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
Term, whole, underwriting and how much cover is enough.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.