By Dennis Jarvis
Most people tend to treat their term life insurance policy like that poor plant drooping in the window sill. Ignored and avoided. It probably doesn’t make for daily reading but it’s not a bad today to dust off your life insurance policy and review it once in a while. Things change and over years, they change quite a bit. Sometimes, this change goes against you so let help you review your policy. Just how often should you take a look at that fun reading piece of legal jargon? Good question.
Before we get into how often, let’s look at what we should be looking for? First, make sure the basics are correct with particular focus on the beneficiary information. Check out the address, phone, and basic contact info that they have on file. If there’s an error or if you have moved, make sure to update this information with the carrier or the term life insurance agent (us). This can be critical if payment isn’t received in any given year (such as credit card numbers changed) and they send you notification that payment did not go through. If you never get the notification, they can cancel the policy and believe me, most life insurance carriers would love to cancel the policy (especially later in the term) while pocketing all the premium paid to that date. Don’t allow this to happen and make sure they have correct contact info.
Next, make sure the beneficiary information still makes sense for your situation. There are divorces, marriages, babies, and just plain family estrangement. You don’t want to change your life insurance beneficiary info for some little squabble over what movie to see but make sure the big changes are accounted for. The most common issue is relating to divorces where the original spouse is still listed as the beneficiary. You can imagine that this is an interesting conversation with the new spouse and by interesting, we mean very unpleasant. There’s not much you can do at that point.
If you’re incredibly diligent, we would recommend reviewing your policy every year. This is more than adequate unless you’re in an incredibly volatile period of time (divorces, babies, or both!) Of course, any big life-changing event occurs, that’s the time to update your term life insurance policy as well. You’ll probably catch it at the annual review mentioned above but it’s best to have it done right away. It’s Murphy’s law that something might happen between the time of the event and your next annual review. It happens and we get the phone calls when that occurs. Never a good call to be on the other side of. It’s also good to do it while it’s fresh in your mind. Keep in mind that a new baby will probably occupy all of your remaining time, energy, thought, not to mention sleep. A divorce or marriage will also occupy your mental capacity as well so try and get the term life change done while it’s still fresh in your mind.
Ideally, you review your policy when large events happen but if you find the annual review too often, at least come back to the policy every 3-5 years to make sure it’s up to date. Again, we would prefer more often but that’s not going to happen for some people. Keep in mind also that term life insurance rates available on the market can change as well. When you review your policy, this isn’t a bad time to also run a quick term life quote and make sure you’re getting the best rate. Of course, we’re happy to help with this as well.
About the Author: Dennis Jarvis is a licensed insurance agent concentrating on getting the best
term life insurance quote
. Shop, compare, and instantly quote multiple carriers with over 150 articles to help you understand the market.
Source:
isnare.com
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