Many people think that life insurance is only for people with families. While it’s true that life insurance can help provide for the needs of dependents, life insurance also can be an important part of a well-thought-out estate, business succession, or charitable giving plan. And permanent life insurance offers many living benefits as well, such as tax-deferred cash value accumulation. For all of these reasons, life insurance can be important for someone starting out—or for someone who's starting over.
Whole life insurance is also known as permanent insurance. You receive coverage for your entire life, as long as premiums (which are a set amount per period) are paid. Whole life policies accumulate cash value tax-deferred.
Term life policies provide coverage for a specific amount of time—such as five years, 10 years, or 20 years. Term premiums are often less expensive than whole life premiums, but once the term of the policy is complete, coverage terminates. There is no accumulation of cash value.
Universal Life insurance is designed to offer customizable death benefit protection with non-guaranteed planned premiums and a non-guaranteed death benefit. Depending on the product selected and the amount of premium you pay, Universal Life insurance can allow you to keep your coverage as long as you need: to age 80, 90, 100 or longer. Because of the policy’s flexible and non-guaranteed nature, it is important to fund your policy properly and actively manage your policy to reflect changes in interest crediting rates and policy charges over the duration of your policy. This policy will terminate if at any time the cash surrender value is insufficient to pay the monthly deductions. This can happen due to insufficient premium payments, if loans or withdrawals are made, or if current interest rates or charges fluctuate.
Variable Universal Life Insurance combines the premium and death benefit flexibility of a universal life policy with investment opportunities. You may allocate your premium among a variety of professionally managed investment divisions plus a fixed account. Of course, with investment opportunities comes risk along with the potential for reward.
These products are offered by prospectus through NYLIFE Securities LLC. (member FINRA/SIPC), and a Licensed Insurance Agency.
Survivorship Life insurance—available as whole life, universal life, or variable universal life —covers two people and provides payment of the proceeds when the second insured individual dies. Survivorship Life insurance is often used to help meet estate planning or business continuation goals.