The very first thing that you ought to look for in a term life insurance policy is a convertibility option. Quite simply, a convertibility option is a feature of some term insurance policies that lets you to convert the term policy into a permanent insurance policy. This can be important if you find that your financial plans are optimized with permanent life insurance. The best term life insurance policies allow this conversion to occur anytime and will allow for the policy to be converted to any permanent insurance product that is offered at the time of conversion by the insurance carrier. Inferior term insurance policies will only allow conversion for a certain number of years, or only allow conversion to certain (sometimes less-than-desirable) products.
Another important consideration when shopping for term insurance is a financially sound insurance company. An insurance company’s financial strength can be critical because it affects their ability to pay death benefit claims. You should not have to have anxiety about whether your family will receive the death benefit if you should die. Look for a carrier that has an A.M. Best rating of “A” or better.
You can find the A.M. Best rating for each company right next to the rates provided by our free life insurance quoting engine.
Price is of course, another thing to thing about. But as you will find when checking rates, many carriers have competitive premiums. The difference between rates for many carriers is less than a few dollars per month. So even though price is important, the other factors are even more so.
Here are some other questions that you may want to ask about different term insurance policies:
1. Does the carrier have a child rider so that I can get some coverage in the event of the loss of my child? What does it cost?
2. Are there any other riders offered that might be valuable for me?
3. How long does it normally take to get approved?
4. Which carrier is favorable for my specific health and/or lifestyle situation (e.g., diabetes, family history of cancer, private pilot, extreme sports).