If you’re in the market for life insurance, everyone you know has an opinion – and they all favor different life insurance companies as the best. Choosing life insurance would be simple if you could actually rate the best life insurance companies in numerical order, but that’s just not the way it works. Life insurance is a highly individual product, and the company that offers the best coverage and price for your brother-in-law may not be the best life insurance provider for your needs. So how do you choose among all the life insurance companies out there?
Define Your Needs
Start by defining exactly why you’re looking for life insurance at this point in your life. Is your main goal to protect your family’s finances if you should die unexpectedly? Do you just want to be sure there’s enough money to bury you so the burden doesn’t fall on your loved ones? Or are you looking for a life insurance/annuity policy to help supplement your retirement savings in your later years?
All of these are common reasons that people seek life insurance, and each calls for a different kind of insurance policy. Understanding why you’re looking for life insurance will help you find the right life insurance and provider for your needs.
Do Your Research
Learn enough about life insurance and insurance products that you understand the main differences between the different types of insurance. The more you know and the better you understand, the more difficult it will be for an unscrupulous insurance agent to talk you into a policy that’s a poor fit for your needs. At the very least, you should understand the difference between term life and whole life, and have a basic understanding of how annuities work.
Talk to Your Financial and Legal Professionals
It’s all well and good to get recommendations from your friends, acquaintances and family, but when it comes to your finances and your future, it’s time to call in the professionals. Before you start shopping around among the different life insurance companies, sit down for a heart-to-heart with your financial planner and/or your lawyer. If you don’t have a financial planner, it’s worth it to gather your financial data together and make an appointment with one for an assessment. It will help you decide what type of life insurance policies are the best ones for your needs.
When you’ve got all of your data together and you understand what you want and expect from your insurance policy, check talk to one of our insurance professionals to learn more about the various insurance companies with whom we work. You’ll find the right insurance for your needs right here.
