Accidental Death & Dismemberment
Accidental death and dismemberment is a form of accident insurance, which provides a stated benefit as compensation after a personal tragedy. This can be accomplished by adding a rider to your life insurance policy ensuring that you are fully covered in case of bodily injury or death caused by an accident.

Annuities   ^ TOP
An annuity is a complex product. It is a cash contract with an insurance company, which is converted into a series of payments over a certain period of time - usually over many years. Annuities most often are used to provide retirement income.

Disability Income Protection   ^ TOP
The odds of having a disability and being unable to work are much higher than the probability of death, yet most Americans lack disability protection. Disability income insurance provides financial protection when the wage earner's income is interrupted or terminated because of an illness, sickness or accident.

Long-Term Care Insurance   ^ TOP
The cost of nursing home care in many cases now exceeds $100,000 a year. Most of us cannot afford costs that high and, even if we could, would rather preserve our wealth for our heirs. Insurance is available to cover the cost of nursing homes, assisted living or home healthcare. The younger you are when you purchase it, the lower your rates will be.

Mortgage Protection   ^ TOP
Your home is your most valuable asset. Mortgage protection insurance ensures that funds are available to pay your mortgage when a key family wage earner dies.

Return-of-Premium Life   ^ TOP
Premiums for life insurance can be costly. Return-of-premium life, as the name implies, gives you back your money. It is a form of term insurance that, at the end of the covered term, refunds the basic premium back to you if no death benefit is claimed. Most return-of-premium life policies have a conversion option, which allows the insured to convert the term policy to a permanent life insurance policy up to age 75.

Survivorship Life   ^ TOP
Also known as "second-to-die" insurance, survivorship life is used for estate planning. Life insurance is often used to pay estate taxes. The death benefit becomes available when estate taxes are due, so it is an ideal vehicle for funding payment of taxes.

When a married person dies, assets are passed on to the surviving spouse tax-free. Since estate taxes are not due until the second spouse dies, there is no need to have separate life insurance policies for both spouses. Survivorship life covers two people on one policy, so it costs less than two policies.

Term Life   ^ TOP
While the insurance industry has developed many forms of cash-value life insurance - whole life, universal life, variable life and variable universal life, for example - most consumers are best served by a basic term life policy.

Term life is low cost life insurance, providing coverage only for a limited period. If the insured dies within that period, the beneficiary receives the death benefit. If the insured survives to the end of the policy term, the beneficiary receives nothing. The only exception is with a return-of-premium insurance contract. Typically, term insurance policies are issued for periods of one, five, 10, 20 or 30 years, but coverage periods vary by insurance company.

Whole Life Insurance   ^ TOP
Whole life is a type of cash-value insurance. The insurer generally invests cash-value funds from whole-life policies in long-term, conservative investments that provide modest returns. Depending on the investment, mortality and persistency performance, the policy holder may also receive dividends, but they are not guaranteed. The policy holder has no control over how funds are invested, but premiums are guaranteed.

Unlike traditional term life insurance, which expires after a set number of years, cash-value life insurance offers permanent protection, as long as premiums are paid (assuming the insurer has the ability to pay claims). Cash-value life also provides a means of saving money for retirement, college funding or other financial goals, as the insurance policy builds cash value that can produce income for the owner.