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When it comes to understanding term or whole life insurance policies, there’s good news and not so good news. The good news is that both term life insurance, which covers a set length of time, but gives no benefit once that period expires, and universal or whole life insurance, which is more expensive, but a whole-life policy that leaves a set amount to your beneficiaries, have become cheaper over the past decade. The bad news is that almost all of we mortals are going to need life insurance if we want to protect our loved ones after we die.

These are heavy considerations, but according to research firm LIMRA, the cost of this somber type of insurance has dropped 30 percent since the 1990’s. Studies also indicate that one in three Americans doesn’t have a policy, and of those who do, another third don’t think they own enough.

What that means to the savvy consumer is that now is a terrific time to compare online life insurance quotes and nail down a policy that will yield the biggest return for your investment. Marvin Feldman, president of the nonprofit Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (a.k.a. the Life Foundation), notes that “the reason premiums have dropped is life insurance is now based on the new 2001 CSO mortality tables, and those mortality tables show that people are living longer, so that when companies are calculating the cost of insurance, from a mortality standpoint, they can charge a lesser amount.”

But Feldman adds that to find those deals, you have to shop carefully – and doing it online is the best, quickest way. A rule of thumb is “the average person should have 20 times their annual income,” Feldman advises. Those figures are derived from findings in The 911 Report, but essentially, there are two major tests for determining how much you need: One is based on ascertaining what the surviving parties will need in the event of your death-to cover things like mortgage, college, car payments, and cost of living. The other is based on human life value-how much income are you currently earning and how many years can you expect to be earning it.

It’s important, when making those estimates, to get a notepad and write down unexpected expenses that your dependents may be surprised by-things like accounting fees, emergency medical and auto expenses, home repairs, the cost of returning to school, etc. A key insurance information site also recommends consumers not overlook hidden sources of income, which may well disappear with the deceased-for example, 401(k) plans and matching stock option plans, as well as health insurance subsidies.

To drive home just how important it is to provide for your family long after you’re gone, consider that they’ll need an estimated minimum of $15,000 to cover funeral and estate costs.

You probably realize that you need life insurance and you may have even already decided upon getting a term life insurance policy, but you may still be relatively new to the whole process and may need a little guidance in how to go about getting the best policy; fortunately there are brokers that are available to help you.

While many people will use the term broker and agent interchangeably that is not the case; they are similar but an agent will work on behalf of the insurance carriers while term life brokers will work on behalf of the client, you, while still having some obligations to the insurance carriers.

Life insurance is complicated and very multi-variable so it takes quite a bit of energy and time on the term life insurance brokers part to keep up with all of the legalese and this normally comes from experience. Other things that you want to look for in a good broker include fairness, impartiality and honesty.

While you naturally want to find the most affordable policy that you can you also need a policy that will best suit your personal needs. You want a broker that has no problem with keeping up with the new changes, strategies and products when it comes to comparing life insurance policies. Term life insurance brokers need to be competent; they need to know exactly what questions to ask of both you and the life insurance companies and then they should be able to guide you through the compete process with a successful ending.

Ask yourself several questions when looking over the different policies: does it have the best possible options for you at the best rate or are they perhaps just pushing some of those certain options because they get a bonus, or something similar; maybe they don’t want to take the time or energy that is involved with finding out what is really the best one; good term life insurance brokers have no problem finding out all of these answers and others for you.

The process normally begins with the broker asking you several questions, sometimes in the form of a questionnaire, pertaining to what you are looking for in an insurance policy. You will also be asked to supply any and all information for any and all of the insurance companies that the broker may work with. Be sure that you supply all of the required information completely and accurately to avoid any type of problems or misunderstandings at a later time. Then this information will be submitted to several different insurance carriers; the number is based upon how many companies the term insurance brokers work with and how many they fell may meet your particular needs.

When choosing from among the many term life insurance brokers you will also want to find someone that you are comfortable with, it can be a difficult subject to discuss and you need someone that is both professional and empathetic.

Whole term life insurance has suffered a set back in recent times due to the increasing trend of people opting for short-term life insurance. People today tend to purchase term life insurance mainly because it is cheaper than whole term life insurance. Even though a sound term insurance can take care of most people?s insurance needs, whole term life insurance cannot be ignored as a wise decision.

One major advantage of a whole term life insurance is that the death benefit in such a case is guaranteed to remain level for the entire period of the policy. On giving that some thought you would soon realize that it means it lasts an entire lifetime. That is one guarantee that has to be taken seriously. Another benefit is that the premium of a whole term life insurance policy is guaranteed to never undergo increase. Also another feature that cannot be set aside is that this kind of policy can never be struck off by the insurance company.

A whole life insurance policy also has cash values and that cash is available for you to use in case you should need it, at any point of time. You have the option to surrender your policy and receive the cash that the policy has accumulated. You also can opt to take the cash in a loan form and still keep your policy intact. The accumulating cash values of your policy are tax-deferred. This means that even as your cash is accumulating interest you do not have to pay any taxes on the interest. Your borrowing of cash is also on a tax-free basis. Only when you withdraw the cash do you pay tax. Whole term life insurance with its multi fold benefits should not be simply ignored in the face of short-term life insurance policies.

Most of the major life insurance companies are in the practice of selling their products or policies through agents. Barring the no load term life insurance products that are sold directly to the public, the rest are almost all through agents. Some companies even make use of what are called captive agents, who are simply those agents who are bound by contract to only represent a single company. A vast majority of the companies that are providers of competitive term life insurance make use of independent agents.

These independent agents are free to represent several companies on their own discretion. These agents can thus help you to make a selection from a variety of products and companies so that you can effectively tailor a plan based on your requirements.

Keeping this in mind you should always begin by first obtaining an online quote for your life insurance. You can then go about selecting an independent agent. The reason to be careful before settling on a plan is due to the fact that there are so many competitive costing methods now in term insurance. The last thing you would want to do would be to miss out on a quote that could save you a bundle of your hard earned money.

Term life insurance is such that the costs vary depending on certain factors lie the age of the person who wants insurance and the term he wants it for. Due to this large variance in costs various companies have competitive term life insurance policies in an effort to tap the most customers. With the Internet as your able tool you can now easily make a complete survey of the market before zeroing in on the policy of your choice. In the end the fact remains that competitive term life insurance is most beneficial for the consumer because for him it means better quotes that are easier on his pocket.

Term life insurance was the original life insurance.

Says Investopedia, it is “a policy with a set duration limit on the coverage period. Once the policy is expired, it is up to the policy owner to decide whether to renew the term life insurance policy or to let the coverage end. This type of insurance policy contrasts with permanent life insurance, in which duration extends until the policy owner reaches 100 years of age (i.e. death). These types of policies provide a stated benefit upon the death of the policy owner, provided that the death occurs within a specific time period. However, the policy does not provide any returns beyond the stated benefit, unlike permanent life insurance policies, which have a savings component that can be used for wealth accumulation.”

If you talk to an insurance professional, especially one who is trying to sell you permanent life insurance such as whole life, he will describe term life to you in terms of renting or owning a house. Term life is like renting a house instead of owning it. Depending on your policy, your premiums (your rent) may rise over time, but your face value (your dwelling) will never increase (and it might decrease) and when you move out (when coverage ends) you have nothing to show for it except lost money (the premiums you paid get you nothing because you outlived or canceled the policy). On the other hand, with permanent life insurance (home ownership) you have to pay more and you have more maintenance concerns (premiums are higher), but you also build up equity (policy cash value) that you can use in your living years and you may very well live in that house (keep the policy) until you die. And most people who can afford it would rather own a home instead of just rent a place.

However, proponents of term life, and they include many non-insurance agents who are financial advisors and writers as well as insurance brokers, will point out that life insurance is really not supposed to be a permanent fixture of someone’s financial life except in highly specialized cases (estate planning for instance). Life insurance, they will tell you, is supposed to be like a temporary bridge between one’s earlier wealth-accumulation phase and one’s high net worth phase, when one has enough net worth that if one died tomorrow one’s family and final expense would be taken care of out of one’s estate. They call the later phase being “self-insured”.

Proponents of term life say that the best way to go financially is to buy term life insurance and also have a disciplined investment plan to bring in wealth accumulation that is far greater than what a permanent life insurance policy, with its much higher premiums, can bring.

As people are growing generally more sophisticated about financial matters thanks to the Internet and the efforts of financial institutions (many of which now sell life insurance, too), term life insurance, once heavily disparaged, is coming back into vogue, and “buy term and invest the difference” has a great appeal to people, especially young people who are not afraid of the stock market and who don’t like the idea of paying higher insurance premiums than they have to.

Term life policies exist that last for differing lengths of time (one year, five years, 20 years, etc), after which they must be renewed or the person loses coverage. There are also some special term life plans such as decreasing term life, which is usually used to cover a mortgage and has a length pegged to the length of the mortgage note.