Insurance Coverage At A Glance

Insurance:

The word “Insurance” refers to the promise of repayment of the money in the case of any loss to the insurer. The insurer may be an individual or a company who have made prepayment to an insurance company for a secured life. Insurance also provides “security against future loss”. We cannot predict the timing and the occurrence of loss. So we need insurance plan in order to protect ourselves from the future loss. An insurance policy provides financial assistance to support medical, personal and social services.

Types of Insurance:

Different types of Insurance plans are offered based on your needs. Some of them are

Life Insurance

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Property insurance

Automobile insurance

Life Insurance:

Life insurance policy is sometimes referred as life assurance, provides reimbursement of money to the decedent’s family or other designated. Life insurance gives security for you and your family. The life insurance may be permanent insurance or term insurance. The term insurance is somewhat expensive and complicated. Since the duration of this term insurance is limited to 1 to 10 or 20 years. If something happens to the insurer during this course of time, the death benefit is given to the recipient. If nothing happens at the end of term, they will not be benefited fully. Whereas the permanent life insurance is more secure and gives protection throughout the lifetime. If you cancel the policy then the accumulated cash will be yours and you can make use of it.

Health Insurance:

Health insurance is a type of insurance, which covers medical costs of the insured when the insurer becomes sick or injured. Health insurance plans offered in two categories. They are individual and group insurance policy. The individual plans covers health costs for a single person whereas the group health insurance plan covers medical coverage for the entire family.

Dental Insurance:

Like health insurance, dental insurance covers dental costs for an individual or group. The costs include normal dental care cost as well as damage to teeth in an accident. Most people in the United States are getting along with their health insurance plans from their employer. Whatever may be the type of policy, it provides you a financial aid for you and your child in future. Dental insurance covers both individual and group. The group dental is more economical and beneficial than the individual.

Automobile insurance:

The insurance which legal liability against driver or incase of loss and damage to the vehicle.

Property insurance:

Property insurance gives protection against your property. This includes specialized forms of insurance like fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance etc.

Need for Insurance:
For secure life, we require insurance plans. Because anything may happen tomorrow, the things are unpredictable. Insurance makes you to prepare for future. The health insurance plans are provided to in order to meet the expense of any health problem.

Now a day’s health and dental coverage for an individual/family becomes more expensive. So it is advisable to have a health insurance plan. You can get reasonable price on your individual health and dental plan through an employer.

Whatever may be the insurance plans it provides “protection against future loss”.

Term Insurance Vs. Whole Life Or Permanent Insurance - A Car Analogy

Should I lease a car or buy it?

Think of a term life insurance policy as leasing a car. When you lease a car you get the benefits of using the car, but when you stop paying you don’t have a car anymore. As with term insurance as long as you pay your premiums you get the benefit of the term life insurance policy, but when you stop paying, you no longer have any coverage.

Whole life or “permanent policies” are designed to build up a cash value. So similar to buying a car you have an asset that you can keep. Unlike a car, hopefully this asset will grow in value. Whole life, Universal life and Variable Universal life are all different types of permanent insurance. Permanent insurance, most of the time, is meant to keep until you die or as a saving vehicle.

The way the policy grows in value gives you the different names of insurance such as, Whole Life, Universal Life, and Variable Universal Life. That leads to the understanding of the different types of permanent policies.


Whole Life- Is an insurance policy where premium payments are usually the same throughout the life of the policy, as is the death benefit. You usually need to pay the premiums as long as the policy is in force.


Universal Life - Is an insurance policy where premium payments may be changed and the death benefit can also be changed by the owner. Usually if the death benefit is being raised you will have to show some evidence of insurability (medical information) or other information requested. Your policy grows at a stated interest rate which changes every so often.


Variable Universal Life - Is an insurance policy where premium payments may be changed and the death benefit can also be changed by the owner. Usually if the death benefit is being raised you will have to show some evidence of insurability (medical information) or other information requested. Your policy grows at the rate of your investment choice you choose. Since you may invest in market instruments similar but not exactly like mutual funds. Your policy can lose value causing larger premium payments than expected.

Take a step back and think about it from the insurance company’s point of view, its easier to understand the difference. A portion of the cash value that builds in the insurance contract will pay for the “cost of insurance”.

Whole life- The insurance company is taking most of the risk. They are paying a death benefit to you no matter what happens to the cash value in the account. As long as you make your payments the insurance company has to pay your death benefit. This may be the most expensive.

Universal life - The insurance company is taking some risk. The policy grows give the current interest rate it pays. At times you are only able to earn low interest . You may need to make up more payments to keep your policy.

Variable Universal life - The insurance company has taken the least amount of risk. In the Variable policy the rate of return is variable, meaning you don’t know how fast your policy will grow or shrink. This type of policy is most likely used for someone who is younger and can ride out the volatility of their portfolio. Since you take on the most risk in this type of policy it usually has the smallest premiums.