other obligations you do not want to burden your survivors with (e.g. taxes or other debts).

Going through this exercise will give you a more realistic portrayal of how much coverage you need. An additional benefit to this process is that, if your quotes end up coming in much higher than your budget, you can remove items from your list and adjust your number to arrive at a more reasonable premium payment.

How to get started

Generally, when you experience life changes, like purchasing a home, getting married, or having children, you start to accumulate many financial responsibilities that you want to protect with life insurance.
There really isn’t much of a need to buy term before these events.
However, many people choose to start whole life insurance programs at a very young age because cheap insurance is so plentiful and the policy owners can milk the cash value growth for a longer period of time.
Whatever decision you make, it can’t hurt to get started by getting a quote from several providers. You can find the most affordable life insurance (whether it’s term or whole) and then decide if it fits within your current budget.