Most people understand the primary benefits of having life insurance: Your family gets the money if you die unexpectedly – and you get the reassurance of knowing they’ll have resources to help carry on without you. While those benefits are generally true for all kinds of life insurance, there are other important advantages depending on the specific type of policy and the amount of coverage you get. There are also benefits for women, too.
It can help take care of your family if something happens – but that’s only one of the benefits of life insurance.
This article will help you better understand three important questions:
- What are the many benefits of having life insurance for you and your family?
- What are the benefits of different types of policies?
- How can you get more “benefits for the buck” when buying life insurance?
The many benefits of having life insurance
All life insurance can give you financial confidence that your family will have financial stability in your absence. But generally, the more life insurance you have, the more benefits it will provide to your family when needed. For example, some people receive a nominal amount of life insurance – say $25,000 – through their workplace. While that theoretically sounds like a nice sum of money, in practice it may only be enough to cover funeral expenses and a few mortgage payments. But with a larger coverage amount, your family can realize far more benefits, such as:
- Income replacement for years of lost salary
- Paying off your home mortgage
- Paying off other debts, such as car loans, credit cards, and student loans
- Providing funds for your kids’ college education
- Helping with other obligations, such as care for aging parents
Beyond your coverage amount, different kinds of policies can provide other benefits as well:
- There are tax advantages of life insurance because death benefit payouts are generally tax-free, and some policies have features that can help transfer money to heirs with fewer tax liabilities.1
- Some policies have a cash value that accumulates over time2 and can be used to pay premiums later, or even tapped into to help live on in retirement.3
- Life insurance can often be bundled with other types of protection, such as disability insurance to replace a portion of your salary if you’re unable to work.
- Many policies have valuable “riders” or contractual provisions that provide benefits before death.
What are the top benefits of life insurance?
