Insurance World

The study of the human history and civilization reveals a universal desire for security, and it indicates that the need for security has been one of the most powerful motivating forces in the material and cultural growth.

Early societes relied on family and tribe cohesiveness for their security. With economic progress, however, this security source weakens. Insurance, in some form, has been a universal response to societies’ request for security.

Life insurers sell today policies that permit policyowners the felxibility of deciding the amount of the premium he or she would like to pay. Whole life policies are examples of such flexible plans because they are a function of the amount of the policyowner’s past and present premium payments.

Subject to company rules regarding minimums and maximums, the policyowner may pay whatever premium during a policy year that she or he wishes. An amount to cover the insurer’s expenses and mortality charges is subtracted from the cash value and a penalty for early policy termination, called a surrender charge, may be assessed against the policy’s cash value.

Many life insurance policies have cash values. Conceptually, all life insurance policy cash values can be derived in the same way and all evolve for the same basic reason: prefunding of future mortality charges. As a practical matter, however, policies are usually viewed in different ways.

The savings element is considered a by-product of the level premium method of payment. With universal life and some other newer forms of life insurance policies, the savings element is usually considered to be a more independent part of the policy, specifically designed to build a savings fund from which mortality and expense charges are withdrawn.

Economists and marketing personnel tend to view a level-premium whole life contract as a divisible contract providing financial protection to the policyowner’s beneficiaries, with other contract benefits available, including cash surrender and loan values. A policyowner may discontinue the insurance and surrender the policy for its cash values.

Alternatively, a policyowner may borrow from the insurer an amount up to the cash value, at a contractually stated rate of interest, using the cash value as collateral.

The distinguishing features of universal life policies are:

1- their flexibility
2- their transparency.

These policies are flexible in that they permit policyowners, within limits, to increase or decrease premium payments as they wish also to increase or decrease the policy face amount.

The transparency means that the three elements of life insurance ( mortality, interest, expenses ) are identified and disclosed to the customers.
The savings component of the life insurance policies is a direct function of the premium payments made by policyowners.

Life and health insurance have long been recognized as necessary and essential elements in an individual’s or a family financial program. In a modern society, a sense of family responsibility meant that life and health insurance would grow in importance.

And still today life and health insurance continue to occupy an important role in the financial planning process.
This article has the purpose to provide an introduction to this process and highlights the means by which life and health insurance can assist in accomplishing one’s financial plans.

A personal financial planning can be considered the process where an individual or a family decided to develop and implement an integrated plan to accomplish their objectives. The essential elements of this financial planning concept are the identification of financial goals and the development of an integrated plan to accomplish the objectives.

As all of us know humans are exposed to many serious perils, such as property losses from fire and windstorm, and personal losses from disability and death. Although individuals can not predict or prevent completely the occurrence of these dangerous events, they can provide against thier financial effects. The function of insurance is to safeguard against such misfortunes by having the losses of the unfortunate few paid by the contributions of the many who are exposed to the same peril.

The essence of of insurance is the sharing of losses and, in the process, the substitution of a certain small loss ( that is to say the premium payment ) for an uncertain, large loss.

In the peril under consideration is that of the death, the financial loss suffered can be reduced through life insurance. If the peril is instead disability, the financial loss can be compensated by the health insurance.

Insurance may be defined from two perspectives: that of the society and that of the individual. From the society’s point of view, life or health insurance may be defined as a social device where individuals transfer the financial risks associated with loss of life or health to the group of individuals, and which involves the accumulation of funds: and this concept means that the insurance exists when there is a transfer of the risk from the individual to the group.

From the individual’s point of view, life or health insurance may be defined as an agreement where one party pays a stipulated consideration ( the premium ) to the other party ( the insurer ), in return for which the insurer agrees to pay a defined amount of money if the person whose life is insured dies or suffers an illness to a stated time.