Middle-aged adults have a plethora of middle-aged financial priorities. It’s hard to even call them priorities because each one is important; it’s just a matter of spreading the money you have across a variety of different needs.
In fact, a typical mid-life checking account might include payouts for a mortgage, college tuition, a savings account, an IRA, a life insurance policy, and a long-term care insurance policy — and that’s not even including the 401(k) contribution that is taken out of a paycheck before it gets deposited.
If you struggle with trying to figure out which financial priorities are most important or how to allocate a portion of your retirement savings among the many insurance product options, we can help. In fact, there are insurance products that can help with multiple priorities so you don’t have to spread your assets so thin.
Take life insurance, for example. There are many different types of life insurance, and one of the main differences is between term and whole life. With a term policy, you purchase a death benefit amount and determine how long you want to hold the policy; it doesn’t pay out anything unless the owner passes away during the term. Whole life features a cash value account, which, over time, can build up a balance you can access, if needed.1
First and foremost, life insurance is there to help take care of your loved ones if you pass away. While many employers provide some coverage for employees, it may not be enough to avoid the long-term hardship of that loss of income. However, less than 40 percent of Americans have an interest in life insurance at all. It actually comes in seventh in terms of most people’s financial priorities.2
While a term life policy offers a death benefit for the selected term, a whole life policy can provide a death benefit that covers your entire life, as long as you keep paying the premiums. It’s worth mentioning that older policies may actually mature when the policy owner turns 100 and will pay out the death benefit while he or she is still alive. Newer policies, however, extend to a maximum age of 121.3
A whole life policy also offers certain tax advantages. While premiums may not be tax deductible, the cash value grows tax deferred, and distributions through the use of policy loans are generally tax free. The cash value can be accessed if the owner needs emergency funds or money to supplement his or her retirement income, or it can even be used to pay the annual premiums on the policy.4 This is all in addition to the death benefit. Please note that withdrawals or policy loans of any type may reduce available cash values and death benefits and may cause the policy to lapse, or affect guarantees against lapse. Additional premium payments may be required to keep the policy in force.
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Content prepared by Kara Stefan Communications
1 Amy Danise. NerdWallet. Jan. 5, 2017. “Life Insurance Explained in (Exactly) 250 Words.” https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/insurance/life-insurance-explained-250-words/. Accessed Feb. 6, 2017.
2 BestLifeRates.org. Dec. 28, 2016. “2015 Life Insurance Statistics and Facts.” https://www.bestliferates.org/blog/2015-life-insurance-statistics-and-facts/. Accessed Jan. 10, 2017.
3 Michael Kitces. Nerd’s Eye View. March 2, 2016. “The Age-100 Tax Problem With Outliving the End of Life Insurance Mortality Tables.” https://www.kitces.com/blog/outliving-the-end-of-life-insurance-mortality-tables-the-age-100-tax-problem-when-life-insurance-expires/. Accessed Jan. 10, 2017.
4 Amy Bell. Investopedia. Aug. 21, 2014. “6 Ways To Capture The Cash Value In Life Insurance.” http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/082114/6-ways-capture-cash-value-life-insurance.asp. Accessed Feb. 24, 2017.
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