What's The differerence between ;Whole life Insurance & Term Life Insurance?

Question

And which one is better ?

Answer 1

When buying life ins.. it isnt going to be for you, but those you leave behind, paying your final expenses, and helping them too... Funerals...And they are high.. 6-9 thousand,... Whole, and Unversal life insurace are the cadillac of life insurance, expensive. but cover your whole life existance, as long as you pay the premiums. Term is the chevy.. payes for the term of contract (ex.30years).. If you die during the term, it pays MORE than the others.. If you want to spend the money you can have both whole and term..When do you expect to die? No one knows that answer. I have experieince with both with dealing with loved ones having one or the other.. My opinion: Whole life is a scam,with higher commisions to the agent too than Term....so which one do they want to sell you?? Term pays if the policy hasnt expired, so renew it...... What do you want to leave behind for your family when you die... That is the hardest question you will ever ask yourself, because we all dont know our own mortality.. I say all this in dealing with my own life experience with BOTH kinds.. One more bit of FREE advice, I had a Aunt with no husband or children pass away just over a year ago, she prepaid her funeral, and left behind her whole funeral service too, (the songs, the pall bearers, everything) she made the day and the planning go alot easier...

Answer 2

Whole life insurance builds cash value over time and is generally more expensive than term life insurance. If you make it to the policy maturity date (usually age 99 or 100) you should get the face value back since it will have earned enough cash through your premium payments plus the interest included in the policy. It also pays a better commision to the agent than a term policy will.

Term life insurance is basically insurance which does not build cash value, has a specified period (say 10 year, 20 years, 30 years etc). And is the equivilant of you betting that you will die within that time period while the copmany is betting that you will not die during the time frame.

Answer 3

Whole life is insurance that covers you forever and term insurance only covers you for a set amount of time such as 10, 20, 30 or 40 yrs. It depends on your age which is better for you. If you're relatively young, say under 40 or 45 I would go with the term. Contact an insurance agent.

Answer 4

Whole life covers (provides a death benefit to your survivor) for your whole life. Term only covers the specified term, usually 10, 20 or 30 years. Most term policies NEVER pay a death benefit. The insured outlives the term 97% of the time.

As to which is better, it depends HEAVILY on your current and future financial situation. Tell me when you will die and I will tell you which to buy.

Go talk to several licensed agents near you and perhaps a financial planner.

Keep in mind that you CAN own both term and permanent insurance.

Good Luck.

Answer 5

Whole life insurance:
1) You are covered for WHOLE life
2) You will pay your premiums for the rest of your life. Either from your own pocket or from the cash value.
3) No cash value is accumulated during the first 2 years of the policy, therefore cash value has a low rate of return between 1-4%.
4) Your cash value grows tax-deferred
5) If you want to use the cash value, you have to borrow it and owe monthly interest on that loan.
6) Your death benefit will be reduced when you miss your premiums and when you borrow the cash value.
7) You lose all the cash value when you die.
8) If you surrender the policy, you may owe surrender charges. Your cash value will be further reduced by any outstanding loans.
9) Because of the cash value feature, whole life insurance is very expensive.

Term insurance
1) Level premium of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, or 35 years.
2) No cash value, so it gives you more control of where you want to save your money.
3) Most current term policies contains a provision to provide coverage to age 100. That means after the level premium expires, your policy with renew with a new rate base on your new age and you don't need to provide proof of insurability. So your premiums will go up and remain fix for a short period of time.
4) Since term insurance doesn't have cash value or savings plan attached to it, they are inexpensive in the beginning.

I don't know your financial situation, but I always sell term insurance and help people invest their money in tax-deferred accounts such as Roth IRAs and/or variable annuities. Term insurance gives the right amount of the protection for a lowest possible cost. Most people who have life insurance are under-insured because they have some sort of cash value policy. I believe that people don't need life insurance forever as long as they continue to invest their money on a consistent basis. As you get older, your kids grow up, your mortgage gets paid off, and you are nearing retirement. So you better have lots of money saved. And I show people how much they need to save to make this money last throughout their retirement years.

What if you out live the term? If you do outlive the term, then you need to re-evaluate your needs. Do you still need as much coverage? How much do you have in your investments? Who is currently dependant on your income? Though, you have to consider the fact that you may die during the term too.

Whatever life insurance you decide, you should definetly open an IRA account if you haven't already because you may live for a very long time and you need this money to last as long as possible. Do you want to retire broke or retire with lots of money?

Answer 6

The answer to "which one is better" depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to protect your family from the possibility of income loss due to your death, you will find that term insurance is a much better deal -- the expected payout is much closer to your actual actuarial risk. You buy that insurance for only as long as you have that need.
Whole life is relatively more expensive for the pure insurance coverage, but CAN offer a very attractive tax deferred way of accumulating money for your estate. In order for this to make sense financially, you would have to commit a lot more money for a long period of time. AND there are huge differences in the performance of these policies that depend on the policy and issuer, so you would have to do a lot of research.
Good rule of thumb is: If you're not planning to keep the policy in place for more than 20 years, go with the term option. It's a very competitive marketplace because life expectancies continue to increase.

Answer 7

Which one better ? you make your call after you read this.
Ask yourself you want to live in appartment forever or own the apportment and rent is out for cash flow income for life time.
That is what difference between term and whole life, you go with Term, you rent the appartment, when you left, you have nothing on hand, when you getting old that time for some reseon, you still need a lot of coverage for your family that time, your cost of insurance will be huge even you have a good health, insurance company make money on term life most of the time due to people live longer than before.
If you go with Whole life, mean you buy appartment and after you paid off your mortgage, you will own the appartment forever and collect cash flow income ( cash Value ) forever. tule that whole life premium is a lot higher than Term, most of the whole life premium need to pay for life of the policy term, But...
You can chose the type of only need to pay premium for 10 or 15 years whole life policy, that is, limit time premium pay whole life, after 10 years done, just like you paid off mortgage, you done with your obalication and get your dividend cash flow every year and enjoy. the longer you live, the more cash value you will have and you don't need to worry you insurance again for life.
Here is the best part, in order to get the best dividend cash flow, you much buy whole life policy from mutual life company, not from stock company, that ways you will earn big dividend for the policy.

Answer 8

I not sure if this will help, but if you think of it like a car.
Whole Life is like buying the car.
Term is like renting it.
However, you might want to look at Indexed Universal life. That's kind of like buying the car and getting a retirement plan to go with it.