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• What Is Senior Life Insurance?
• Tips to Compare Senior Life Insurance?
• The Value of Senior Life Insurance?

What Is Senior Life Insurance?

Senior life insurance is a serious concern for many of the elderly in our community. When we reach old age we finally begin to realise that our lives are not infinite, as we seem to believe when we are young. Young people don’t feel the same urgency about signing up for insurance compared to an older person because death is not front of mind. Seniors life insurance is especially important if we have reached old age and have not amassed a lot of money or assets in our own right. This is when this style of insurance can be handy if it is simply required to pay our final expenses: funeral and medical costs.

Some of the elderly may finish their lives in a position where they can feel independent of any life insurance needs because of a healthy private bank balance. Others may have paid for funeral costs in advance with a funeral parlour, or a separate bank account, but circumstances differ among everyone and there is always a great need for some level of senior life insurance among the majority of the population.

As we age and we enter the last stage of our lives we seem to reflect on our passing more than we did when we were younger. In our younger days we were full of ambition and we took out life insurance to protect those we would leave behind, should we die prematurely, removing the risk that our family would have to carry the burden of paying off the mortgage on our homes or raising a family. We needed large amounts of life insurance to ensure we didn’t leave undue hardship behind. Senior life insurance needs change however, as those days are behind us but the reality of dying hits home pretty hard and the financial consequences of this happening is one we must seriously consider.

Tips to Compare Senior Life Insurance?

• Compare Quotes from Multiple Providers: With some insurance companies charging as much as 50% more than others per year, make sure you compare quotes with each provider to ensure you are getting the best deal possible.
• Choose a Provider with Financial Solidarity: Make sure the insurance company you take your policy out with is well known and has either an A, AA or AAA rating.
• Premium Payment Options: Find out whether your policy includes flexible repayment options. Can often be a great benefit to choose whether to pay your premiums either monthly or annually. Annual payments be lower than monthly payments.

The Value of Senior Life Insurance?

In most cases older people will not need a lot of life insurance as most will not have an overwhelming amount of debt. There is also the possibility that you might look at a reverse finance plan on your home if you are short of ready cash, but if you want to realise your lifelong dream of passing your assets over to your children and grandchildren when you go, senior life insurance is what you need to look into.

One of the biggest drawbacks to seniors being able to obtain life insurance as we continue to age is that of health, if we have been able to retain good health it helps a lot but as we age this tends not to be true for many of us. Seniors will therefore tend to look at no exam life insurance. This is more expensive but if we only require a relatively small amount of insurance, enough to cover our final bills and funeral costs, it will be sufficient at this stage in our lives and we will have peace of mind in knowing nobody will be any worse off financially on our passing.

There are five main types of senior life insurance being offered, these are:

• Single Pay– This insurance is of particular benefit to the more wealthy. It will let you use your money to the benefit of your beneficiaries. In brief, a single pay insurance policy can be purchased on a $100,000 policy on your life for one single premium. Depending on the financial climate at the time, the insured amount can sometimes double in value, and because it is a life insurance policy the death benefit, when paid out on, can be structured to be tax free.
• Whole of Life Insurance – Ironically, people who had taken out a whole life policy at a younger age may well come out better off in the end because of us living longer and therefore outliving term insurance policies, chosen by others who, in old age, have been stranded and left uninsured. In deference to others who had chosen term insurance because of the larger cover at a lower premium cost, the people who had chosen whole life cover will continue with their full cover at the original premium they started out with, right through until they finally die.
• Guaranteed Acceptance – This type of senior life insurance has a lower premium if you can pass a medical examination but because it is a guaranteed acceptance policy it can also be obtained with no examination being required. It is, in essence, a whole life policy but the benefits will be withheld for a stipulated period (usually two years) after you first take it out, for anything other than accidental death.

Term Life Insurance – Although term life insurance premiums increase as you get older it may still be the best option for you if you have no interest in insurance which also includes an investment opportunity.

• Senior Life Insurance Funeral Cover – A popular cover for the senior citizen is that of funeral cover. This type of insurance is reviewed annually as the premium increases and can become quite expensive when the amount you are insured for is taken into consideration. It will however pay your funeral costs for you and you can pass on with the knowledge that no one left behind will be burdened with your bills.