Can a person in their middle years or senior years still buy life insurance? If you are over 50, or if you are caring for an older person, you can find a wide choice of products. Since statistics show that Americans are living longer and healthier lives, insurers are willing to extend affordable coverage to older people. Most middle aged and older people can still find life insurance policies.
You may wonder why an older person would want to have coverage anyway. At 30 years old, we are told to buy a term policy. The theory is that we will be able to self-insure with our savings by the end of that term in 20 or 30 years. We are also told we will have less obligations to cover. Our kids should be grown and self supporting. Our mortgages should be paid off. And when we are young, that term policy seems like it will last forever anyway.
But these days, many of us found that the theory did not prove out for us. Our kids did not manage to become totally self supporting as fast as we thought they would. Sometimes those kids come home with our own kids, and they still need our help. And we did plan to pay off that mortgage. But many of us got delayed because we moved or needed to take out a second loan. Years passed, but we did not outgrow our need for a life insurance policy.
How did we get to this point without any life insurance then? Some of us, thankfully, outlived our life insurance policy. It expired. Others thought they were taken care of by a group policy, but then left that job and lost it. A lot of us had coverage, but do not have it any more.
What life insurance should older people look for? Before you buy anything, you should think about why you want to buy a policy. Do you just want coverage to make sure your kids or spouse have money? Or do you want to build an asset that may help you in the future? Finaly, you may want to use your policy to help transfer wealth to your family?
For pure insurance, consider term again. Since term premiums will be lower, it will be possible to purchase a higher death benefit. People at 50, or sometimes even up to their 70s, can still find these policies if they are in reasonably good health. The lower cost is not trivial either.
You may want to find a term policy that you can convert to whole life later. These will not require you to prove you are healthy as long as you make the conversion within the specified time limit. That way you can have cheaper term now, and you can have the option to covert to a whole life insurance policy later!
But some people would want to consider whole life now. The premiums at 50 will be cheaper than they will be at 65, and the price will stay level. You get lifetime coverage, and even the chance to build the cash value of your policy. Being able to borrow against that value, cash it in, or use it for senior life settlements, may make this attractive.
You probably want to compare premiums too. No policy will do you any good if you cannot pay for it. A financial or insurance professional should be able to help you explore your options. They should be willing to listen to your needs, and then offer you alternatives.
Learn more about Term for Old people.
Tags: baby boomers, elder care, Estate planning, Finance, financial planning, insurance, life insurance, over 50, seniors, Term Life Insurance, Whole Life Insurance