5 Ways to Get the Cheapest Life Insurance

5 Ways to Get the Cheapest Life Insurance

Here are 5 things you can to do to get the cheapest term life insurance policy available.

1. Buy Term Life Insurance

Term life insurance is the most affordable type of insurance. It is ideal for younger families, when you are starting out and the need for protection is greatest.

Whole Life insurance (also known as permanent insurance) is far more expensive. It is the other most common type of life insurance that you hear about. It can be used by people who are well-off as a convenient option to insure a business partner or loan, to bequeath a charity, to pay estate taxes, or to leave a legacy to heirs. But that is not for most people.

How to do it

• Choose Term Life Insurance to cover needs that will disappear with time, such as income replacement, financial security for dependents, mortgage protection, college funding, final/burial expenses.
• Beware high pressure sales pitches. Unscrupulous life insurance agents will do their utmost to sell you whole life insurance, also known as permanent life. Why? Because you are paying so more much for it, the commission they will earn is far more lucrative.

2. Comparison Shop

This is by far the most important tip. Even a few dollars less a month can really add up over the typical 20 to 30 year term of a life insurance policy.

Smart consumers, who are about to make a major purchase, always shop for the best prices available. Life insurance shouldn’t be any different. Today, there are lots of insurers competing to sell policies to everyone across the entire spectrum of weight, ages, health status, and insurance amounts. So, your best choice for getting the cheapest term life policy is to make sure you get quotes from as many carriers insurance carriers as possible.

Use our online quote engine to compare rates from dozens of top companies. As an independent insurance agency we make the current competition in the life insurance industry work for you.

How to do it

• Compare a large selection of insurers. Be sure you can look at the top 10 or so quotes from at least 50 quality companies.
• Shop only A-rated companies. Maybe you can get it cheaper if the company is rated less than A. But you want your life insurance to pay-out if you need it, which means the company that issued your policy still needs to be around in 20 years. Paying for nothing in the end, is no cheaper.

3. Get Healthy and Live Safely

Life insurance is a numbers game, and some of the best paid folks in the industry are actuaries. Their job is to decide how likely it is that various events could happen. Using their knowledge of statistics, finance, and business, they help create rates on insurance policies.

You can be sure that they’ve done their homework. They know what kills people. You will pay more if you have uncontrolled health issues, or engage in high risk activies.

How to do it

• Stop smoking now! If you smoke, you can still get insured, but that would fall under "How to pay more for life insurance." We're talking around 400% more! However, if you can quit for 1-3 years (it takes that long for testable residue to get out of your system), you will be able to get the cheapest term life policy possible.

  However, if you need life insurance, now, don't wait. Start it now and then, when you are nicotine free, many companies will re-rate your health and lower your premium.

• Exercise and clean up your diet. If you’re overweight, or have minor health issues, it doesn’t take that long on a good program to turn yourself around. If your weight is proportionate to your height, and you have no major health issues you will get the cheapest rate. Obviously, there are other positive benefits to staying healthy than getting affordable life insurance. The main one I can think of is to make sure you outlive your insurance!
• Cut out risky activities. Obviously, race car driving, hang gliding, bungee jumping, mountaim/rock climbing, or skydiving will cost you more because they are dangerous. However, besides just forgoing them, an alternative is that you can get insured for everything except the hazardous activity.

4. Be Honest

This tip isn't going to lower your payments. Rather it will make sure that those payments don't get wasted. Life insurance is a contract: the insurer remits the covered amount if you die; you pay your monthly payments and tell them the truth. If you lie about your health and hobbies on your insurance application and then die, the contract is broken and your family isn’t going to receive the death benefit you paid for. If the insurance company can prove that you entered false information on your insurance application, they will refund only the premiums you paid, no more.

How to do it

• Answer truthfully Fill in the answers to the question on the life insurance application honestly.

• Correct the problem. Stop doing the things you feel the need to lie about that make you a bad risk for the insurance companies.

5. Don't wait

Rates go up with age. The longer you wait, the more expensive life insurance gets and the more likely your health will be worse.

How to do it

• Get it now! You won't find life insurance any cheaper next year. In fact, as the economy has gradually improved, the cost of life insurance has begun slowly rising.