Life Insurance for Midlife and Beyond

Why would anybody over fifty even want to buy a policy anyway? Actually, there are many reasons. We may have planned to have enough money in the bank so we could cover ourself. But these days, that plan has not worked out well for lots of people.

When we purchase a policy at a younger age, we tend to think about supporting our kids and spouse. We may also be concerned about making sure our home mortgage is paid off if something happens to us. In theory, these problems will be resolved by the time we hit a certain age.

That age may have come and gone. But a lot of us find that we still owe money on our mortgage. Our plan to self insure with savings did not exactly go the way we planned either. Maybe we had a job loss or other financial setback. In addition, many of us did not get our kids out of our wallets when we thought we would. Maybe they even have their own kids now, and they need our help to raise them.

That 20 year term policy we purchased at 30 may have expired. That group benefit we had a work many not be in force anymore because we quit or retired. People have lots of reasons to realize that they still need life insurance.

So what type of policy should we buy at our age? Should we choose term or whole life? At younger ages, we were probably were sold term. Premiums are lower, and we thought that we would not need as much coverage in a couple of decades. Besides, when we are young, two or three decades seems like it is very far off.

Now we have lived through those years, and just extending our coverage for another twenty years does not seem quite as attractive. The idea of lower prices is attractive. This is an important thought because we are more expensive to cover because we are older.

One option to consider might be a term policy with a clause that it can be converted to whole life later. These policies can be converted when we are older without having to prove with are healthy. This buys some time. This way you can buy a term policy now, and then put off your decision to buy whole life. If you are fifty, and buy 20 year term, you can make the switch before your policy expires. That way you will have a better idea of what your retirement situation will be like so you can make a good choice.

But that should not always mean whole life is out of the picture. Permanent insurance, like whole life, can be an asset too. It builds cash value over time. Sometimes a whole life policy can actually be sold for some percentage of the face value too. It is true that whole life insurance costs more, but it also has some uses over pure term coverage.

What should you do? You need to figure out why you want to purchase coverage in the first place. When you know what your goals are, you are closer to being able to make a good decision.