life insurance

I've been thinking recently of getting some life insurance. It looks like there are some good deals for non smoking young males ($50 a month for 1 million dollars). I am thinking of using an online quote service, but I was wondering if any ATSers have life insurance and how did you go about picking it? I'm thinking of term insurance cause its cheaper; but the month I miss a payment the insurance is "off", correct? Could you then pay like two months ahead of time, just in case you miss a payment?

I'm sorry, I can't really help you out, but I am sure if you called an agent they could answer all your questions.

yeah im going to stick my real personal info in on of those tings and get an agent to contact me. I'll be going for short term life insurance; i'd love to do a million dollars, just for fun. I guess I'll get back here on what i find out.

Finally entered the info; several agents are supposed to contact me.

Maybe some rich ATSer might be able to explain something to me:

I'm going to take out a 1 million dollar life insurance policy. As I understand it there is something called "death tax" and from the numbers I'm reading it looks like they take a huge chunk of change from you when you die:

"So, if your total estate value at death exceeds $675,000, you may face estate taxes that range from 37% to 55%."

Does anyone have a clue about trusts or what people generally do to pass on what you intend? One problem I have is that I have no money in the first place to set up a trust...

EDIT- Does this mean that I'm fine? www.familyfiles.com...

says that 1 million is exempt. Problem is that I'm leaving it to my siblings, my mom and several friends of mine; specifically I have no wife. Would that change anything?

[Edited on 28-11-2003 by ktprktpr]

I got a call from AllState and it's like this:

You insurance policy is based on your income that you make. So the only way for me to get a million dollar policy to have AT LEAST $50,000 a year and a LOT of assets.

So even if you're perfectly happy to pay a primium of $30 dollars a month they don't want your stinking money. This makes me soooooo mad. I was really hoping to take out a nice policy and be statisfied that things would be better than they were if I passed on. The caller had the balls to tell me to get a better job and try again. Like I was wasting his time or something. Sheesh.

I got a call from John Hancock life insurance and had a great conversation with a womans' whose name I forgot. I explained that I wasting her time, but wanted to know why things are like this. She pointed some good things:

1. Insurance policies are supposed to be based on need. So a million dollars comes to you only if your family needs it. The woman said that I didn't really "need" a million dollars. I pointed out that, hell, anyone could use a million dollars. She said a cap was in place to prevent generous sucide. Good point. I realized too that if everyone was taking out 1 mil dollar policies the life insurance companies wouldn't be around much longer.

2. Hancock does provide 15x annual earnings. So, say I make $20,000 a year, I can get 300,000. Not quite a million but better than a measley $5,000 or so.

I asked her if i could just take out a lot of little policies which total to a million. She said that it was legal but hesitated. She then quickly told me about Hancock providing 15x salary/wage year amounts. I think she mentioned something about being exclusive so they may have blocks in for that.


Well wel well, this whole thing hasn't been what I expected I would say, if you're poor, or not rich, and you want life insurance, do it like this: Get three 300,000 policies. If you're young and don't smoke you shouldn't be paying that much at all. Be sure to ask if the policy is exclusive, as in, you can't get other life insurnace policies.

You could also supplement this with other ideas, such as Certificates of Deposit and Money Markets, etc. that although not insurance, could certainly be willed to survivors.

Also, there are some life insurance policies that you can even borrow against. This is how many immigrants start up businesses, by their nationality banks setting up such policies for families starting a family run business.

There's nothing illegal about multiple insurance, as far as I know, but it can be a company policy to not pay if covered under another policy (i.e. it's exclusive), so check the fine print before signing up... Also, there are some companies that go above the salary guidelines, for increased premiums...so just look around... Most of these will require a certain time period before coverage (usually 2 years or more) to discourage the "generous suicide" bit...

As usual, I'm wrong, but in a good way. Metlife said they could do me a million dollar policy, no problem. They'll even have a doctor come over to my house!

Uh, but anything could snag the deal so I'll get back to this thread after monday. But I could be a million dollars richer... kinda