Life Insurance?

[taubel]

I received so many helpful replies to my previous post about paying off debt/buying another house, that I figured I'd ask a few more questions on this board!

So what about life insurance? What do you all do/have?

DH and I bought a term life policy when our first child was born. It's a 20 year policy, and soon we will be 10 years into it. Of course, we don't want to be left without insurance when our kids are still in college/teenagers/etc.

Should we cancel this policy and try to take out another 20 year policy? I'm nervous about the cost, since DH and I are not that young anymore! However, we are non-smokers and are not taking any medications, so I guess that will work in our favor.

Any other advice?

Thanks!

[EmsMom]

Our term insurance got converted about 10 years into it.  It is still a term policy of course, but we will have the option of continuing the coverage after the 20 years is up at a reasonable rate without inquiry into health issues..  Call your insurance company; they should be able to tell you the particulars of your policy. 

[taubel]

Thanks. We will call them. Hopefully they won't want to lose our business and will give us a good deal!

[lmonter]

Yeah, what she said.  When we did the paperwork for our policies on hubby and I, when we hit that 20-year mark we can renew it for 5-10 years at a time for a nominally higher amount (since we'll be 20 years older!).  The premiums didn't really skyrocket until about 30-40 years out since we were under/about 30yo when we got our policies.  Part of why we went with our company.  :)

[Smithie]

We're in the same boat as lmonter, only we were about 20 when the policies started up. We will probably renew the term policies on DH until he's 45 or so, but it was never meant to be an investment vehicle so we'll probably let most of it lapse when our youngest is a teen. The kids have 529s for college, and there will doubtless be other expenses associated with said college, and that's where our money needs to go. I'll let my own policies lapse once all these kids are old enough to mind themselves until their Dad gets home from work.

But who knows - we might get a great offer to convert to whole-life policies, and decide to do that so that we can leave some kind of estate. Right now, funding college seems like a more pressing parental duty than building an estate. 

[taubel]

Well, an insurance guy I know and trust just left me a message saying NOT to extend our 20 year policy because it's not worth it. I'm not sure what he means, since I haven't spoken with him yet. Maybe we are just too old to get a good rate? I'm approaching 40 and DH is in his late 40s.

We still have to call the company that holds our current policy, though.

[happytimes]

You can probably find a better rate if you call your current company and just renew at a longer term, but make sure it is enough years to cover any dependent care, education costs, mortgages, etc. You might find a better rate if you get a few different quotes in addition to talking to your current agent. Shopping around never hurts and if anything, you can use your use new quotes to negotiate better rates with your current company if you want to stay with that agent. My husband and I have been married for two years and are now pregnant with our first child :) We currently have a 30 year term policy. We think it is ok but we are planning on talking to our agent about increasing our coverage since we have a little one on the way. I've found a lot of good information online. I've just been doing some research and reading but after talking to our agent I will probably request quotes just to make sure we are getting the most for our money. Anyhow, thank for the post.. it's always nice to get additional information and other peoples opinions! :) 

Edited by happytimes - 9/18/12 at 1:26pm