Life Insurance
Reviewing your life insurance every few years
Coverage bought for one set of circumstances rarely matches the next, and the review takes an evening.
Peter Holloway
19 articles by Holloway
Disability & Income
Coordinating disability, workers compensation and health coverage
Several systems may apply to one event, each with its own rules, and the interactions determine what you actually receive.
Life Insurance
Annuities, briefly and skeptically
Insurance products that convert capital into income, sold in a market with wide variation in cost and complexity.
Life Insurance
Replacing an existing life policy
Sometimes the right decision, frequently recommended by people who benefit from it, and always worth a written comparison.
Disability & Income
Disability insurance for self-employed people
No employer coverage, variable income that complicates underwriting, and a business that stops earning when you do.
Life Insurance
Life insurance for business owners
Buy-sell funding, key person cover and the arrangements that keep a business functioning after a death.
Life Insurance
Buying life insurance: brokers, direct and online
Several routes to the same product, with different advice quality and different incentives.
Disability & Income
Long-term care: the cost nobody plans for
Extended care is expensive, is not covered by health insurance or Medicare in the way people assume, and the insurance market for it has changed substantially.
Life Insurance
Life insurance and taxes
Death benefits are usually tax-free, and several common situations produce a tax bill nobody expected.
Life Insurance
Riders: which ones are worth the premium
Optional additions to a life policy, sold enthusiastically, of which a few are genuinely valuable.
Disability & Income
Short-term disability and paid leave programs
The coverage that bridges the first weeks and months, provided through a patchwork of employer benefits and state programs.
Life Insurance
Group life through work, and its limits
Convenient, often free, and rarely sufficient — and it ends the day the job does.
Life Insurance
Cash value: what it is and what it costs
The savings component inside permanent life insurance, explained with the fee structure that illustrations tend to bury.
Disability & Income
Elimination periods, benefit periods and what they cost
Two dials that move disability premiums considerably, chosen by most buyers on the basis of price alone.
Life Insurance
Beneficiaries: the designation that overrides your will
A form filled in years ago decides where the money goes, regardless of what any subsequent document says.
Life Insurance
What underwriting actually looks at for life insurance
The process that turns an application into a price, and the things that move it more than applicants expect.
Disability & Income
Own-occupation versus any-occupation disability cover
The definition of disability in the policy determines whether a claim is paid, and the difference between two phrases is the difference between coverage and none.
Life Insurance
How much life insurance do you actually need?
The rules of thumb are rough and the calculation is straightforward, and it produces a very different number for different households.
Life Insurance
Term life versus whole life, without the sales pitch
Two products serving different purposes, sold in a market where the compensation structure favours one of them heavily.