My Personal Finance Blog

Everyone in the US understands the importance of the current healthcare debate. Premium rates are rising across the nation. The WellPoint subsidiaries in California and Indiana raising their rates on individual health plans by up to 39%. The results are inevitable. The number of families unable to afford health insurance is bound to rise dramatically. Estimates vary, but one thing is clear. There are probably less than 50 million Americans without health cover right now. By the end of this year, it will be more than 50 million. It is a sad reflection on the US. This country prides itself on being the best in whatever it does. Yet, when it comes to healthcare, it is one of the worst performing countries in the world. Look at any international comparison and you will see a lower life expectancy and more deaths caused by failures in the healthcare services than almost every other developed nation. Yet the February Healthcare Summit showed the political parties as far apart as ever. There’s no sign of any bipartisan move to improve the situation for the ordinary people of this country. Instead, the GOP want reform stopped in its tracks. How this appeals to voters is hard to understand. Why should anyone vote for a party that wants to keep this present broken system?

Anyway, we now wait to see whether the Democratic Party has the strength of character to pass the reform bill using the budget reconciliation procedure. This allows a bill to become law on a simple majority. If the bill is signed into law, it will begin the slow process of reforming the current reality. But this is going to take more than one year to produce obvious results so, for those of you looking for affordable insurance now, you have to assume there will be no reform bill riding to your rescue like some Marvel hero. This is frustrating but there’s no sense in having false expectations. You have to deal with the world as it is and make the best of it.

This brings us back to the mechanics of this site. Here we have a search engine that contacts all the heath plan providers in your state. As an aside, one ironic point of agreement between the two political parties is that you should be allowed to buy a plan across state lines. Unless and until that becomes the law, you are restricted to buying a plan from an insurer licensed in your own state. This restricts competition and makes it more difficult to find an affordable plan. Because the use of this site is completely free, you can get multiple sets of health insurance quotes, and compare and contrast the plans and their premium rates. Now, more than ever, it’s important to shop around and collect the most information you can about what the market is offering. The more health insurance quotes you collect, the wider the choice and the better the chance of finding an affordable plan. While you search, consider the new power of influence claimed by the Tea Party. They want to tear down big government. It would be good to see some more support for the other side of the argument. With elections coming around later this year, you should get involved and make sure the right message on healthcare reform gets through to Washington. Do not let the negative voice go unanswered. If you want health insurance premiums to fall, make your voice heard and push for reform.

One of the results of the recession has been to reinforce the tendency to opt for term insurance as the first life policy. With the disappearance of credit and the pressure on employment, people have decide to switch to prudence. That means paying down the debts and cutting back on discretionary spending. Is this financial puritanism sensible? There are a number of factors to consider. First, a definition. A term policy is life coverage for a fixed number of years. Think of it as like a bet. If you are still alive at the end of the term, the insurance keeps all the premiums, and you and your dependents get nothing. Now, let’s focus on the psychology of the young. Most never bother thinking about insurance or, if they do, it’s a very low priority. Why bother worrying about something that’s unlikely to happen for decades? Statistically, this is a reasonable view. Just as many young people back their health and refuse to buy an individual health plan, the majority see no advantage in life insurance. Life expectancy has been rising steadily over the last 50 years. This calm confidence lasts until they enter a stable relationship. Until children appear. But, by then, the cost of living has gone up and, potentially, what was two incomes has become one. Then, buying term insurance is the cheap option.

The real question is whether buying a whole life policy early is always the right answer. The argument goes that you take on the higher premiums when, as a young single, you have the most disposable income. Inflation and pay increases slowly make the higher premiums more affordable. If you do become a two-income family, this really takes the pressure off. Hopefully, by the time children come along, you have already produced a financial situation in which the premiums are now affordable. Hmmm. Back to definitions: this policy insures your life, but also has an investment element that builds up a cash value over time. If you keep up the premiums, this provides security during retirement and for your dependents. Except, people do not make rational financial decisions. The young prefer to enjoy their youth rather than stay home and save for their retirement. Worse, the reality of most of the investment elements is that they represent poor performance. If you bought term insurance and invested the balance of the premium saved in regular investments, you would almost certainly do better. The hard reality is the insurance companies charge commissions for setting up your account and then impose management fees for investing your money. This slices the top off the investment returns.

So the conclusion is slightly bad news. The decision on what to buy is not directly related to the life insurance quotes you receive through a site like this. The best value is buying term insurance and having the self-discipline to invest a growing proportion of your income. If you do not have that self-discipline, the whole life, universal and variable policies represent compulsory savings. In effect, you are paying the life company to do the work of investing for you. The perfect choice starts with the life insurance quotes and diverts through the office of an independent actuary who will give you an educated guess on the quality of the investment returns from the whole life policy as against managing your own investments over the next thirty years or so. Now you can decide whether you want to trust yourself or accept a low but guaranteed yield from the insurance company.

The biggest financial decision you are likely to make is buying a home, closely followed by less expensive must-haves like a vehicle. But the one deal you should aim to get right is the decision on life insurance. This is the difference between leaving your dependents with an adequate amount of cash to see them through the times of economic hardship after your income is lost, and leaving them with nothing. In this, the decision on term as against permanent insurance is the key. Put the wrong key in the lock and you open a door into real financial hardship. So what’s wrong with term insurance? Think of this as like a bet. If you die within the term, your dependents are the winners. If you prove healthy and live too long, you lose the premiums you paid and your dependents get nothing. Now, when it comes to permanent insurance, this builds up a cash value. The longer you have the policy in place, the more valuable it comes as the premiums you pay attract investment returns. During your own life, you can take some of this money back or borrow using the fund as collateral. When the sad day finally comes, the benefits are paid out to your dependents less whatever drawings or borrowings you have made.

From these short sentences, you will immediately suspect the other difference between the products. Term life insurance is the cheap option. It gives you security in the amount of the benefits for the number of years you select. If you buy one term policy after another, the premiums are higher each time because your life expectancy is less on each renewal. Permanent insurance premiums are higher because a percentage of what you pay is invested on your behalf to generate the cash value. So your fund receives the benefit of the interest, dividends and other returns the investments generate. This makes the total of the cash value the key factor. Do you want a higher rate of return on the premiums? This can be for your own benefit should there be an emergency during your life. Or it can build up over the years for your dependents. If the answer is yes, you must be prepared to pay more to start off the policy – the first year’s premiums often disappear into a black hole representing set-up costs and the selling agent’s commission. But the amount you pay stays the same throughout the lifetime of the policy. So, with inflation, what starts out a struggle slowly grows easier to pay.

The real problem is the uncertainty of the future. Who knows how inflation may affect different aspects of life. What may be cheap now, may be expensive tomorrow and vice versa. So here are a few simple rules. If all you want is cover over the next few years (no more than ten), get life insurance quotes for a term policy. Ten years is not a long enough period of time to build up a worthwhile cash value. Estimate what benefits might be needed, e.g. your daughter will need $50,000 to cover her college tuition fees, and the total will set the amount of the insurance. If you are looking at a period of at least twenty years, you should think seriously about permanent insurance. Again, get life insurance quotes but you should also take advice on the different types of policy available and create or review your estate plan. Between ten and twenty years is a gray area and whichever way you decide is not going to be wrong.

It’s always better to start article with good news. This sets a positive tone to the piece and keeps people reading. So, let’s start with good news. The premiums for life insurance have been dropping! Yes, you can believe your eyes. It may not feel like it, but there has never been a cheaper time to buy a life policy. How come? Well, unlike other forms of insurance, the policy only pays out in the future when the life insured ends. If you go back to 1980, men lived to an average of 70 years, women to 77 years. In the latest figures released by the Center for Communicable Diseases, men now live to an average of 75.6, with women now into the 80s at 80.8 years. As an aside, the poor quality of the US healthcare service is highlighted by the life expectancy figures. The US ranks only 38th in the world. That said, since the obligation of having to pay out on a life policy is disappearing into the future, the cost of the benefits payable can be collected over more years. This makes premiums fall.

You will have noticed that women usually live longer than men. There are a number of explanations for this, but the reality is simple. Women have always had stronger levels of immunity to almost all diseases that strike down men. They are also more careful and less likely to die in any kind of accidents or while indulging in dangerous sports. This reflects the gender roles with women acting protectively over their children and, in later years, acting as the primary caregivers to older family members and relatives. This throws up the first major decision. If a woman is going to leave dependents behind her, there will be a need to leave a more substantial lump sum behind. Women multitask and buying in professional help to do all the work is expensive. Whereas it’s estimated that men should leave an average of seven times their average pay, women with dependents should aim for a multiple of not less than ten. The plan should be to provide a substantial lump sum that can be invested and generate an income to supplement the capital for those who remain.

With family responsibilities, the second decision is the type of policy to buy. If your budget is tight, there will be a temptation to buy the cheaper term insurance. But, with life expectancy extending, you are gambling you will not outlive the policy. Remember, there is no payment if you are still alive when the term ends. Although permanent insurance costs more, it gives a valuable safety net for your dependents. More importantly, a permanent policy has a cash value and this can give you access to money if expenses are threatening to overwhelm you. So when you start shopping around, always get life insurance quotes from the widest possible range of companies. Then check out that they are financially stable. You need your choice to be around in the decades to come. It’s also a good idea to find out whether the company offers an advice service to help older people manage their money. So don’t stop when you get a list of the life insurance quotes using the search engine. Talk to the companies before deciding which is going to offer you the best deal.

The role of women in society has changed dramatically over the last fifty years. We have moved from an expectation that girls will marry young, stay home and bring up children to a new world in which women are financially independent and less dependent on the decision-making powers of their fathers and “husbands”. This has, in some ways, made life more difficult for women. They must now find a balance between developing a career and the biological drive to have children. Women have also retained their role as carers and are often expected to look after ageing parents. As a result, many neglect their own financial affairs. To protect their interests, the challenge for the modern woman is to make the claim of independence real. This means having a formal life plan. Because life expectancy is longer for women. they should establish goals and set out strategies for achieving them. Just drifting through life is a recipe for disaster.

In all this, proper life insurance is a must. The latest national statistics show that about a quarter of households across the US do not carry any insurance. Why should this change? If you leave debts behind you, the family may be forced to sell off assets to pay off what is owing. If you die young, will your children have enough money to go through college? Will your parents manage on their retirement savings? Having some insurance gives you peace of mind. You know there is an adequate sum of money for those you leave behind. What are the specifics?

If you are a single mom, you are the sole breadwinner. The family looks to you to provide for all their needs. With insurance, there will be enough to pay all the funeral and other expenses, pay off the mortgage on your home and leave some cash to meet future expenditure. Nothing can replace you as a person, but you can leave a lump sum representing your earning capacity behind.

If you and your partner are just starting to get a base together, life insurance cover on both of you gives the survivor a safety net. Otherwise, with young children and a new mortgage, it’s not going to be easy to cope.

As an older woman, having a long-running policy in hand gives you financial room to plan. If there’s a surrender value or an investment element, you can borrow or sell the policy for a lump sum. This gives you access to cash during retirement when all your other savings may be tied up or run down.

This puts the pressure on you to get the right coverage in place from an early age. Shop around and get as many life insurance quotes from different companies as possible. You need to get a feel for what the marketplace can offer. You should also take advice. The life insurance quotes are only useful to a point. An independent professional can tell you which policies make the best long-term investments. Remember, it’s cheaper when you start paying premiums early in your life. If you delay, the premiums will be significantly higher – a shorter working life if you have children to care for and a longer retirement period. Plan now for a long and successful life.