Protecting Income – Shopping for Life & Disability Insurance

1. Life Insurance
2. Disability Insurance
3. Shopping for Life & Disability Insurance
4. Social Security Survivor & Disability Benefits
5. Will Life insurance benefits be taxed?
6. Emergency Fund
7. Umbrella Insurance

Shopping for both life and disability insurance can be a daunting task.  And while we typically don’t like to use services by people who have “agent” in their title, using one for obtaining life and disability is advised.  Our agent helped us with all the paperwork, met us at our work to sign the papers, came to our home to talk with us etc.  He certainly made the experience much easier.  AND when our nasty habit proved to be a problem, he was able to go out and find another company which satisfied our criteria without having to do another medical screening.  Tres simple.  The price is the same whether you use an agent or not, so you should use the service of a good agent.  There are plenty out there, so if you run across one you don’t like, move onto the next one.  Wash, rinse and repeat until you find an agent you like.

When shopping for disability insurance, you will find it almost impossible to obtain a quote online or over the phone.  So, you’ll undoubtedly need to use an agent (which saves you from doing the paperwork multiple times).  We did some research about which disability insurance company we wanted, went to their website and started calling those on the list.  Living in the 4th biggest US city at the time, the list only had 2 insurance companies on it.  The important thing is, we talked to both and picked the one who gave us the best service.  Although we thought we knew which policy would be best for us, we still wanted to see other options in a side-by-side comparison and our agent provided that comparison.

Life insurance is a lot more difficult to shop for.  There are exponentially more options.  If you like the insurance agent you worked with for disability insurance, then you should continue to use them for life insurance if you are happy with the service.  But, the difference between life insurance and disability insurance is you have an excellent tool to help you quickly search quotes online.

You can search for life insurance quotes online by visiting each company’s website, which is tedious & laborious.  Or you can use other tools which search many companies at a time, which usually require you to input personal information (create a new email for this) and people usually contact you with quotes.  The best website, by far, for shopping life insurance policies is www.term4sale.com.  The great thing about this site is it doesn’t require you to input your personal information to get instant quotes.  You simply input some information and it instantly cranks for you.  If you are interested in any of the products offered, you can click on it and you will receive the contact information for the agents OR you can send them an email with the quote you saw on term4sale.com so they know what product you are interested in and at what price that product has.

term4sale.com is a powerful tool for the consumer.  It is unbiased, fast and accurate.  Be honest about your health, and it will be spot on.  And if you think your insurance agent is taking you for a ride, find a new agent or throw this back in their face.  As with disability insurance, a good agent will show a side-by-side comparison of many companies.  Check the prices your agent shows you with what you see on term4sale.com.

One issue is, you will need to more or less “commit” to a company before you are issued a medical screening.  But, you won’t know what the true cost of the insurance is until after the physical.  The insurance company pays for the physical and we had someone come to our home, before work and it was really simple.  If you are on the cusp of a particular company’s health ratings, you won’t know until after the physical what health rating you are getting, which has a direct impact on the premium price.  This is again, where an agent can help you.  A good agent will know if you have (for example) slightly high blood pressure what companies you can still get preferred health status with AND if the company fits your credit rating standard (and all the other criteria you have set forth).  Your agent can then, like our’s did with our climbing, shop around for you, find you a good price and even arrange for the new company to accept the physical you just took (doesn’t always happen).

Use a good agent you can trust, who shows you more than one quote and check their prices against what you see on term4sale.com.