You realize you need life insurance. The challenge now is how to buy life insurance. What type to buy, where to buy, and how to know who you can trust. Unfortunately the insurance industry doesn’t always do a great job instilling trust in the eyes of the consumer – we’ve all seen and heard commercials for life insurance at $16 a month, but you know that’s not realistic and suddenly you get cautious. This blog article will answer the question of how to buy life insurance, where should you buy, how to know who to trust, and some tips on buying a life insurance policy.
At ChooseTerm.com we represent over 30 of the best life insurance companies. You can compare rates right below this paragraph, or keep reading for how to buy life insurance.
Let’s talk about some of your options for where to buy a life insurance policy.
You probably have an Allstate, State Farm, or Nationwide local office in your town. One of the options you have is to walk into your local office and speak to an agent there about buying a life insurance policy.
If you are in very good health, you can get an ok price on a term life policy, but Allstate, State Farm, Nationwide or any local office type companies do not have the best pricing for life insurance – they may be good choices for home and auto, but they do not have the best prices for life insurance. You can test this for yourself by going to Allstate’s website and getting a quote, and comparing it to a quote on our website.
We’ve all seen those commercials that advertise cheap life insurance rates that sound too good to be true. You could call those companies that advertise and some may compare rates for you, like Select Quote for example. However, the downside is that you are dealing with a call center representative that takes inbound calls all day.
Will you be able to get that person back on the phone if you have a question? Is that agent an expert in life insurance? How long have they been involved with insurance? If you plan to go that route, speak to an agent, and then call again to see if you can get them on the phone again. Do you need to wait on hold or leave messages, is it easy or difficult to do business with them? Can they answer all your questions?
In both cases – the local State Farm office and the call center, you are not likely to get competitive rates if you need specialized life insurance, or high risk life insurance. This is a type of insurance geared towards someone who has a pre-existing condition. Maybe you survived breast or prostate cancer. Perhaps you have diabetes, Asthma, or sleep apnea. Maybe you have a DUI or DWI in your past. Call centers and local offices just don’t have the expertise to guide you with which insurance company to pick in high risk life insurance cases.
Captive agents are life insurance agents that work for one life insurance company- they are held "captive" by one company. For example agents for Guardian, North Western Mutual, or Metlife are captive agents. You could go to a local captive agent who may or may not give you good advice, but at the end of the day they can’t do price shopping for you. Their compensation gives them incentive to sell you their company insurance, not any other life insurance companies. Many of these agents also push high priced whole life policies.
My top recommendation is that you buy life insurance from an independent life insurance agent.
Why? Independent life insurance agents don’t work for life insurance companies – they work for you. They are unbiased, and help you shop among a number of companies to find the best price and the right type of policy for you and your family.
If you do have a pre-existing health condition, seek out a high risk life insurance agent. A high risk agent should have expertise in understanding your medical condition and history and finding you the best priced option to get approved for coverage.
At ChooseTerm.com we choose to be an independent life insurance agency because we know that is the best choice for you. By offering you the best choices we know we can win your business – and that is a win for you and a win for us. We also specialize in high-risk life insurance – if you need expertise with a pre-existing medical condition, ask us about it and test our knowledge.
Here are some tips to guide you when buying a life insurance policy:
Buying a life insurance policy should be an easy and painless process and our goal at ChooseTerm.com is to help you get approved for life insurance at the best prices while providing expert advice and superior service.
At ChooseTerm.com you can compare rates from among the top life insurance companies.