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What Does Life Insurance Term Length Mean?

9/4/2014

The term length of a life insurance policy means the number of years that the term life policy will stay "In Effect", providing life insurance coverage for that specific period of time.

Usually, the term length is also an indication of how long the life insurance policy premium will stay the same price, for instance, 10 or 20 years.

But some term insurance policies guarantee the premium to stay the same (level) for only part of the term, for instance, only the first 10 of a 20 year term.

For example, a 20 year Term Life policy has a term length of 20 years. It may or may not be guaranteed not to go up in price for the full 20 year the life insurance coverage is "In Force". When the 20 years are done, the life insurance policy will end, or the premium will increase dramatically if you choose to renew the term life insurance coverage.

Learn more about how term insurance works.

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Length of term life insurance?

6/9/2013

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My husband and I are looking into buying term life insurance, but seem to be disagreeing on the details of our term life policies.

Since we have a baby on the way and I am unemployed, I would like to have a larger payout. meaning more life insurance protection than he wants.

He would like to have a longer length of term (30 years rather than 20) for coverage, as he is concerned that renewing a term life policy when he is 50 years old will then be much more expensive (I can absolutely understand this concern).

However, a 30 year level term life insurance policy for the same payout is much more expensive. He would rather sacrifice on the death benefit amount, whereas I would rather sacrifice on term length fro our life insurance.

I thought I remembered someone telling me that if you already have a term policy in place, you don't have to undergo underwriting again when you renew at the end of the term, thereby not having a large increase in premiums upon renewal of your policy.

Whenever you're trying to decide what kind of life insurance to get, you need to set your goals first. Is the goal, that your baby gets grown up with financial security? If so, 20 years should accomplish the task.

Rates for term life insurance are usually only guaranteed for up to 20 years. You can get the renewable term plan bit for the extra ten years of term coverage, but as you noticed, the "you don't have to qualify" rate is much higher at renewal for the additional ten year period.

You may want to consider buying the 20 year level term life policy, and ten years from now, shop around to see if you can get another 20 year term life policy at that time for an affordable price - if you still think you need the life insurance coverage that long.

Meanwhile, by that time you should have most of your mortgage loan paid off, and you can revisit what you plan to do fro your child's college education.

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What Does Life Insurance Term Length Mean?

Length of term life insurance?

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