Not Doing a Policy Review Can Cost You (Literally). Here’s Why.
What do these three people have in common?
Mabel saved $30 a month on her life insurance policy.
Zack found a life policy with living benefits, covering heart attacks, strokes and cancer.
June doubled her coverage for the same premium each month.
Give up?
All three underwent a policy review.
What’s that, you might ask.
Come, I’ll tell you.
First, know this: If cost, benefits, and value of life insurance are important to you, I’m going to show you how 15-minutes could blow your expectations out of the water.
Life insurance policy reviews can uncover gold. Get your policy review completed in just 15-minutes by contacting a dedicated agent at Little Family Security.
What is a Policy Review?
A review of your life insurance policy is just like it sounds.
You and your agent sit down (or talk on the phone) and analyze the deets.
We’re talking about all the important stuff, not all the boring fine print between the pages of your six-inch thick policy packet.
Things like:
Coverage amount (the death benefit, or how much money your family will receive upon the issuance of your death certificate).
Benefits packed in (such as built-in riders, unemployment protection, and cash value growth).
The premium you’re paying (the cost you will pay to maintain your coverage each month or year for a set duration or for life).
By going over all this information, the end game is simple: We need to find out if A) the policy is still the best fit, and B) everything that you value is included.
I can tell you’re scoffing at the idea of a policy review. You’d rather have your teeth pulled with rusty pliers. Am I getting warm?
If so, hold your horses.
Not reviewing your review could cost you BIG.
Here are five reasons why conducting a policy review can get you the best premium, most benefits, and greatest value for your family’s peace of mind.
1. Perform a “Fit Check”
The young folks on social media have popularized the fit check.
Let me translate. It means to parade around in different outfits to have your audience rave about your physique and fashion sense.
What the heck this has to do with policy reviews? Listen close. I’ll tell you.
Think of life insurance like a pair of pants that you’re about to try on for a million social media fans.
For this fit check, you’re going to use a pair of pants you used to wear ten or even twenty years ago.
Did you just break out in a cold sweat? Would you even fit into the pants you wore a decade or two ago?
Unless you were blessed with insane genetics, those old pants are going to look like kids’ clothes, and that’s not passing anyone’s fit check, no matter your age.
No offense.
Here’s how this analogy applies to life insurance.
I can’t count how many times clients have told me, “I bought life insurance years ago, and now I’m good. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
I get it.
Life insurance sucks to talk about.
Who wants to spend more than a few minutes talking about their own demise?
You have every right to avoid the subject for the rest of your life. Just understand what you’re doing.
Don’t let complacency rob you or your family of those elements of life insurance you so dearly value.
Similar to those pants you no longer wear, your current life insurance policy might come up a tad short.
Only a life insurance policy fit check will tell you.
2. Get Complete Life Insurance Coverage
What do we mean by your policy coming up short?
Think back to the day you made the decision to buy life insurance. Has anything changed?
Did you:
Get a mortgage or HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit)?
Have one or more children?
Get a loan for a business?
Increase your lifestyle?
If the answer is yes to any of the above, your current life policy might not be enough.
Let me tell you about one of my clients. We’ll call him Jim.
Jim opted into his employer’s life insurance plan to replace his income should anything happen to him.
After I helped Jim review his employer’s life insurance plan, Jim opted to buy mortgage protection insurance from me.
Why?
Because his current policy wasn’t enough.
A mortgage protection insurance policy can protect your family from the unexpected. Schedule a policy review today to adequately cover what matters most!
During the policy review, I showed Jim where his current policy fell short. And recommended a mortgage protection policy to fill in the gaps.
Jim was amazed. He had no idea mortgage protection was a thing, and that it came with so much value!
His backstory was that he and his wife had recently signed on a mortgage, and he didn’t want his family to end up homeless if he passed.
Had Jim not done a policy review, here’s what would have happened if his life suddenly ended.
It is true that his family would have received enough money to cover the loss of his income, but only for a short time.
After that, if Jim’s wife, Linda, and his two kids, Jennifer and Bobby, failed to afford the mortgage payment, they’d have to sell the family home or have it foreclosed and make other living arrangements.
Jim didn’t want any of that to happen.
Luckily, kismet brought Jim and I together on the phone, and we went through a policy review.
That quick, fifteen-minute session revealed holes in his life insurance coverage we could easily sew up.
Supplementing his employer’s coverage with a mortgage protection policy gave him all the coverage his family needed to keep the scary cold world at bay (at least for a little while) should they unexpectedly lose the man of the house.
And if you’ve had kids since you bought life insurance, or gotten married, or you’re worrieda bout losing your job, know that many carriers offer child riders, spouse riders, unemployment protection, and so much more.
You can go from a solo policy covering death only to a super policy that covers everything and everyone under your roof, often for less than you suspect.
Three clients save big by undergoing quick and easy policy reviews. Be like them and schedule your policy review today!
3. Save Some Money in This Tight Economy
With people practically investing in eggs instead of gold these days, let’s talk brass tacks.
While it’s never wise to judge a life insurance policy solely on price…
You’d be telling a big fat fib if you said cost wasn’t a factor, am I right?
Everyone pays attention to cost when it comes to life insurance.
Everyone.
After all, a life insurance premium is an investment you will shell out for years to come.
In some cases for the rest of your life.
Before buying a policy, you want to make sure there’s enough breathing room in your budget.
When it comes to life insurance premiums and cost, it’s important to know how those calculations are made.
How Life Insurance Companies Calculate Premiums
Life carriers like Mutual of Omaha and Aetna calculate your premium price by looking at your age and health.
The younger you are, the more insurance you’ll typically qualify for.
The healthier you are, the cheaper the insurance will be. And the more benefits they’ll come with.
Now, conventional wisdom tells us the older you get, the pricier life insurance will be.
Therefore, doing a policy review a year later is likely to reveal policies that are more expensive than the one you bought.
This is a very logical way of thinking. Especially if you’ve had one or more health issues since you initally signed on the dotted line.
You have to wonder: Could a life insurance agent possibly get greater and cheaper coverage a year and a couple doctor visits later?
Absolutely!
When you take into account the recent Limra report that showed that a whopping 72% of insurance prospects surveyed overestimated the cost of life insurance, chances are you don’t really know what premiums are floating out there.
That’s not meant to be an insult. You’re not a life insurance agent. Why would you know the cost of insurance?
But here’s the thing: Your life insurance agent doesn’t know the cost of your life insurance either, until you both sit down and discuss your age and health.
This is what a policy review is designed for: To update all the necessary parameters to produce an accurate new quote from one or more carriers.
And get this. Premium prices change all the time.
For example, you won’t know until you conduct a policy review if:
· Your agent secured a partnership with a brand new carrier.
· One or more carriers released a new product.
· A carrier is offering affordable premiums to attract new clients.
One of my lovely clients from Louisiana bought a life insurance policy before she suffered a series of significant health issues.
A policy review later showed that she qualified for one of my carrier’s newest products, which ended up being nearly a third cheaper than what she was currently paying!
While finding cheaper insurance is never guaranteed, you’ll never find cheaper if you don’t undergo a policy review.
4. Enhanced Benefits
You know that client I was just talking about, Jim? The one that put a supplemental mortgage protection policy in place?
Good old Jim was pleasantly surprised to find that his new coverage came with living benefits. This was something his employer’s life insurance policy sorely lacked.
Had he kept the life insurance his job provided, a heart attack would have given him a relaxing stay at the hospital, or left him holed up at home unable to work.
Talk about putting a financial strain on his already struggling family!
His mortgage protection policy’s critical illness coverage (one of three living benefits the policy came with) allowed him to relax, knowing he’d be able to pay the bills if his ticker went haywire.
If you’ve always thought of insurance as something that benefits other people, and not you, think again.
Sure, the death benefit is made for your beneficiary: Your spouse, children, or other heirs.
But know this:
Many of today’s simplified issue life insurance products also cover you while you’re living.
Examples include:
· Critical illness for not only a heart attack, but stroke and TIA (mini stroke) as well.
· Chronic illness for ailments like organ failure.
· Terminal illness for life-limiting conditions like cancer.
· Long-term care, adult day care, and others.
Only by reviewing your policy regularly can you get the features that secure the futures of everyone involved.
5. Extend Your Coverage Term
A life insurance policy should last as long as you need. The meaning of that statement is different for everyone.
Temporary Life Insurance
Are you twenty-something and in excellent health with a new mortgage and young family?
You may feel invincible, but life insurance never hurts.
Your best bet for family protection might be a temporary or term life insurance policy.
This means coverage is limited to a temporary period of time, such as ten, twenty or thirty years.
Once that term ends, your coverage stops. There are no more premiums to pay, but there is also no coverage in place in case you pass away.
If you bought a term policy and the expiration date is quickly approaching, not to fear.
A policy review can help you secure longer coverage, and potentially greater coverage as well.
Permanent Insurance
Whole life or permanent insurance lasts, in most cases, for the rest of your natural life.
Term policy holders can switch their coverage to a whole life policy, which comes with a range of benefits term policies don’t.
For example, whole life insurance and Indexed Universal Life insurance products come with a death benefit and they build cash value.
The right policy could eventually accumulate enough cash growth to borrow against (and never pay back if you don’t want), or cash out and surrender the policy at a future date.
With all of these options and the potential for more and greater coverage, I have to ask you:
Don’t you think it’s about time for a policy review?
If you’re one of 39% of consumers planning to buy life insurance this year, or you already have a policy in place, let’s schedule a time for a short phone call.
You never know. You could find yourself saving a bundle, protecting new assets, or getting the whole clan covered instead of merely yourself.
A review can pay, but only if you take action A-S-A-P.
Visit Little Family Security and fill out the form to receive a free, no-obligation quote. Be sure and let us know how to contact you, what time you tend to be available, and exactly how we can help.
