in laymans terms - what is the difference between term and whole life insurance and which one do i want ?

Answer 1

Term insurance is cheaper—all you get is the life insurance. When what ever term is up, you have not accrued any cash value. Main two options (besides shopping around for the best price) is staying insured for the same amount at an increasing premium rate or maintaining your same premium for decreasing insurance coverage. It is the simplest least gimmicky policy—much like car insurance—it pays it's value when you die while covered by the policy. Many policies guarantee that it it is renewable.

Life and whole life insurance is more expensive and a part of your premium is put into a savings account so that you gain cash value that you can borrow against or that can be fully paid (to the extent of the value of the insurance) without having to pay further premiums.

In my layman's opinion term life is simpler and cheaper. There are a lot better investment strategies than investing in life insurance and buying double indemnity for accidental death is money thrown away..

Answer 2

Term life will pay a death benefit in the event that you die during the specific time, or term, covered by the policy. A term life policy has a start date and an end date. If you die the day after the policy ends, the insurance company does not pay a death benefit. Term life is a safety net designed to protect your family or others from the loss of income should you die prematurely. For example, if you have children 8 and 10 years old, you might want to protect your family against the loss of your income until the children have graduated from high school. In that case, a 10-year term policy would work. Or, you may want to protect your family until your children have graduated from college. For that you would take out a 15-year policy. If your children are younger, you might want a 20-year policy. And so forth. Keep in mind, the premiums that you pay for a term life policy will be gone when the term is up. You will never see that money again.

A whole life policy covers your for your entire life. If you die tomorrow, you are covered. If you die in 20 years, you’re covered. And if you die when you’re 80, you’re covered. In the mean time, the insurance company invests the money, and some of the earnings are put into your policy in the form of cash value. The cash value builds over the years. At some point—when you are on a fixed income, for example—you can use your cash value to pay the premiums, keeping your policy in force. A whole life policy costs more than a term life policy, of course, because of these investment features.

Many people say that you could invest the money you save by getting term life in something that earns more money than a whole life policy. That may be true, but be realistic about your investing skills: Would you really invest the premium savings? Do you know enough about investing to guarantee a profit? Whole life is guaranteed to build cash value. And how are you going to such small sums of money? To find out more, go here: http://www.lifeinsurancewiz.com Good luck!

Answer 3

You probably want term. Term means you get life insurance for however long (say 10 years). You pay for it, and after 10 years you must get new insurance or just get by with no insurance.

Whole life is when you make monthly payments to the insurance company. They use some of the $$$ to get you insurance and invest the rest for you (obviously these payments will be alot more than for the term insurance). After many years you will have a fair amount of money saved up (the extra you paid in, plus interest they got from investing the money for you) and your insurance will be worth alot of money (ie they will give you back the extra if you ask). So, they will start paying the insurance from the interest off teh extra plus you can get money back if the extra is high enough.

The thing is, insurance companies are in the insurance business, not investing business. I'd prefer to invest with someone that just does that, so I don't like whole life (plus what if the insurance company went bankrupt - bye bye hard earned savings). So I'd say get term no matter what, but other people (lol, mostly annoying insurance agents) like whole life.

Answer 4

Briefly - term life is the plain vanilla life insurance policy; you pay a certain amount each month (very often every 3 months) and your benficiary gets a fixed payment amount if you die. If you miss any premium payments, the policy usually terminates immediately. There is no residual cash value.

Whole life is more like a savings or investment account. You pay a certain amount, which accrues interest over time. There is a minimum guaranteed payout if you die early, but if the policy does well - essentially, if the investements backing it do well - the value of the policy may be more than the stated payout. Because the policy account has an actual cash value, you can borrow against it if need be - this isn't recommended but is sometimes needed. You can also 'cash out' the policy for its total current value.

Answer 5

Whole Life Insurance is one of the biggest rip-offs of the century. It costs much more than Term Insurance for the same coverage and you cannot collect the 'death benefit' and the 'savings benefit' it's either one or the other. If you borrow 'your' money from savings and happen to die then your policy will only pay the face amount minus rpt minus what you borrowed from 'your' savings. Best to buy a Term insurance policy and put the difference between the premium you would pay for a whole life into a savings vehicle such as mutual funds.

Never buy whole life insurance and if you happen to have a policy, then cash it in and buy term and open a mutual funds account with the difference you'd be paying between whole life and term.

Answer 6

Term life is good for a set Term (number of years) and Whole life is designed to be in effect as long as you live.

You pay into Term life while you have the coverage and it's worth nothing at the end of that term, period. (So, you got the coverage for that number of years and yes, you got it a lot cheaper while you had it. However, you mind find yourself at an age, or in a health situation at that point where it may be difficult to get any kind of insurance even to cover your final expenses.)

You can pay into Whole life for a set number of years (usually called 20-Pay Whole life because you only pay the first 20 years of the contract), or you can pay for your entire life -- but the policy lasts until you die. (Or at least that's what they're designed to do. Most of them will actually end at either age 95 or age 100 -- effectively your entire life.) The money you pay into the contract builds cash value over time. In what's called a Participating policy, you will also earn dividends (so that the death benefit of the policy will almost always end up being higher than the face value, or the amount of insurance you originally bought.) A Non-Participating policy does NOT pay dividends and will NEVER be worth more than the face amount. (Those can be important distinctions.)

As for which you want... well, that's a personal choice, really. But I should point out that these aren't your only options. For instance, I personally have a large term policy to cover me during my planned earning years and a small whole life policy to cover my final expenses (even if I outlive my term policy, which I certainly hope!)

Even beyond that, you could consider what's called a Universal policy. You can think of a Universal policy like Term insurance on steroids. It will built a little cash value for the first few years of the contract, but ultimately you can get a guaranteed death benefit that (effectively) never ends. In other words, the cash value of the contract pretty quickly goes to nothing (Term never has a cash value anyway), but you are essentially buying it for a lifetime term since the contracts typically run through age 95 (and some even run to age 120.) For this reason, I'm seeing a lot more people who are interested in these as an alternative to both Term and Whole life. The Universal policies will cost you a bit more than Term coverage for the same face value, but the premiums wll never go up and you won't have to worry about out-living your term coverage (then trying to find other options and paying through the nose for them.) They are much LESS expensive than Whole life.

There are different kinds of Universal policies, though -- you want to be careful that you've got a guaranteed death benefit, otherwise it becomes more like an investment vehicle (and I really don't recommend life insurance as an investment.)

Answer 7

Term life is like auto liability insurance. The coverage is in effect as long as you pay the monthly premiums.

Whole life is like a really lousy savings plan. You pay on the policy until the maturity date, which may be 15 or 20 years. It then stays in effect until you die. Some policies you can cash in after they are paid off.

Answer 8

Term insurance
1. like auto insurance - You get coverage as long as you pay , you stop premium payment - no more coverage
2. no accumulated value over period of time
3. cheaper than whole life
4. available for specific period (as long as you continue to pay premium) 3 months to 10 years
5. Since it is cheap, it is recommended for people who have other financial commitments but still want a coverage
6. Not a tool for investment


Whole life

1. Combination of investment & insurance
2. More expensive
3. investment Return is available after a period of time/at the end of the insurance period
4. variety of options to choose from
5. The return from investment is taxable when received.

Considering that
Agents get a commission based on the insurance premium, your contribution is split in multiple ways between Cost of insurance, agent commission, admin fee etc, the best choice is Term Insurance . For investments, you can use tax sheltered investments like 401K or RRSP in canada

Answer 9

Term only covers you for a fixed amount of time (like 3 months or a year). After that, you croak, your family gets nothing.

Whole life, means just that. It's your whole life. You generally pay the premium each month/year. It may also offer an investment option, where part of your premium gets invested, and you can take a loan out against that money.

Answer 10

It's layman's terms actually. This question was already answered if you search for it under answers.