When it comes to the time that you need to buy a life insurance, especially Protection Plans, and after looking through the Quotations (especially when you see the High Premiums needed for Whole Life Insurance Plans as compared to a Term Insurance), you may start thinking whether the benefits as offered by Whole Life are worth the High Premiums?
There are a few scenarios that you may want to consider that you may want to consider to justify whether the benefits of a Whole Life insurance are worth the high premiums as compared to those of a Term Protection.
Whole Life Protection versus Term Protection
This is a common debate on how you should plan when it comes to protection coverage. In general a Whole Life Plan and a Term Protection covers the same benefits most of the time, like covering you against Death, Total and Permanent Disability and Dread Diseases.
Let us just say that you do need to buy a Protection Plan after consulting with a Professional Financial Planner…
The main differences between the two Protection Plans will be that:
1. Whole Life Plan comes with Cash Value which normally break even around the 20th year, and from there, you may enjoy an average returns of 4% per annum. The sum assured as offered by Whole Life Plan also increases with the years. Term Protection Plan, on the other hand, offers no cash value and the coverage remains the same throughout the policy term.
2. For the same premium set aside, Term Protection Plan offers the higher sum assured as compared to a Whole Life Plan. The difference can be easily ten-folds.
3. There is a maximum age for Term Protection (most insurance companies only offer coverage till age 80 years old) whereas Whole Life Plan can cover you even till an age of 100 and above.
4. Whole Life Plan offers the features of Limited Premium Term, which means that you need to pay the premiums to a certain number of years and be covered for the rest of your life. On the other hand, you need to keep paying the premiums to continue to have the coverage as offered by a Term Plan. If you stop paying for your term plan, your coverage stops as well.
Just based on the above few differences, Whole Life Plan needs you to pay a higher premium to have more benefits but is it worth it? The answer is yes and the reasons are:
– You just spend and do not save. If you just concentrate on spending on what you earn and spend that low premium on a Term Plan, if there’s no claim at the end of the premium term, you lose all the premiums and you get no returns. If you have committed to a Whole Life, even if you have not started a Savings Plan, the Cash Value generated from your Whole Life Plan can just supplement your Retirement.
– You are really cash tight. There can be many situations (retrenchment) that you may need that extra cash. If that extra $50/month (from your Term Plan) can help you tight over, you may just want to stop the plan and lose the coverage. If you decide to get back the Term Plan, your health may not be favorable anymore to be accepted into the plan or the new Premium (at your older age) is not favorable anymore.
A Whole Life Plan, on the other hand, generates Cash Value and this can be used to pay off your future premiums if you are really that tight. With the feature of the limited premium terms and if you have already finished servicing the plan, you are in no liability with your Protection Plan. You can still get the coverage!
– You and I are living longer. With medical advances, you and I are living longer but in general Males live shorter than Females. The average age for male is around 80 years old whereas for female is around 88 years old. If you have bought a Term Plan but can only be covered till age 80, a valid death claim (after the age 80) will mean no benefits are claimable. If you have bought a Whole Life Plan that covers you for your life, there will be a claim.
If you are a male and you have a loving relationship with your wife, this sum of money (from your death claim after the age 80) will still be a very thoughtful gesture to help take care of your wife for the rest of her lonely life.
As you can see from the above reasons, though you may have to commit higher premiums to enjoy the benefits of a whole life insurance, you will be getting your money worth if you understand the kind of situations you can get in your life stages. In an actual financial planning point of view, to have your money worth, is to have a combination of both type of insurance plans.