I’m Ed Shapiro, a SelectQuote licensed agent. A client, 74 years old, had a Term Life Insurance policy whose term was about to end. Over the years since he bought his policy, he had developed hepatitis and possible cancer.
Knowing he had become medically uninsurable, he asked me if there was any way he could still get Life Insurance.
I was delighted to explain that almost all of the Term Life policies SelectQuote offers have a “conversion and automatically renewable feature” that allows the policy holder to extend coverage — regardless of his or her health.
Our client was extremely relieved he could still provide protection for his family.
I received a call from the client’s wife. She told me that just three months after obtaining his new conversion policy, her husband died. She wanted to express how grateful she was that we were able to extend her husband’s Life Insurance.
Her settlement check arrived just two weeks after she advised us of her loss. And the money was invaluable in paying mortuary costs and setting up a Trust Fund for her.
Ed Shapiro
SelectQuote Account Manager
1-800-304-3356 direct phone
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Friday, 15 February 2008
Agent gets Term Life Application approved in 4 days for Iraq bound Soldier.
I’m Trudy Lum, a SelectQuote licensed agent. A soldier recently called me and asked if there was any way we could get him through the application process and approved for a Term Life Insurance policy before he was to be deployed to Iraq in two weeks.
I knew most Life Insurance companies would be reluctant to provide coverage for a soldier about to be stationed in Iraq for a year or more.
But through my extensive experience dealing with the underwriters at the Term Life Insurance companies that SelectQuote represents, I thought one company might write the policy — and at a competitive price. However, the short time frame could make it impossible.
I contacted the Life Insurance underwriter immediately and got an OK to streamline the process.
I started the application on January 17, 2008 and ordered the medical exam for January 21, 2008. The application and exam were completed on the 21st and forwarded to the Life Insurance Company.
On January 21st, the soldier’s application for a $600,000 30 year policy, best rate class, was approved as applied! The next day he received it and it went inforce.
While this is a very unique circumstance and might not happen again, it indicates the compassion SelectQuote and a very special Life Insurance company have to “go to bat” for our clients.
Trudy Lum
Account Manager
1-800-670-1468 direct phone
I knew most Life Insurance companies would be reluctant to provide coverage for a soldier about to be stationed in Iraq for a year or more.
But through my extensive experience dealing with the underwriters at the Term Life Insurance companies that SelectQuote represents, I thought one company might write the policy — and at a competitive price. However, the short time frame could make it impossible.
I contacted the Life Insurance underwriter immediately and got an OK to streamline the process.
I started the application on January 17, 2008 and ordered the medical exam for January 21, 2008. The application and exam were completed on the 21st and forwarded to the Life Insurance Company.
On January 21st, the soldier’s application for a $600,000 30 year policy, best rate class, was approved as applied! The next day he received it and it went inforce.
While this is a very unique circumstance and might not happen again, it indicates the compassion SelectQuote and a very special Life Insurance company have to “go to bat” for our clients.
Trudy Lum
Account Manager
1-800-670-1468 direct phone
Wednesday, 12 December 2007
How to save time & frustration buying Life Insurance
We’re all in a hurry. But the old adage, “haste makes waste” really applies to buying Life Insurance.
For example, many people go to an online service to buy Life Insurance and balk at answering detailed questions about their age, gender, health, family health history and lifestyle. They want a quote now.
So they find a source that only asks a few questions, get some quick quotes, choose a Life Insurance company and sit back expecting everything to be fine.
Several weeks later, however, they often discover that the price they were quoted isn’t the price they’ll have to pay. Remember, quotes are simply estimates. And quotes based on very little information, are frequently wrong.
By spending 15 or minutes with your Life Insurance agent upfront to provide all the information he or she needs to give you an accurate quote, you can save weeks of time and frustration pursuing a price you won’t qualify for.
The pioneer in impartial, accurate quoting for Term Life Insurance —and by far the largest independent sales group— is SelectQuote Insurance Services. SelectQuote has nearly 100 experienced, licensed agents and will match you with your best prices from a wide range of highly rated Term Life Insurance companies. There is no cost or obligation for this service.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
For example, many people go to an online service to buy Life Insurance and balk at answering detailed questions about their age, gender, health, family health history and lifestyle. They want a quote now.
So they find a source that only asks a few questions, get some quick quotes, choose a Life Insurance company and sit back expecting everything to be fine.
Several weeks later, however, they often discover that the price they were quoted isn’t the price they’ll have to pay. Remember, quotes are simply estimates. And quotes based on very little information, are frequently wrong.
By spending 15 or minutes with your Life Insurance agent upfront to provide all the information he or she needs to give you an accurate quote, you can save weeks of time and frustration pursuing a price you won’t qualify for.
The pioneer in impartial, accurate quoting for Term Life Insurance —and by far the largest independent sales group— is SelectQuote Insurance Services. SelectQuote has nearly 100 experienced, licensed agents and will match you with your best prices from a wide range of highly rated Term Life Insurance companies. There is no cost or obligation for this service.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
Tuesday, 11 December 2007
How to save money buying Life Insurance
The best way to save money on Life Insurance is to buy Term Life Insurance and shop around.
Term Life Insurance, compared with Permanent Life Insurance, is much cheaper. Most financial advisors recommend it because it offers the greatest protection to your family for the lowest cost.
Shopping around is important because different Life Insurance companies often have different prices for your Life Insurance “fingerprint.” Your “fingerprint” is made up of your age, gender, health, family health history and your lifestyle.
And your price could vary hundreds of dollars a year from one company to another.
The only problem is over 1,000 companies sell Life Insurance. And shopping even a group of them could eat up a lot of time.
Fortunately, there are independent companies that comparison shop for you. To make sure you get the most accurate quotes when talking to an agent:
· Make sure the agent asks detailed questions about your health, family health history,
occupation and hobbies.
· Ask why the agent recommends a certain company to you. What are your other choices?
· Ask what tools the agent used to arrive at your quotes.
The pioneer in impartial “comparison shopping” for Term Life Insurance — service and by far the largest — is SelectQuote Insurance Services. SelectQuote has nearly 100 experienced, licensed agents and will research a wide range of highly rated Term Life Insurance companies for your best rates at no cost or obligation.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
Term Life Insurance, compared with Permanent Life Insurance, is much cheaper. Most financial advisors recommend it because it offers the greatest protection to your family for the lowest cost.
Shopping around is important because different Life Insurance companies often have different prices for your Life Insurance “fingerprint.” Your “fingerprint” is made up of your age, gender, health, family health history and your lifestyle.
And your price could vary hundreds of dollars a year from one company to another.
The only problem is over 1,000 companies sell Life Insurance. And shopping even a group of them could eat up a lot of time.
Fortunately, there are independent companies that comparison shop for you. To make sure you get the most accurate quotes when talking to an agent:
· Make sure the agent asks detailed questions about your health, family health history,
occupation and hobbies.
· Ask why the agent recommends a certain company to you. What are your other choices?
· Ask what tools the agent used to arrive at your quotes.
The pioneer in impartial “comparison shopping” for Term Life Insurance — service and by far the largest — is SelectQuote Insurance Services. SelectQuote has nearly 100 experienced, licensed agents and will research a wide range of highly rated Term Life Insurance companies for your best rates at no cost or obligation.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
When is the best time to Buy Life Insurance?
The most glib answer is to buy it right before you die. The next-glib answer is to buy it right before you become uninsurable.
When deciding when to buy, some truisms should be borne in mind:
The older you are when you buy, the more it costs.
You have to be very healthy to get the best deal.
The worse your health, the more expensive the policy.
Once you have it, it cannot be taken away from you.
Medical conditions are scrutinized today more than in the recent past.
Some people with certain health conditions, occupations and hobbies cannot get life insurance.
Some other factors also influence cost.
For example, over the past few years most insurers have changed to a new mortality table in setting their premium rates. Since people are living longer than when the older mortality tables were published, the insurers can now expect to collect premiums for a greater number of years and hold onto the lump-sum death benefit longer before they pay it out to the beneficiary. So, the new table reflects greater longevity, which leads to lower premiums.
Is this a good time to buy term insurance? Term insurance costs have actually dropped by as much as half for a given age since the mid-'90s. In this decade alone, they have gone down about 4 percent per year.
For 2008, pundits are predicting that term rates will drop by only about 1 percent. Those same pundits expect the cost of permanent insurance - that is, whole life and universal life - to stay the same in 2008.
Some consumers believe that life insurance rates become very high if one waits until age 40 or later to buy. In reality, cost, which generally stays level after the policy is purchased, is incrementally higher for each year that one waits to purchase. And the older one is, the greater the increment from one age to the next. But there is no quantum leap.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to get the appropriate insurance policy while you are still insurable. Once you cross that line of uninsurability, all the money in the world will not buy coverage for you.
J. Brendan Ryan is a Walnut Hills insurance agent. E-mail him at jbryanclu@aol.com
When deciding when to buy, some truisms should be borne in mind:
The older you are when you buy, the more it costs.
You have to be very healthy to get the best deal.
The worse your health, the more expensive the policy.
Once you have it, it cannot be taken away from you.
Medical conditions are scrutinized today more than in the recent past.
Some people with certain health conditions, occupations and hobbies cannot get life insurance.
Some other factors also influence cost.
For example, over the past few years most insurers have changed to a new mortality table in setting their premium rates. Since people are living longer than when the older mortality tables were published, the insurers can now expect to collect premiums for a greater number of years and hold onto the lump-sum death benefit longer before they pay it out to the beneficiary. So, the new table reflects greater longevity, which leads to lower premiums.
Is this a good time to buy term insurance? Term insurance costs have actually dropped by as much as half for a given age since the mid-'90s. In this decade alone, they have gone down about 4 percent per year.
For 2008, pundits are predicting that term rates will drop by only about 1 percent. Those same pundits expect the cost of permanent insurance - that is, whole life and universal life - to stay the same in 2008.
Some consumers believe that life insurance rates become very high if one waits until age 40 or later to buy. In reality, cost, which generally stays level after the policy is purchased, is incrementally higher for each year that one waits to purchase. And the older one is, the greater the increment from one age to the next. But there is no quantum leap.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to get the appropriate insurance policy while you are still insurable. Once you cross that line of uninsurability, all the money in the world will not buy coverage for you.
J. Brendan Ryan is a Walnut Hills insurance agent. E-mail him at jbryanclu@aol.com
Wednesday, 14 November 2007
Mortgage Insurance vs. Term Life Insurance
The concept of buying Mortgage Insurance is tempting. And the thought of having your mortgage paid off if something happens to you is very comforting.
But all mortgage insurance isn’t the same. There are two kinds, and they offer very different coverage.
The first type is called Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). If you buy a home with less than 20% down, your lender probably demands you have it. PMI protects the lender, not you. Let’s say you default on your home loan. Your PMI will reimburse the lender if he’s not able to re-sell your home for the amount of our mortgage.
PMI is expensive. So as soon as you have paid down your mortgage to a point where PMI is on longer required (your lender is supposed to advise you when this happens) it is wise to cancel it.
Which leads us to the second kind of Mortgage insurance: Mortgage Life Insurance. Here, in effect you buy an insurance policy that will pay off your mortgage in the event of your death, disability or some incapacitating disease.
Unlike PMI, this insurance is voluntary. And, while it’s better than PMI, most experts don’t recommend it for two big reasons:
1. Mortgage Life Insurance is generally sold by the mortgage company. You don’t get the opportunity to shop competitively for your best rates.
2. Mortgage Life Insurance has a fixed premium (generally expensive) but your benefits decline as you pay off your mortgage.
Most financial experts feel it doesn’t make sense to buy life insurance for narrow reasons. It’s much better to analyze your overall needs — how much would it take for your spouse and children to maintain their standard of living — if something happened to you? Then take out a Life Insurance policy that covers all your financial needs including your home mortgage.
Fortunately, Term Life Insurance rates are extremely reasonable today. An easy way to find out what your needs and costs could be is to contact an independent sales agency like selectquote.com with experienced, impartial licensed agents. They’ll not only help you determine your needs, they’ll “comparison shop” highly rated companies for your best rates.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
But all mortgage insurance isn’t the same. There are two kinds, and they offer very different coverage.
The first type is called Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). If you buy a home with less than 20% down, your lender probably demands you have it. PMI protects the lender, not you. Let’s say you default on your home loan. Your PMI will reimburse the lender if he’s not able to re-sell your home for the amount of our mortgage.
PMI is expensive. So as soon as you have paid down your mortgage to a point where PMI is on longer required (your lender is supposed to advise you when this happens) it is wise to cancel it.
Which leads us to the second kind of Mortgage insurance: Mortgage Life Insurance. Here, in effect you buy an insurance policy that will pay off your mortgage in the event of your death, disability or some incapacitating disease.
Unlike PMI, this insurance is voluntary. And, while it’s better than PMI, most experts don’t recommend it for two big reasons:
1. Mortgage Life Insurance is generally sold by the mortgage company. You don’t get the opportunity to shop competitively for your best rates.
2. Mortgage Life Insurance has a fixed premium (generally expensive) but your benefits decline as you pay off your mortgage.
Most financial experts feel it doesn’t make sense to buy life insurance for narrow reasons. It’s much better to analyze your overall needs — how much would it take for your spouse and children to maintain their standard of living — if something happened to you? Then take out a Life Insurance policy that covers all your financial needs including your home mortgage.
Fortunately, Term Life Insurance rates are extremely reasonable today. An easy way to find out what your needs and costs could be is to contact an independent sales agency like selectquote.com with experienced, impartial licensed agents. They’ll not only help you determine your needs, they’ll “comparison shop” highly rated companies for your best rates.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
Life Insurance can increase spendable income.
It sounds crazy but it’s true. Just consider this: if something happened to you, where would the money come from for your family to pay the rent or mortgage? Their food and clothing? The car payment? Gasoline? Health insurance? Schooling? Etc., etc.
Chances are if you tried to carve out of each paycheck enough savings to quickly build up the nest egg required to cover those costs, you’d scarcely have anything left to live on.
That’s the glory of Life Insurance — especially Term Life Insurance. Term Life Insurance provides pure protection. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles. But it does allow you to give your family hundreds of thousands of dollars in protection for just pennies on the dollar.
Let’s say you and your spouse are in your mid 40’s. You’re in reasonably good health, your family health histories are good and you don’t hold down dangerous jobs. Chances are you could each get at least a $250,000 Term Life policies for as little as a dollar or two each a day. (The wife’s policy will cost less, because statistically women live longer than men.)
That leaves a lot of money left over for piano lessons and camping trips.
An easy, no obligation way to see how affordable Term Life Insurance can be for you is to contact an independent sales agency like selectquote.com with experienced, impartial licensed agents. They’ll not only help you determine your needs, they can “comparison shop” highly rated companies for your best rates.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
Chances are if you tried to carve out of each paycheck enough savings to quickly build up the nest egg required to cover those costs, you’d scarcely have anything left to live on.
That’s the glory of Life Insurance — especially Term Life Insurance. Term Life Insurance provides pure protection. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles. But it does allow you to give your family hundreds of thousands of dollars in protection for just pennies on the dollar.
Let’s say you and your spouse are in your mid 40’s. You’re in reasonably good health, your family health histories are good and you don’t hold down dangerous jobs. Chances are you could each get at least a $250,000 Term Life policies for as little as a dollar or two each a day. (The wife’s policy will cost less, because statistically women live longer than men.)
That leaves a lot of money left over for piano lessons and camping trips.
An easy, no obligation way to see how affordable Term Life Insurance can be for you is to contact an independent sales agency like selectquote.com with experienced, impartial licensed agents. They’ll not only help you determine your needs, they can “comparison shop” highly rated companies for your best rates.
SelectQuote has exclusive videos of Suze Orman offering impartial advice on buying Life Insurance.
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